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Leave Your Beach Towels At Home
US readers might not be aware of this, but throughout Europe, German tourists are notorious for hogging the best spots by the pool by draping their towels over sunloungers. While their British cousins are deep in binge drinking-inspired slumber, Germans sneak from their hotel rooms in the early hours and bag poolside sunloungers with their towels. Blearly-eyed Brits emerge to find the best spots already taken, while the Germans rise later, claiming their places while the Brits smoulder resentfully on the rickety chairs.
Tour de France Pile-Up
What is it with the Tour de France, the world's most prestigious cycling race and perhaps the most gruelling sporting event in the world? Each year, millions thrill to the sight of the colourful pelaton threading through France's glorious countryside and picturesque villages; however, each year, headlines of doping and racers failing drugs tests are never far away.
French Bosses Top Euro-League
For a people who trust capitalism far less than the citizens of any other developed or developing country, the French are very good at it. A survey showed that half Europe's top twenty executives are running French companies.
There Must Be An Angel...
Norway's Princess Martha Louise - fourth in line to the throne - claims she is in contact with angels. Launching her alternative therapy programme, she said that she made contact with angels after working with horses.
The 35 year old BABE believes her gift will help people "create miracles" in their lives.
Fire And Flood
Crazy weather in Europe. Large swathes of England are under flood waters following the worst floods (and the wettest July) in sixty years. 300,000 homes are without fresh water and warnings of sewage contamination and disease are coming from health experts.
Fresh floods are being predicted in Oxford and along the Thames valley. More here.
Meanwhile, south-eastern Europe is being swept by an unprecedented heatwave, with temperatures in Bucharest and Athens as high as the mid 40s (113 Fahrenheit).
Axis Of Resistance Round-Up
Busy goings-on on the Iran-Venezuela axis. The African "third wheel", Robert Mugabe, is also in the news today, apparently plotting to push parliament to allow him to name his successor without putting it to the vote (shades of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair?).
The Guardian has a look at what the Marxist radical Hugo Chavez sees in Holocaust-denying fundamentalist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Does Anyone Come Out Well?
Jacques be nimble, Jacques be quick, Jacques cheats the ticket barrier too.
Oliver Kamm quoting Christopher Hitchens:
"Just look at the gang that strove to prevent the United Nations from enforcing its library of resolutions on Saddam Hussein. Where are they now? Gerhard Schroeder, ex-chancellor of Germany, has gone straight to work for a Russian oil-and-gas consortium. Vladimir Putin, master of such consortia and their manipulation, is undisguised in his thirst to re-establish a one-party state. Jacques Chirac, who only avoided prosecution for corruption by getting himself immunized by re-election (and who had Saddam's sons as his personal guests while in office, and built Saddam Hussein a nuclear reactor while knowing what he wanted it for), is now undergoing some unpleasant interviews with the Paris police. So is his cynical understudy Dominique de Villepin, once the glamour-boy of the "European" school of diplomacy without force. What a crew! Galloway is the most sordid of this group because he managed to be a pimp for, as well as a prostitute of, one of the foulest dictatorships of modern times. But the taint of collusion and corruption extends much further than his pathetic figure, and one day, slowly but surely, we shall find out the whole disgusting thing."
In Like Flynn
France's new President Nicolas Sarkozy has wasted no time making up with Libya following the Gadafy regime's release of six Bulgarian medics yesterday. As Eurocrats huff over the Sarkozy family snatching publicity for their release at the last minute and French Socialists complain that the entire event has been stage-managed to give the First Lady Cécilia Sarkozy a foreign policy role, Sarko has jumped on the first flight to Tripoli and is currently trying to flog guns and warplanes to the Libyans.
The Democratic Debate
It's too late to let EURSOC's readers know this now, but if you happened to have been in the US Monday evening and had trouble getting to sleep, the Democratic Candidate Presidential "debate' provided the potion.
