The Pope's divisions have been repulsed. Once again we are saved from "popery, slavery, knavery, brass money and wooden shoes." The Catholic church's attempt to blackmail the Government has failed. This means extra scourging for Ms. Ruth Kelly and three Hail Marys for Tony Blair's penance.
We await the Church's declaration that it will cease all involvement in child adoption, as promised.

Judges releasing paedophiles, so what's new? Judges have always had a soft spot for child abusers. There are those who believe that there's a paedophile mafia, or freemasonry, and some judges belong to it.
Now they can blame John Reid, averring "I was just obeying orders." Funny, when other judges state that they won't stand for politicians compromising the independence of the judiciary.

A quote from the American journalist, Christiane Amanpour -
"The right questions weren't asked in the lead-up to the
Iraq war, and now the whole world is paying the price."
This crap by politicians and journalists that they were fooled by the lies of Bush and the oil-slickers, and Blair and his spin-doctors, won't work. There were plenty of people who weren't fooled, but they weren't being well paid to disseminate the lies.
After the first Iraq war the hacks complained that they'd been lied to, but they wouldn't just repeat the lies next time. Second attack on Iraq, the media go into cheerleader mode. Now they are claiming that things would have been different if they'd known that they were being lied to by Bush and Blair.
It would be nice if we could believe them. Unfortunately we see them going along with these proven liars, now on Iran, regurgitating the disinformation they're been fed by the propaganda machine. Warmongers at the beginning, peacelovers in the aftermath, accessories throughout.

So now bills introduced by the government have to be vetted by the Pope's representative in the Cabinet - Ruth Kelly, the fully-fledged flagellatrix of Octopus Dei. Will the Pontiff get his way? Well, Blair the crypto-catholic will do his damnedest for Holy Mother Church.
That's another Blair lie, that he is not yet a catholic. Any catholic will tell you that nobody but a catholic can receive Holy Communion. Yet Blair was doing so regularly a few years ago, until the press got wind. But even then nobody pointed out that Blair the recipient of the eucharist = Blair the Roman Catholic. Not even, to my knowledge, the sleuth-hounds of the Orange Order. Can it be that non-catholics are not aware of the significance of this act, and that catholics kept Shtum for fear of an almighty row?
When I was being educated at catholic schools we were told that there is an unwritten rule in this country that a catholic cannot be Prime Minister. Whether or not this is true I don't know, but it appears that Blair has heard that story and is not taking any chances.

The humorist Art Buchwald, who died last week, once wrote, "Every time you think television has hit its lowest ebb a new programme comes along to make you wonder where you thought the ebb was." Who can argue with that?

More on the news about "black holes" in pension funds. Black hole is journalist's code for stolen money. If it's found that money has been stolen then there should be a hunt for the thief and an attempt to recover the loot. The thieves in these cases are employers and managers who have stolen money from their employees, and that, after all, is capitalism - the rich and powerful fleecing the poorer, powerless majority. What journalist is going to call these people thieves? No, a black hole opens up and swallows millions in workers' savings; it's like an act of God.
As the IWW columnist, T-Bone Slim, wrote, "The poor break the laws, the rich merely evade them."

I watched "The Trial of Tony Blair" last night. The critics were not impressed but I enjoyed it.
What was difficult to swallow, though, was the idea that (pernicious) T.B. was subject to hallucinations about the countless lives he has snuffed out in the course of his sojourn as Prime Minister. That man, that person, has no doubts. Did we ever see a man so full of hubris, of chutzpah, of shit? "You're all wrong and I'm right, and, even when I'm wrong and you're right I'm still superior to the rest of you. I'm a Christian, I talk to God and tell him what I'm going to do. He has never yet ordered me to desist. I also talk to George Bush, and God tells George what to do. My arse is divinely covered."

Jade Goodfornothing's mother has gone on record with the claim that her daughter can't be racist because she's of racially mixed parentage. That reminds me of the time a mate of mine was arguing with two Israelis. Their racist remarks about Palestinians, and their description of the treatment they felt Palestinians deserved, led my mate to call them fascists. "Oh no, we can't be fascists" they assured him, "because we are Jews."
Tensions and rivalries between different ethnic minorities, for example Afro-Caribbean and British Asian, have led to violent incidents in the past. These could not be racial in origin according to the Essex Gobshite theory of race relations. Cultural, I suppose.

Congratulations to Ms. Marina Hyde of the Guardian; the only British journalist who knows that the singular of paparazzi is paparazzo.

Big Brother is watching, but not listening
Everyone has an opinion, here's mine.
Racism, yes. Note that the weasels of Channel 4 state that there has been no OVERT racism on their piece of shit programme. Translation - yes, there's racism, but we're not seeing it.
Then there's this word "culture" that's suddenly become fashionable. Not racism, it's a clash of cultures. Cobblers! Haven't the BNP been using this expression lately in reference to their anti-Islamic propaganda? It's not racism, it's cultural. Pure coincidence that 95% of British Muslims are Asian in origin.
I have to confess, shamefacedly that I was one of the alleged million extra viewers who tuned in on Tuesday evening to see what was going on. The answer - nothing. I've always avoided the Big Brother bearpit/cesspit before, and it seems I haven't missed much. I kept switching back and forth but all I saw was people sitting around looking bored; all I heard was a hissing noise intended, I think, to prevent the public hearing what was being said (covert racism?).
Neither Enemadol, the makers, nor Channel 4 are expressing any regret, contrition or intent to reform. Ofcom says it's up to Channel 4 to listen to the public. Is that it, Ofcom? What a parcel of moral bankrupts. All the public can do is switch off en masse. We won't miss anything. The liveliest parts get shown on the news.

