God bless the EU…

So our blessed Coagulation has agreed an increase in the EU budget. And at a time when budgets are being cut across all government departments!?

Wonderful…or should that be Wunderbar ?

Die Welt headlines: “Merkle asserts her will in Brussels”. Spiegel on the other hand proudly declares: “Europe comes up against the iron chancellor” comparing the dear lady to chancellor Otto Von Bismarck, who, you may recall, once stated:

“The great questions of the time will not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions…but by iron and blood.”

He went on to wage war in turn against Denmark, Austria and France, and remarked about the Polish people “if we want to survive – we’ve got only one option – to exterminate them” – a true “European” indeed.

So, my little luvies, think on this when you’re next in the Job Centre. The coagulation have agreed an increase of £380 million to the Eurocrats. That money could have been used to create:

6,022 NHS doctors

12,666 NHS nurses

14,636 police constables

30 Harrier jump-jets (for those aircraft-less aircraft carriers!)

Or given me the holiday of a bloody lifetime!

Instead it’s to be given to Eurocrats to piss up the wall spend wisely on further European quangos initiatives such as the European External Action Service, or Europol, or one of the other shit worthless bits of bureaucracy necessary European incentives!

But it doesn’t end there. Oh, no! Word is that next year (2011) around the middle of the year, the Eurocrats will ask for another increase…watch this space!

Democracy, the rights of the child, and the crucifix

Let me make it clear to begin with that I’ve never needed the prop of a primitive Hebrew sky God to get me through life – never needed the support of any desert derivatives of that God, either! No praying; no rituals; no icons or relics of varying degrees of religiosity.

Even as a little boy at school with morning assembly and prayers every day, I didn’t “believe” (couldn’t “believe”!) in this “personal God” (of the Jews and of the Christians) who listened in to everyone’s prayers, occasionally answering them, more often not bothering; this God who was interested in my daily transgressions, regardless of how big or small they may have been; this God whose power and actions appeared totally arbitrary to me then (and now); and whose “outlook” and “expectations” seemed more those of an ill educated desert patriarch than a “God”! I saw him (her? It?) as some sort of Jewish, Christian, Muslim Zeus! And equally as mythic!

However, I did like some of the hymns, and I absolutely loved the Christmas carols!

So, you see, I have no particular axe to grind over organised religion: orthodox Jews who wish to practice three thousand year old rituals today, well, good luck to them. Christians who hijacked the Hebrew sky God two thousand years ago, and gave him a Son made flesh, good luck to them too. And to the followers of Islam, the religion of submission, that flowered into existence in north-west Africa in the seventh century, if it provides the necessary crutch for them to face each fresh day, well so be it, and best of luck to them, also. May they all live in peace and harmony with each other and their God (Gods?).

After all each of these religions are primarily about guilt, it’s only the holidays (Holy days?) that differ.

So, what’s my point? Well, yesterday someone mentioned my blog to me: in particular they happened to mention my comments on the European Court’s ruling on the crucifix; they were “puzzled” (and I quote) by my response. It took me a moment to understand exactly what they were referring to: it’s this HERE, harmless enough on the surface, but apparently it was my subsequent comments that caused concern and confusion.

I am of an age where I’m able to create confusion wherever I go (or so it frequently seems to me and to others?). There’s no defense against this. It’s a totally natural phenomenon with which I find myself gifted (a gift bestowed, perhaps, by the smile of Vishnu; or there again, the subtlest hint of early onset Alzheimer’s? I can’t be certain which). Anyway, I digress. Confusion has arisen. So I dedicate this blog entry to clarification of what for me is a particularly difficult subject:

Democracy, the rights of the child, and the crucifix – for crucifix you could, if you wished, substitute any religious iconography: the crescent, for example; the Star of David; the depiction of Mary with little Jesus. It really doesn’t matter. For according to the European Court, Italy, by displaying crucifixes in the classrooms of state schools, is breaching the rights of the attending children.

One question I would ask at the outset: exactly what “rights” does a child have in reality? I thinks this is important: not theoretical “rights”, but actual “rights”? Do they, for instance, have the “right” to choose whether to attend school or not? Can they decline participation in any or all of the various activities found in the average school, assuming they wish to attend in the first place? And are the child’s “rights” the same regardless of the age of the child?