Bulgarian Medics Free
Five Bulgarian nurses (who the BBC rather insensitively calls "HIV medics") have been released from prison in Libya and flown directly to Bulgaria, where President Georgi Parvanov ordered than an immediate pardon be set into motion for the medics.
Palestinian Doctor Ashraf al-Hazouz was granted Bulgarian citizenship last month.
The nurses were convicted along with Doctor al-Hazouz of deliberately infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus via blood transfusions. They were tortured to obtain confessions, which led to death sentences for all (twice). A European Union external affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, had negotiated with the Libyan authorities for several years to secure the nurses' release; she was joined in a high-profile campaign earlier this month by France's first lady Cécilia Sarkozy.
438 children were infected with blood containing the HIV virus; 56 have died. Mme Sarkozy has reportedly offered to fly some of the children to Paris for treatment.
Bull To Get Chop
Shambo, the six year old bull infected with TB given a reprieve from compulsory slaughter because of its owners' religious beliefs has had its appeal wiped out. Britain's Court of Appeal ruled that the animal's slaughter was justified.
The bull is kept by a colony of Hindu monks in Wales. The religious community say that the animal is sacred to them - their representative in the court argue that killing Shambo would be "like killing a human being."
Italy's Terror School
Italian police have charged a Moroccan iman and two aides on suspicion of running a "terror academy" which trained children to make bombs - and an observer claims that 90 percent of European mosques are run by extremists.
Police say they found 60 types of suspicious chemicals, bomb-making manuals, a pilot's guide and a manual on sending encrypted messages during the raid in Perugia. There are also reports that electronic devices capable of detonating bombs were found, though the Italian authorities say that they do not suspect an attack was imminent. Rather, they claim, the mosque was being used as a training facility for violent Islamists who were drawn to it. Perugia is home to an international university popular with Middle-Eastern students.
Belgian PM's Anthem Gaffe
Belgium's Prime Minister in waiting Yves Leterme has caused a stir by appearing to confuse his national anthem La Brabanconne with France's La Marseillaise. The leader of the Flemish Christian Democrats was pushed by a journalist to display his knowledge of the anthem on Belgium's National Day: Leterme responded with a few verses from the famous French anthem.
Europeans And Globalisation
Some poll data suggesting that Europeans are becoming suspicious of globalisation published in the FT. The poll of 1,000 people (online) in Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the United States shows an increase in support for higher taxes for the rich - and even large majorities supporting pay caps for executives in Britain, France, Italy and Spain.
The most popular answer for whether or not globalisation is having a positive effect was "not sure." Only in Germany was globalisation popular, with nearly 40 percent of people polled believing it was a positive thing. Interestingly, globalisation is even less popular in the US than in France.
Boris Goes In
Conservative MP for Henley Boris Johnson has announced his intention to stand for Mayor of London. EURSOC hopes he does to Ken Livingstone what he did to this German footballer:
More Gels, Please
The Times bemoans the decline of Received Pronunciation (RP) - the traditional accent of Britain's middle classes.
Radio Free Europe
Go here to listen to an excellent interview with Richard North of the EU Referendum Blog on the EU's institutional anti-democratic nature. Essential listening.
Islamic Rage Boy Speaks!
The Guardian tracks down Shakeel Ahmad Bhat, the bearded, wild-eyed Indian Muslim who has been at the front line of his state's "political activism" for over a decade.
Bhat's deranged features have made him a popular subject for photographers covering the many protests in that part of the world. A group of US bloggers were quick to notice this and have made Islamic Rage Boy a cult figure on the blog scene: A bit like Green Helmet, but fanatical and idiotic rather than sinister.
Islamic Rage Boy is one of those rent-a-rant all-purpose protestors, showing up to yell in fury about Israel, Britain and Pakistan's policy (among other things). It's clearly a South Asian case of "what are you protesting against?" - "What have you got?"
Chavez Boots Out Critics
Quote of the day:
"How long are we going to allow a person - from any country in the world - to come to our own house to say there's a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it? (...)