The above statement that 95% of BritishMuslims are Asian is just a guess on my part, but it can't be far wrong. I daresay it's as reliable as the pollsters' count of Big Brother (Big Bully) viewers.
Tuesday's Guardian had a good headline; "One in five Home Office statistics are unreliable, says department head." Confusing, n'est-ce pas? Leaving aside that it should read, one in five ... is unreliable, it has to be a leg-pull. The head of the department of unreliable statistics issues a statistic on the unreliability of its statistics. It's like the Cretan claiming all Cretans are liars, or Pascal (was it he?) claiming that all generalisations are false, including his generalisation about generalisations. That way lies madness.
Luís Buñuel on statistics -
"It is impossible to read a single page in a newspaper without finding at least a dozen of them, most of which are blatantly false." Was he exaggerating? Was he generalising?
I'm no fan of Buñuel. I find his output rather seedy, but I'll except "Los Olvidados" and "Nazarín", to avoid accusations of generalisation.

Today is reckoned to be the tercentenary of the Act of Union of England and Scotland, though, as the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar occurred in 1752, I'm not sure of the exact significance of the date.
The event was later commemorated by Robert Burns in his poem "Parcel of Rogues"

We're bought and sold for English gold,

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation.

A list of the rogues and the gold they received can be found here

http://www.siol-nan-gaidheal.com/history.htm

From the Earl of Marchmont, £1,104/17/7d, to My Lord Banff, £11/2/0d.

Blair's back and all's well. The airline companies can carry on destroying the ozone layer. I bet Ian Pearson (who?) feels a fool.

In yesterday's Guardian I read of a woman named Jackiey. I assumed that it was a Grauniad misprint, but just in case, I googled that outlandish spelling. No mistake, that's how the woman spells her name.

Environment Minister Ian Pearson - never heard of him - has gone off message. He described the airline Ryanair as, "... not just the unacceptable face of capitalism, they are the irresponsible face of capitalism". Back to New Labour School for you, Sonny. Capitalism doesn't have an unacceptable face, capitalism doesn't have a duty of responsibility. "A corporation cannot be ethical; it's only responsibility is to turn a profit." Thus the late, unlamented Milton Friedmann. So if Ryanair is turning a profit it's acting responsibly. Thatcher thought old Milt the canine's cobblers, and Blair, as we know, is "the bastard son of Margaret Thatcher" (Class War), well, her heir and adulator anyway.
We can expect a correction as soon as Tone gets back in front of the cameras. Blair and Brown are the one's who talk about climate change. Pearson's job is to be the whipping boy when New Labour are exposed as liars and hypocrites - once again. In the meantime he should be telling the menu peuple, people like me, to switch off the standby on our tellies, and not flush the lav when we've had a piss. That's New Labour's strategy for saving the planet.

As a veteran of the National Service era, I wonder about the army of today. They are sent out to war zones and some of them get shot. So they want to sue the government for putting them in danger. They are supposed to be professionals, their whole job is to kill and to be killed. Didn't anybody tell them that?
During World War II conscripts, poorly paid, were sent out to die for their country, and they did. No doubt they complained about their lot but nobody listened. They were followed by National Servicemen, sent out to sweat and suffer, and sometimes to die, in some fly-blown or leech -ridden corner of the empire. When they lost their lives in the service of their country they were buried where they fell. If their parents or wives wanted them buried at home they had to pay for their bodies to be flown home.
Did those conscripts complain about their lot? Damn right! And with good reason. Did anybody listen. Of course not. Who gave a rat's arse about conscripts? Korea, the forgotten war, one the Yanks dragged us into. How many national servicemen were killed and wounded out there? Not to mention the men who were captured and imprisoned, and had their health ruined as a result.
Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, the Suez débacle; the list goes on. Not forgetting those poor bastards sent out to Christmas Island to be exposed to atomic radiation. I don't suppose they even got a General Service Medal for seeing active service.
Another trend that I find disturbing is this business of generals getting up on their hind legs and publicly bollocking politicians. We all know these people are lower than snakes, and they don't care who dies for the advancement of their personal ambitions. We don't need the military to step in.
One of the first things we learned when we started our basic training was that the British Army doesn't get involved in politics. This was stated as a matter of pride. It was a mark of the United Kingdom's superiority to some South American and Middle Eastern countries. So what has changed?
Fifty years ago nobody listened to the military, now the Prime Minister has to agree when some general tells him he's a dick.

The rope that extinguished the life of Saddam Hussein has been presented to Muqtada-Muqtada! as-Sadr. Fitting, as it seems that, thanks to his Mahdi murder squads, he is now the one they all fear.

"Muqtada, Muqtada!" It's Arabic - it means "Death to the mass-murderer! Long live the other mass-murderer!"