I would suggest that the answer to my first question is NO! Within Europe school attendance is mandatory for children. So, there is an element of compulsion involved in school attendance. A child, possibly against his or her will, is forced into school. But what of his or her “rights”? A child may have the “right” to an education, but if he or she doesn’t wish to attend school – what then? Isn’t compulsion a breach of that child’s human “rights”?

Apparently not. It seems there’s a universal desire on the part of European governments / societies to say “BOG OFF! You go to school and that’s it! End of story!” Children have no real say in the matter; no “right”, in fact, to object.

At this point I will introduce a personal anecdote from my own school days. I hated…no! I HATED geometry and Latin. Learning by heart all those bloody theorems and then having to stand up in class and recite them – without really understanding what the hell they meant – caused me more psychological damage than any morning assembly with its twee prayers and motivational sermon.

Often at night I’d lay awake and imagine my Geometry master being burned at the stake as a witch or idolater; or by mistake, instead of the straw-filled Guy on the fifth of November. His pain as those flames licked about his feet and legs was as nothing in comparison to mine struggling with all those theorems!

And the Latin? The Latin was hell, too!

“O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster, expectatio gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster.”

My Latin master was a Frenchman (this gets better: my French master was a lovely gentleman from northern India! Consequently, all over France when I speak to people for the first time, they frown, puzzled, and they ask: ‘Excuse-moi. Êtes-vous sur les Indiens?’ Apparently it’s my French accent that’s the problem). Our Latin master was also mentally unstable. Any error in Latin translation by one of his pupils would be rewarded by an hysterical outburst where he’d jabber away in French, and literally froth at the mouth!

On such occasions where were my “rights”? Where were the “rights” of children then?

Answer: Off to hell in a hand cart! We didn’t have any!

However, this digression aside, the European Court has decided that a Child does have “rights” which by its ruling seem confined to a “child’s right to freedom of religion.”

The Strasbourg court found that: “The compulsory display of a symbol of a given confession in premises used by the public authorities… restricted the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions.”

Ummm, I see.

It also restricted the “right of children to believe or not to believe”, the seven judges ruling on the case said in a statement quoted by AFP news agency.

The “right of children to believe or not to believe” – so, what about all those children who have to attend church, synagogue, mosque on a daily, weekly basis in company with parents or guardians? Especially when they don’t want to be there. What about them?

What about those children “forced” into a faith school?

Oh, wait, I see. A parent has the “right” to inflict their convictions on a child; but not the state. Is that it? Is that what this nonsense is about? The child has the “right” to be subjugated to the religious convictions of parents/guardians, and all the religious iconography that may entail. Oh, WOW, that’s quite a “right” to have, isn’t it? Bet all the children across Europe are sleeping happily in their beds with that knowledge to comfort them.

But the more one studies the ruling of the seven Strasbourg judges all dressed in their Bible black gowns, the more absurd it seems!

The case was brought by Soile Lautsi, a mother of two who claimed public schools in her northern Italian town refused eight years ago to remove the Roman Catholic symbols from classrooms. She had maintained that the crucifix violates the secular principles the public schools are supposed to uphold, and the right to offer her children a secular education.

The court’s final decision created uproar in Italy – understandably so. Because 55.8 million (96%) of the population of Italy (57.6m) is Roman Catholic! But worse still, believer or unbeliever, they see this as an imposition from OUTSIDE of their country; and from OUTSIDE of their culture!

And that, too, is what I have a problem with! This solution is being imposed from the OUTSIDE without due consideration of the majority of people living in Italy.

The court said the crucifix: “could easily be interpreted by pupils of all ages as a religious sign and they would feel that they were being educated in a school environment bearing the stamp of a given religion”.

No kidding? They wouldn’t have realised this from the thousands of Churches all over the country, or from the 50,000 Roman Catholic Priests working in the country, or from the situation of the Pope in the Vatican in Rome? No? Or from the many Priests teaching in the state schools which they attend?

Like it or not, even without the crucifixes, Children will still feel they are being educated in a “school environment bearing the stamp of a given religion”. Unless they’re plain stupid? How could it be otherwise?

The Italian government launched an immediate appeal against the court decision.

The EU Parliament decided in December to postpone its vote on a resolution concerning the judgment of the European Court. MEPs held a heated debate on the issue but decided to check the admissibility of the vote and the resolution!

It gets better and better!