""No foreigner can come here to attack us. Anyone who does must be removed from this country."
Ethical Foreign Policy?
Britain's PM Gordon Brown says he will not attend the European-African Summit in Portugal in December if Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe will be there.
EU Backs UK
Moscow expels four British diplomats, ends cooperation
Following on from yesterday's story about foot-dragging in European capitals regarding escalating tensions between London and Moscow, the the EU's rotating Presidency has issued a statement calling for "urgent and constructive" cooperation from Russia.
It came hours before Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin declared that four British diplomats were to be expelled from Moscow, in apparent retaliation from Britain's expulsion of four Russians earlier this week.
Kamynim added that Russia would stop issuing visas to British officials and seeking British visas for Russian officials. Furthermore, Russia would halt counterterrorism cooperation with Britain: "To our regret, cooperation between Russia and Britain on issues of fighting terrorism becomes impossible."
"Not A Peaceful Country"
"Not a peaceful country" - that's how Anjem Choudury sees Britain. Choudury, who was fined for his role in a Muslim march on the Danish embassy last year, during which protestors called for the slaughter of those who "insult Islam", was speaking after four other marchers were jailed for soliciting murder and inciting hatred.
"Look at the words of Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer who took military action against the UK," he said outside the court, "The more you put Muslims under pressure, the more problems there will be."
Khan and Tanweer were among the four suicide bombers involved in the mass murder of Londoners on July 7 2005.
The Rights Stuff
Two versions of a run-in with the European Convention of Human Rights made the headlines in Britain earlier this week.
In one, a Hindu group successfully sued to prevent the slaughter of Shambo, a six year old cow infected with bovine tuberculosis. It is British veterinary practice to kill animals carrying this disease because of the threat it can pose to public and animal health; the organisation argued that because the animal was sacred to them, killing it would interfere with their right to manifest their religious beliefs.
European Divisions Over Russia
Earlier this week, Britain expelled four Russian diplomats following Russia's refusal to extradite a man who, as a commentator in the Telegraph writes, was "caught practically red-handed performing an act of nuclear terrorism in their ally's capital."
Further fuelling tensions between London and Moscow, it was revealed today that billionaire dissident Boris Berezovsky fled the UK three weeks ago on Scotland Yard's orders, following a warning that an alleged Russian hitman had been caught waiting for him in the Hilton Hotel.
Russia is considering its response to the expulsions; European countries are reportedly awaiting news of Moscow with some trepidation.
Smoke 'Em If You've Got 'Em
Great American director John Waters in a 1980s "No Smoking" announcement shown in US cinemas. If only all anti-smoking propaganda had this humour.
Chinese Lake Monster
Chinese TV has broadcast footage of China's Loch Ness Monster at play. According to reports, over a dozen creatures were filmed splashing around in the waters of Lake Kanasi. The lake has been subject of spooky stories about watery beasties for decades. Scientists reckon that the video footage shows big fish.
An Old Man At 45
The Guardian has an excellent (and rare) look at life in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, where life expectancy for men and women has halved in the past ten years.
Royal Boyzone
EURSOC must have missed this one... but when did Princes William and Harry start to look like boyband stars?
Whispering Campaign
British newspapers are covering what they describe as a "whispering campaign" against France's new justice minister Rachida Dati. Mme Dati is the first North African woman to hold a key government post in France and upon her appointment was touted as an emblem of President Sarkozy's multi-cultural non-divisive stance. A long-time Sarkozy adviser and loyalist, it was hoped that she would be able to build bridges between the President and the denizens of France's troubled housing estates, where Sarkozy is widely loathed, particularly by young men of North African descent.
Unfortunately, it seems her first two months in office have been less than trouble-free. Her top aide and three magistrates resigned from her office yesterday. The aide cited personal reasons; the magistrates were claimed to be on their way out anyway. Nevertheless, rumours circulated that all four were unhappy with Mme Dati's "authoritarian" manner.