Meanwhile, the Italian Constitutional Court have quietly ruled that where conflict exists between Italian legislation and rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, only the Italian legislation will be seen as legitimate and enforceable:

“where rulings by the European Court of Human Rights conflict with provisions of the Italian Constitution, such rulings lack legitimacy”.

In most areas of the country, local officials have acquired dozens more crucifixes to display in public schools; in Montegrotto Terme, the digital billboards normally used for public information are now displaying the crucifix with the phrase, “We will not take it down.” And according to the Italian daily “Avvenire,” the mayor of Sezzadio, Pier Luigi Arnera, has leveled a fine of 500 euros against anyone who removes a crucifix from a public place!

Oh, well, that’s one piece of legislation that worked! Bless the European experiment! It’s united Italians almost unanimously behind the Roman Catholic Church and the crucifix.

On a personal note this situation has introduced an element of déjà vu into my life. There have been a number of confrontations in the past between Catholic Italy and the European Court. None of them have been particularly uplifting experiences.

The Court has made a number of sweeping pronouncements over the years; it is present, like God, in every aspect of its “creations” and, unlike God, it makes mistakes; upholding the ban of female headscarves in Turkey. The new Turkish government simply shrugged (metaphorically speaking) and ignored the ruling. Even more controversial has been the Court’s support of France in suppressing or removing religious iconography and dress in public places. Unfortunately, some of these rulings, while well meant, cause cultural dislocation. These decisions do not take into consideration the desires of the majority of the population concerned. They are undemocratic, if you will.

Put simply, all this is yet another example of “one size does not fit all”.

For a child it may seem they exist in a monstrously unjust society. All is compulsion and coercion. In an ideal world crucifixes or religious symbols would not be on school walls – any school walls. But change will only come through increased consciousness not compulsion.

The European Court’s decision is stupid. Logically, if their concern is the child, then wouldn’t it be more consistent to ban children under the age of eighteen from attending ANY church, synagogue, mosque, whatever, when they will be of an age to make up their own mind about religion?

Instead we have this peculiar, semi-logical elastoplast of a ruling which has pissed off a whole country and done nothing, absolutely NOTHING for the “rights” of children in Italy or anywhere else come to that!

Does this clarify my comments in the earlier blog entry? I’m not sure.

My final suggestion would be for the passing of “constitutional” laws making it impossible for anyone who believes in an intelligent God, bearded or otherwise, to be elected to any important position in government in the UK, the EU and the USA. Will it happen? No, it won’t. Nor will they take the crucifixes down in Italian schools within my lifetime. No matter what the wise and the good of Strasbourg may have to say about it.

Dr James Hansen, Climategate, and Copenhagen

Dr James Hansen, the first scientist to warn of the dangers of global warming over twenty years ago, said that any deal reached at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen would be a “disaster track” for the world!

His main concern is the carbon market schemes , where permits to pollute are purchased as required and sold at will.

He suggested: “This is analogous to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism faced by Winston Churchill. “On those kinds of issues you cannot compromise. You can’t say let’s reduce slavery, let’s find a compromise and reduce it 50 per cent or reduce it 40 per cent.”

Dr Hansen’s comments totally contradict Lord Stern of Brentford, the UK’s leading authority on climate change, who’s recent report (with the London School of Economics) stated this was our last chance to save the planet from “catastrophic” global warming.

In the meantime, the Australia Senate, already deeply divided over the science of climate change, voted down any new legislation. And “climategate” in the UK has resulted in a number of high profile figures, such as Mohammad Al-Sabban, the head of the Saudi delegation at the UN summit, to suggest the “leaked emails” indicate “there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change”.

If memory serves correct, it was Dr Hansen who suggested: “Present knowledge does not permit accurate specification of the dangerous level of human-made GHGs (Greenhouse gases). However, it is much lower than has commonly been assumed. If we have not already passed the dangerous level, the energy infrastructure in place ensures that we will pass it within several decades.”

Bob Reiss, author of “The Coming Storm: Extreme Weather and Our Terrifying Future” recounted this with regard to Hansen’s “predictions”:

‘While doing research I met Jim Hansen, the scientist who in 1988 predicted the greenhouse effect before Congress. I went over to the window with him and looked out on Broadway in New York City and said, “If what you’re saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?” He looked for a while and was quiet and didn’t say anything for a couple seconds. Then he said, “Well, there will be more traffic.” I, of course, didn’t think he heard the question right. Then he explained, “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” Then he said, “There will be more police cars.” Why? “Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.” ’

He went on to predict New York would have droughts which would become severe and result in restaurants displaying signs saying “Water by request only.”