Hamas Wanna-Bee
Remember Farfour, the television mouse who used to teach Palestinian kiddies Hamas propaganda? You'll remember he was beaten to death by an Israeli in the final episode of the children's show. Fans of Farfour will be delighted to know that he has been replaced by Nahoul the Bee. Nahoul claims to be Farfur's cousin and made his first appearance on Al-Aqsa TV on July 13, 2007, where he appeared hanging from the ceiling:
EURSOC thinks he looks a lot like one of the Menoptra - a fuzzy-felt cross between a bee and a moth from a 1960s Doctor Who serial.
US Election News
The Pew Research Center has offered this interesting insight to the American Presidential elections coming up in November of 2008. Yes, that is still a long time from now, but it is interesting to see how Americans think at this stage.
Quote Of The Day II
One to think about as an increasingly bewildered Britain discusses the European Convention on Human Rights and its incorporation into UK law via the Human Rights Act of 1998:
"The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes."
Hmm. From Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address.
Quote Of The Day
"Grappling with the questions of European integration had its frustration and one of these was the tendency that the integration-at-all-costs lobby had to try to browbeat opposition into silence by deploying language which allowed for no dissent. At its most absurd that meant portraying anyone with the mildest doubt about “the project” as a blood-and-soil-soaked reactionary anxious to plunge the Continent back to Thirties-style conflict. So, during the debate about the first European constitution, sceptics were told that they would turn the clock back to the Second World War. And yet, ironically, the European Commission had itself distributed a comic to children in which the drive to integration was led by a blond, blue-eyed figure called Captain Europa with a pet alsatian who was being thwarted at every turn by a swarthy, bearded figure called Dr D. Vider.
"No return to the Thirties there then."
- Michael Gove MP, writing in The Times
Piglet Rustlers Feel EU Heat
Remember we signed up to the EU's fast track extradition and arrest warrant thanks to a government campaign telling us that terror suspects would no longer be able to hide out in other European nations?
As ever with the EU, we were led to believe that the new warrants were nothing to worry about: Islamist terrorists hiding out in London could be booted out to Paris to face trial, while British crooks on Spain's Costa del Crime would face speedy extradition to face the music back home. Pity, then, that it has been revealed that this high-powered treaty has been invoked to arrest a suspect accused of stealing a piglet. Another warrant was issued for the cross-border theft of two car tyres, and a third for a driver suspected of drunk driving, but not of being wildly over the limit.
Two Kids Good, Any More Bad
A creepy report from the even-more-creepily titled Optimum Population Trust says that the government should introduce a "Stop at two children" policy backed by schools, the media and environmental groups.
UK Challenges Deportation Ban
Following on from yesterday's call for a closer look at the Human Rights Act, the British government is looking at means of challenging a European Court judgement preventing it from expelling dangerous foreigners.
We Are Not Amused
We are not amused
Here's a great photo of Her Majesty, reacting in horror when US photographer to the stars Annie Leibovitz asked her to lose the crown in order to make the portrait more informal.
""Maybe try it without the crown? Less dressy, because the garter robe is so extraordinary?" asked Ms Leibovitz. The Queen was aghast. "Less dressy? What do you think this is?" she demanded.
UPDATED: Well, we should know better by now, never believe anything you see on the BBC. The broadcaster has had to issue an apology for misrepresenting the Queen and Ms Leibovitz in the trailer for the new show: She didn't storm out of the sitting in a huff at all. The apology came, of course, hours after the photo of the "not amused" QE2 was plastered over every morning edition in Britain.
Jack Lang Joins Dark Side
Lang and Hollande in happier times
Nicolas Sarkozy's asset-stripping of the Socialist Party continues. This morning comes news that popular former culture and educations secretary Jack Lang has resigned from the leadership of the party to join a reform commission created by the new President.
Lang jumped before he was pushed. In a note to party leader François Hollande, he said he would remain a Socialist, but that he could no longer agree with the PS's leadership methods. The PS leadership promptly issued a statement warning that any member joining a committee created by the President would be excluded from the Socialist National Bureau.
Rights Group Wants Tintin Canned
A wicked racist rampages through Africa and British bookshops
Muslims are roused into fury by the Satanic Verses; for British liberals, the most blasphemous text is a 1930 comic book, Tintin in the Congo.
Live From Basra
Shia militiamen, reportedly from the Mahdi Army, burn a Sunni mosque in the southern town of Basra. What's fascinating is the eerie calm of the scene. Shias say the attack was in response to an earlier attack on the shrine of Imam Al-Askari and Al-Hadi in Samarra.
Benedict And The BBC
The BBC doesn't like Pope Benedict XVI. To be fair, it didn't have a lot of time for his Commie-baiting predecessor either, but even the Beeb couldn't sneer at the global outpouring of love for the old man as he approached death. But Benedict? He hasn't inspired the same devotion - respect, certainly, maybe awe - and so this severe traditionalist is fair game.
Al-Qaeda Rushdie Threat
Al-Qaeda leader slams fellow Sunnis, praises Shia "Mujahideen" - aren't we told they don't get on?
PM Gordon Brown got a rather unwelcome voicemail message yesterday when al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri threatened that Britain would be hit with "a very precise response" for granting Satanic Verses author Sir Salman Rushdie a knighthood.
Al-Zawahiri, who has been delivering most of al-Qaeda's threats recently, titled the twenty minute message "Malicious Britain and its Indian Slaves."
"The policy of your predecessor has brought tragedy and defeat upon you, not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but also in the centre of London" the jihadi terror leader said.
The Empire Strikes Back
Can you believe José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, describing the EU as "an empire?"
Here's a YouTube clip of his speech, courtesy of EUX.TV (we found it on the marvellous England Expects blog.
Smoke-on-Trent
Smokers who still fancy a puff in a bar or restaurant should move to Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, where an administrative blunder means that the July 1 smoking ban was not introduced alongside the rest of England and Wales.
Hiding Behind The Human Rights Act
The government invokes the European Convention on Human Rights to explain why foreign terrorists cannot be detained or expelled. Is this really the case?
Britain has come under attack from three different species of Islamist terrorist in two years. First, the home-grown Yorkshire Lads, whose families spoke of their love of cricket and fish & chips - and who blew themselves up along with 50 others in London two years ago. A fortnight later, another batch had their chance: The four men who tried to cause similar slaughter and have just been sentenced to life imprisonment were migrants from the war-torn nations of Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia. All four entered the UK seeking escape from their troubled homelands; all four were taken in, housed and cared for by the people they later tried to murder.
Then, just two weeks ago, comes a third type: Educated middle-class professionals from Iran and Palestine working as doctors in Britain's National Health Service, while plotting al-Qaeda-inspired mass murder in London and Glasgow.
And these, we are told, are the tip of the iceberg. The police are said to be monitoring 200 suspected terrorist cells. Doubtless some are British-born terrorists, but numerous others are migrants or those who have come to Britain seeking asylum. When newspapers and opposition MPs call for the deportation or imprisonment of these terrorists, the government points to activist lawyers in the courts and shrugs its collective shoulders: "We can't deport them to places where they face imprisonment and torture: It's against the Human Rights Act."
News Round-Up
Naples pongs, iPods under hijabs and crumbling coalitions
See Naples and Gag
While scavenged container ship the Napoli has been successfully refloated, another Napoli isn't having quite as much luck. The US Embassy in Rome has advised travellers to give the southern region of Campania a wide berth if the stench of rotting mountains of rubbish is likely to spoil your summer.
"U.S. citizens traveling to or through the area may encounter mounds of garbage, open fires with potentially toxic fumes, and/or sporadic public demonstrations by local residents attempting to block access to dumps," the embassy warned.
Going Dutch On Bias
Via the EU Referendum Blog comes a heartwarming tale of overcoming media bias in the Netherlands.