These predictions were made way back in 1989. Hansen said they would take place within twenty or thirty years. Well, he still has ten years left to be able to say “Told you so!” On the other hand his climate “model” may have been a tad out of synch?

Meanwhile the good ship “anthropogenic GHGs” is tossed on the wild and unruly seas of debate, totally at the mercy of those “global climate models” everyone has so much faith in.

The big question will always be: Does the human race have the will to save itself? And I suspect the answer must always be: NO!

Climate again…the end of the world news!

Copenhagen is just around the corner. The global catastrophe merchants are working themselves in to a veritable feeding frenzy. Why, even the new EU President pontificates, in the tones of an anguished but worthy divine, on the need for new EU wide Green Taxes – to help with the escalating costs of the EU administration.

Ummm.

The eureferendum blog makes casual mention of the “Canadian weather forecasting service doing its best to emulate the UK Met Office” but the whole process being turned upside down by…well, the climate weather? It’s being so damn difficult! See HERE.

We find the same problem in China – the weather will not conform to those wonderful scientific models! Early snow storms have caused massive disruption and a number of deaths so far. See HERE.

“Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents.

“At least the weather in Copenhagen is likely to be cooperating. The Danish Meteorological Institute predicts that temperatures in December, when the city will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be one degree above the long-term average.

Otherwise, however, not much is happening with global warming at the moment. The Earth’s average temperatures have stopped climbing since the beginning of the millennium, and it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year.

Ironically, climate change appears to have stalled in the run-up to the upcoming world summit in the Danish capital, where thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, business leaders and environmental activists plan to negotiate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Billions of euros are at stake in the negotiations.

The planet’s temperature curve rose sharply for almost 30 years, as global temperatures increased by an average of 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.25 degrees Fahrenheit) from the 1970s to the late 1990s. “At present, however, the warming is taking a break,” confirms meteorologist Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in the northern German city of Kiel. Latif, one of Germany’s best-known climatologists, says that the temperature curve has reached a plateau. “There can be no argument about that,” he says. “We have to face that fact.”

So, global cooling is looking more and more likely…we’re all going to freeze to death.

Lists and Umberto Eco

Don’t you just love a good list? Speaking for myself I love the lists of Umberto Eco, and attached HERE is a link to an article of Umberto’s which contains a list of gentle insults. The article is in Italian, and I can’t be bothered to translate it all, but basically it is Umberto being playful about “political correctness” he says, and I quote:

“In the beginning we spoke about ‘blacks’ and that became ‘African Americans’; ‘gay’ instead of a thousand other well-known derogatory epithets reserved for homosexuals. Of course, this campaign for the purification of language has produced its fundamentalism, even to the most glaring cases in which some feminists have suggested we should not say ‘history’ any more – because of the pronoun ‘his’ suggesting the story was ‘him’. Instead we should use ‘herstory’, the story of her – obviously ignoring the Greek-Latin etymology of the word, which does not imply any reference to gender whatsoever.”

Umberto also explains how dismissal from your job can now be called: “planned transition between career changes”; unemployment with “indefinite leisure leave” and explains “If you change the name of a state or situation, it is to forget that something is wrong within the thing itself.

Anyway Umberto supplies us with a list of beautiful, but gentle insults – politically correct insults, if you will – with which to good-naturedly insult your opponent/s:

“pistola dell’ostrega, papaciugo, imbolsito, crapapelata, piffero, marocchino, pivellone, ciulandario, morlacco, badalucco, pischimpirola, tarabuso, balengu, piciu, cacasotto, malmostoso, lavativo, magnasapone, tonto, allocco, vaterclòs, caprone, magnavongole, zanzibar, bidone, ciocco, bartolomeo, mona, perdabàall, sguincio, merlo, dibensò, spaccamerda, tapiro, belinone, tamarro, burino, lucco, lingera, bernardo, lasagnone, vincenzo, babbiasso e/o babbione, grand e gross ciula e baloss, saletabacchi, fregnone, lenza, scricchianespuli, cagone, giocondo, asinone, impiastro, ciarlatano, cecè, salame, testadirapa, facciadimerda, farfallone, tanghero, cazzone, magnafregna, pulcinella, zozzone, scassapalle, mangiapaneatradimento, gonzo, bestione, buzzicone, cacacammisa, sfrappolato, puzzone, coatto, gandùla, pagnufli, cichinisio, brighella, tombino, pituano, pirla, carampana, farlocco, flanellone, ambroeus, bigàtt, flippato, fricchettone, gabolista, gaglioffo, bietolone, gadano, fighetta, blacboc, imbranato, balordo, grèbano, piattola, impagliato, asparagio, babbuino, casinaro, bagolone, cucuzzaro, accattone, barabba, loffio, tappo, caporale, toni, macaco, baluba, pappone, pizipinturro, polentone, bonga, quaquaraquà, tarpàno, radeschi, peracottaro, ciculaté, mandruccone, paraculo, fanigottone, scamorza, scricio, mezzasega, rocchettée, pataccaro, pinguino, margniflone, mortodesonno, sbragone, mortadella, scorreggione, pappamolla, furfantello, scioccherello, stolto, sventato e biricchino.”

Although I have to say, in fairness, I’m not sure if “Big Cock”, “Bugger”, and “Wankstain” are that gentle? Certainly “Fool” and “Hillbilly” are okay.

Ummm. But a good list nevertheless.

President Tony the First – Emperor of Europe!

Way back when I published this warning (see HERE). Now, suddenly, everyone is writing about it as if it were news!? Come on people, keep up!

The light at the end of the tunnel is not the oncoming train, but the EU rapidly moving to limit and curtail the powers of the new presidential position.

You can see more on this HERE.

Riots in Paris, again

So, history repeats itself again (seems to happen every two years), and two nights of riots rock the French city (or rather its suburbs).

Don’t hear much about it, though, do we? Wonder why?

No place for Human Rights in the UK

As if in confirmation of the growing claim we in the UK no longer have a government , we learn even EU rulings (where inconvenient) are to be ignored. So, does this mean we’ve become ungovernable? Or is it more the case the death throes of Nu-Labour resemble the failure of Mussolini’s Fascist Dream, with those in power interested only in their own well being, blind to the writing on the wall and the terrible damage inflicted on the State by their self-interest and incompetence?

Does legality mean anything to this government? Certainly individual human rights can have no place in the Nu-Labour “manifesto”. But do they recognise the law as anything other than a tool for repression?

The Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne says: “It is not up to police forces to ignore court judgments because they or their masters do not like them.”

But, like it or not, he’s wrong. They will ignore judgments inconvenient to their ideology which appears to be one of total control.

For Ireland and the Irish…a reminder!

A gentle reminder to Ireland to say, no…at least they have the choice, unlike the English, the Scots and Welsh who have only the fait accompli, what price democracy or Nu-labour promises?

EU Parliament makes MEPs richer…

In case you thought there was no purpose to the EU Parliament, I post this from the Western Mail to prove you wrong. The Parliament makes MEPs richer. Why it can’t be scrapped and a system of video conferencing used in its place, the MEP’s remaining in their own countries, I don’t know? Certainly it’d be cheaper, and more environmentally friendly – each MEP has the carbon footprint of a small third world country. Anyway, for your amusement and information:

“NEIL and Glenys Kinnock came under fire from critics last night as details of their estimated £10m European earnings were calculated by a pressure group.

“Campaigners from Open Europe, which argues for greater transparency, calculated the pair’s multi-million-pound earnings from allowances, wages and pension entitlements over a 15-year period.

“It worked out their salaries and perks included:

“A total of £775,000 in wages for Mrs Kinnock and £1.85m for her husband, adding up to £2,625,000;

“Allowances for Mrs Kinnock’s staff and office costs of £2.9m;

“A £64,564 “entertainment allowance” for Lord Kinnock;

“A total of five publicly-funded pensions, worth £4.4m, allowing them to retire on £183,000 a year;

“A housing allowance that allowed them both to claim accommodation costs even though, as a married couple, they lived in the same house in the Belgian capital between 1995 and 2004.”

“Asked by the Western Mail what he wanted to say about yesterday’s revelations, former European Union Transport Commissioner Lord Kinnock, 67, replied: “Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

“Quizzed as to whether the figures reported were accurate, the former MP for Islwyn, who led the Labour Party to two general election defeats before quitting in 1992 then spending 10 years in Brussels, said: “I’m not making any form of response.”