Writing in Pyjamas Media, conservative columnist Joshua Livestro explains how his position as "token" rightwinger on a state-funded news programme was constantly undermined by editors and producers who censored his columns and eventually gave him the boot from their show.
Red Lines For Brown
Write out one thousand times: " I will not surrender control over human and social rights, foreign policy and tax and benefits." Britain's new PM Gordon Brown has been in office only a couple of weeks and is making clear that his EU policy will follow the blueprint laid out by Tony Blair in his final meeting to agree on the shape of the new European Constitution.
Iran's Al-Qaeda Links
Hate Israel... hate Sunnis...
According to a report in the Financial Times, there is growing evidence that terror network al-Qaeda is using Iran as a communications and financial hub.
The only doubt seems to be to what extent Tehran tolerates or encourages the presence of al-Qaeda within its borders; One US intelligence source says that the best-case scenario would be Tehran "turns a blind eye" to terror activity, though he argues this is an overly cautious analysis.
Bombers Welcome To Stay
The men who tried to bomb London and Glasgow will be allowed to stay in Britain at public expense indefinitely even if they are convicted of terrorism offences, according to a report issued today.
Migrationwatch, a thinktank which campaigns against mass immigration, says in its report that the "continued adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is an attraction for terrorists to operate in and from Britain, secure in the knowledge that, even if convicted, they cannot be deported after serving their sentences.
Sarkozy Rejects Traditional Pardons
Sarkzoy's view of Presidential pardons, and seeks to build bridges with a former rival. Plus, the new President finds the Clearstream enquiry searching closer to home
Unlike some Presidents we could mention (cough), Nicolas Sarkozy is not considering his Presidential Pardon this summer.
Speaking in an interview in the French press yesterday, he said that he was not likely to grant a mass pardon of prisoners this Bastille Day, turning around a longstanding tradition in modern French history.
Quote Of The Day
"New York, Madrid, London, Paisley...we're all in this together and make no mistake, none of us will hold back from putting the boot in."
The magnificent John Smeaton, tracked down by the News of the World.
Another Perspective
From NewsMax, we have recently received this email regarding the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Roger Stone, a consultant who worked successfully with both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in his 1980 and 1984 campaigns says that if Hillary wins the Democratic Presidential nomination, Republicans keep the White House.
De Villepin Could Face Charges
More high-level skullduggery in France. Former Prime Minister Dominque de Villepin had his Paris home searched for six hours yesterday by French police investigating his role in the Clearstream Affair.
Investigating magistrates Jean-Marie d'Huy and Henri Pons are said to be close to charging de Villepin with conspiring to implicate his former colleague Nicolas Sarkozy in a corruption scandal.
They Don't Understand
Remember Orwell's idea that some ideas are so absurd, only an intellectual could believe them? Rod Liddle revisits the principle in a storming article in this week's Spectator.
He asks why, on a range of issues crucial to the recent attacks on Glasgow and London - "immigration, human rights legislation, the notion that British Muslims do not share very many of our liberal values, the war against Iraq — the public seems to get it and our political leaders simply do not."
No, Really?
The Telegraph publishes a lip-smacking obituary of Count Gottfried von Bismarck, the flamboyant German aristocrat who died of an overdose earlier this week.
It dwells on von Bismarck's lifestyle in startling detail; his love of dressing in womens clothes, fishnet stockings and lipstick; his 'exotic designer frock coats', his homosexuality; and his riotous all-night gay parties.
It ends with what might be the most ironically redundant footnote in obituary history:
"He never married." You're kidding!
Sarko The Sceptic?
An odd article in the Herald Trib asks if Nicolas Sarkozy isn't the free market liberal he poses as, but is instead an old-fashioned Gaullist.
Cécilia, We're Takin' Your Card
That handbag's a wee bit lighter now
Cécilia Sarkozy, wife of the French President, has returned her Elysee Palace credit card. Last week, a left wing newspaper revealed that Mme Sarkozy had been given a card in order to take care of "protocol gifts for the wives of heads of state, wreaths and entertainment", but the legacy of budget abuses during Jacques Chirac's presidency meant that Presidential aides felt it better she do without.
Union Makes Referendum Call
More bad news for Prime Minister Gordon Brown. According to a report in The Telegraph, the Labour-affiliated GMB trade union says that the new constitutional agreement doesn't differ substantially from the EU Constitution - and so the government should "honour its committment" to a referendum.
Wine: A Modest Proposal
Europe has been gripped by controversies in the wine world. First, a few weeks ago, a group of French winemakers (terroirists?) threatened a campaign of violence if President Nicolas Sarkozy didn't come up with more subsidies to keep them in the plonk-production business. Then, yesterday, it emerged that the European Union was looking at ways to stop paying winemakers to produce wine which everyone knows will never sell - the EU has to pay again for the wasteful and destructive business of turning the stuff to biofuel.
The Luck Of The Irish
Irish premier Bertie Ahern has apologised for suggesting that people sitting on the sidelines complaining about Ireland's economic revival should kill themselves.
Smoking: Two Million Votes Up For Grabs
Nazi anti-smoking propaganda
Here is a simple way for the Tories to take two million easy votes. It doesn’t need a two year policy study and it doesn’t require breaking David Cameron’s self-imposed taboo on Europe, immigration, taxes, security and all the rest.
Furthermore it is about ‘choice’ and freedom, Cameron’s current favourite subjects.
Twelve million people smoke: that’s something like a third of Britain’s adult population. Now even if a majority of these, according to the government, are in favour of
of the smoking ban, that still leaves a large bloc seething with resentment at the draconian intrusion into their personal lives.
Taxing Times
As we learn that the British taxman is seeking powers to withdraw funds directly from bank accounts, it has also emerged that the Inland Revenue has sent electronic snoopers after homeowners renting rooms to tennis fans during the Wimbledon Championship.
The Name Of Death
The Polish don't like Auschwitz being Polish. After all, the infamous death camp was created by the Germans. And Hitler decided it should be situated in Poland.
George Melly RIP
Jazz singer and author George Melly has died in London aged 80.
Here's George, speaking to Mick Jagger a few years ago:
Melly: "Why is your face so wrinkled?"
Jagger: "They're not wrinkles, they're laughter lines."
Melly: "Nothing's that funny."
RIP.
Show Me The Money Part II
In the United States, probably more than in any other country in the world, money is the Mother’s milk of politics, or so it has been said. Plenty of moolah will not necessarily guarantee your election to high office (or if it did, by now we would have had President Ross Perot or President Steve Forbes), but without enough of it, your candidacy will go nowhere.
iPhone To O2
It looks like British network O2 (they used to sponsor Arsenal) is set to announce that it will be launching the much-awaited iPhone in Britain this autumn.
Don't Tell The Brits
Gordon Brown rules out a referendum on the EU Constitution
So much for the era of change, of a government handing "more power to the British people." New PM Gordon Brown has taken his predecessor Tony Blair's line that the changes made to the Treaty Formerly Known As The EU Constitution mean that a referendum is not required.
This is despite the fact that nearly all Mr Brown's EU partners have been telling their press and people that the agreement is basically unchanged from the Constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
Subsidy Junkies
The latest EU wine scam: Put an end to the idiocy which meant wine makers were paid to produce bad wine, which the state would have to pay again to dispose of. Instead, pay wine makers to produce nothing.
What's Made In Italy?
It's one of the great problems of globalisation. Europeans are told to specialise, to stick to what they're good at and what they can compete in, forget about their sentimental attachment to manufacturing and agriculture except in those rare cases where it is cost effective. Trouble is, in parts of Italy what they're good at happens to be manufacturing, and manufacturing high-end clothing at that.
Axis Of Diesel
Ho Hum. As we predicted last week, Iran is set to become the latest beneficiary of President Hugo Chavez's petrol spending spree.
Iran - the world's second biggest oil and gas producer - already imports around 40 percent of its petrol. Government subsidies keep the price of fuel down to around a fifth of its real cost, but even the Tehran regime, flush with export money, can't keep this up forever at a cost of $5 billion a year. There were riots in Tehran last week when the government announced petrol rationing.
iPhone Über Alles
Rumour has it that Apple's much-hyped (and sell-out) iPhone will touch down in Europe in November. Germany is said to be the first country in the EU to get the coveted telephone-browser-music player, with operator T-Mobile set to announce the launch of the iPhone for November 1st.
"Genocide Is Not Too Important"
Newly released papers show extent of French involvement in Rwanda massacres
President François Mitterand was so determined to prevent what he imagined to be Anglo-Saxon interference in Francophone Africa, that he continued to support the Hutu regime, even as it became clear that the regime was engaged in a genocide against its Rwandan Tutsi neighbours.
Declassified French documents from the early 1990s reveal that several memos and telegrams from both African and French sources warned of massacres.
Doctor's Orders
More news in coming in about the "Doctors of Death" who organised and carried out the three attempted terrorist mass murders in London and Glasgow at the weekend.
Little Europeans
Despite claims to the contrary, the British are the EU's model citizens
Following Blair’s questionable deal on the European constitution Mark II a chorus of lamenting Europeans asked "Why does Britain always drag its feet over Europe? Why can't perfidious Albion get over its past?” Valery Giscard d'Estaing, former French president and constitutional architect went further and called for Britain to be thrown out of the EU altogether for daring to negotiate against the ‘spirit’ of the Union.
This tired line has become so predictable. It is part and parcel of the recurring charade that comes every few years when a new treaty is dreamt up to further integrate European nations and put more power into centralized rule from Brussels. Britain pretends to negotiate an exception; the Europeans pretend to be horrified; the politicians pretend they will call a referendum and everything carries on in the same fashion until the next treaty, eight thousand directives later.
Meanwhile, Britain has become the most European of all European nations.
The Emperor's New Clothes
Sarko's style counsel
Most newspapers have concentrated on the First Lady's dress sense: Cécilia Sarkozy raised eyebrows by stepping out in Prada rather than patronising one of France's famous fashion houses, while her taste in US cowboy boots has also drawn attention.
However, it's now the turn of her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, to set the fashion world talking.
Death Doctors
Two doctors are among suspects being held by British police in connection with the terror attacks on London and Glasgow.
EwwwTube
What's the first thing you think about when someone mentions the European Commission? EURSOC would wager a lot of money that it certainly isn't sex. Indeed, we imagine that some people force themselves to think about the EU in order to, ahem, postpone the inevitable. Some Eurofanatics might admit to reciting a list of EU Commissioners rather in the same way normal human beings name the 1995 Arsenal side rather than use "delay cream."
Nevertheless, the European Commission is determined to make itself sexy. In the following clip (which is not kid-friendly, and which you might need to register to watch), the Commission demonstrates its committment to European cinema by editing together eighteen sex scenes from EU-funded films.
Hamas Kills Off Militant Mouse
Islamist group Hamas has killed off its children's character "Farfour", who was used to spread anti-Israel and anti-US propaganda to Palestinian children. In the sequence below, Farfour is beaten to death by an Israeli who wants to take his land. A child newsreader then announces that the radical rodent has been "martyred" like so many Palestinians before him.
Link: sevenload.com
US Election News
Another poll, Al Gore and the New Hampshire Primary
On Friday, 29 Jun, the Mason-Dixon polling organization released the results of a poll conducted from June 23d to June 25th among 625 likely voters. In this poll 52% claimed they would not be voting for Hillary Clinton, while 46% said the same of former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney. (Source: www.mason-dixon.com) Hillary is a tough sale in that she strikes many as a power hungry woman who is difficult to deal with. Romney's negatives distill down to just one: he is a member of the Church of the Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ. In other words, he is a Mormon. Fairly or not, many Americans regard Mormonism not as a religion, but as a cult.
