Bookworm on May 13 2008 | Filed under: Britain, Crime and punishment, England
Two stories from today’s British news:
I
Two young men pounced on a stranger on a London street, stabbed him, slit his throat, and ran off, leaving him to bleed to death on the street. That’s sad, but that’s not the news. This is the news:
Britain’s most senior judge, Lord Chief Justice Phillips, has advised [...]
Bookworm on May 09 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England
When I lived in England, the mail arrived twice a day, six days a week. (Maybe only once on Saturdays; I can’t remember.) Within town, you could mail something in the morning, and know that it would arrive at its destination in the evening. It put the American postal service to shame — although it [...]
Bookworm on May 09 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England
While the ordinary English resident freely ignores the fact that his every move is being monitored by CCTV, so that crime remains unaffected by the government’s watchful eye, police are hard at work treating as hardcore criminals people who drop apple cores — an unsavory, untidy act, perhaps, but not one that would seem to [...]
Bookworm on May 06 2008 | Filed under: Anti-Americanism, Anti-war, Britain, England, Europe
I am a huge Georgette Heyer fan. I consider her one of the most amusing, sophisticated novel writers ever, and think it’s a shame that she got labeled as a pure romance writer, a genre that puts her in the “I browse that section wearing sunglasses and a scarf” category of books at any [...]
Bookworm on May 06 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England
In Britain, it’s impossible to go anywhere without being spied upon. England has spend billions of pounds setting up the densest CCTV (close circuit TV) network in the world. Or perhaps I should say in the semi-free world, because I’d go odds that North Korea has a pretty good CCTV network too.
The goal [...]
Bookworm on Apr 26 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England, Jihad
WARNING: British bloggers — do not write about this story.
In England, a convoluted case played out in which the government froze funds in British banks that were to be sent to Al Qaeda, the funds’ owners challenged that action, and the court held against the government. As a result of this successful court [...]
Bookworm on Apr 24 2008 | Filed under: Britain, Crime and punishment, England
Please study the above photo very carefully. Doesn’t that look like a nice room? You can see that it’s fairly spacious and well fitted out, with nice colors, lots of light, and pretty curtains? I bet a lot of dorm students are looking at it enviously, as are a lot of kids who [...]
Bookworm on Apr 21 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England, Welfare
England is becoming an increasingly alien place in terms of modern values. Two articles from today’s Daily Mail (a useful repository for stories the other papers are embarrassed to print):
1. A man was charged as a criminal for over filling his garbage can.
2. Families that refuse even to look for work, finding [...]
Bookworm on Apr 15 2008 | Filed under: African-Americans, Britain, England, Welfare
Some months ago, the British papers were filled with the story of Shannon Matthews, a little girl who vanished from her home in West Yorkshire, sparking a huge manhunt. She was eventually found, 24 days later, at the home of her stepfather’s uncle. The big shocker, though, was the fact that both her [...]
Bookworm on Apr 04 2008 | Filed under: Britain, Islam
Last I heard, the law of Great Britain required monogamous marriages, not polygamous ones. It also imposes speed limits that require drivers to travel at temperate speeds in certain neighborhoods, presumably to protect other drivers and pedestrians. In Scotland, however, these laws went out the window so that a Muslim commuting between his [...]
Bookworm on Apr 01 2008 | Filed under: Britain, Education, England, GBLT, Political correctness
In the world of presidential elections, we’re watching the fascinating spectacle of clashing identity politics. Neither Hillary nor Obama has a strong resume (or even a medium resume). Each is distinguished from the other, and from others in the field (remember Silky Pony?) solely because of gender or race. He’s black (sort of); she’s female [...]
Bookworm on Mar 31 2008 | Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Arabs, Britain, England, Islam, Israel, Nazis, Palestinians
The accepted wisdom is that the intense hatred the Palestinians feel for Jews is a direct result of Jewish annexation of the West Bank and Gaza after the 1967 War. Of course, as with most propaganda, this is false. Aside from conveniently ignoring the 1956 and 1948 Wars, not to mention the Koran [...]
Bookworm on Mar 25 2008 | Filed under: Britain, Education, England, Military
This morning we read about the Minneapolis high school that turned away the Vets for Freedom bus. It turns out that this attitude, in its most extreme form, is epidemic in England:
Teachers today vowed to oppose military recruitment campaigns in schools that are based on Ministry of Defence “propaganda”.
The National Union of Teachers (NUT) [...]
Bookworm on Mar 18 2008 | Filed under: BBC, Britain, Bush Derangement Syndrome, England
I watched a pretty good movie last night, that was very pro-military; that showed the Iraqi military as being inefficient; and that showed Iraqis as being unbelievably brutal, both in terms of mob violence and in terms of the military’s and the secret police’s capacity for sadistic torture. Surprisingly, it was made by the BBC.
Okay, [...]
Bookworm on Mar 16 2008 | Filed under: Britain, Christians, England, Islam, Muslim violence
No comment:
A vicar was in hospital last night after being attacked in his churchyard by two youths in what is being treated as a ‘faith hate’ crime.
Canon Michael Ainsworth, 57, was kicked and punched in the head as one of the attackers screamed “f***ing priest”.
He was left lying on the ground with deep cuts, bruising [...]
Bookworm on Mar 10 2008 | Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Britain, England, Islam, Muslim violence
It wasn’t bad enough that Scotland Yard was probably infiltrated by anti-government Islamist working for the Jihad. That’s carelessness, although probably inexcusable carelessness. Nope. What’s really disgusting is that Britain has announced to the world that an Israeli politician is banned from entering England because he criticized England, while a radical Hezbollah [...]
Bookworm on Feb 28 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England, Health, Medicine
One of Obama’s (and Clinton’s) many sins is the desire to nationalize medicine, so that the government gets to decide who deserves treatment and who doesn’t. Britain, as always, serves as a useful horrible example of what can happen under such a system:
A 61-year-old grandmother has been denied vital heart surgery for being too [...]
Bookworm on Feb 28 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England, Islam
You recall the uproar a few weeks ago when the Archbishop of Canterbury said that it’s unfair for Muslims to have to follow British law and that it would be a good thing to incorporate elements of Sharia law into British law. It turns out that he’s not the only one thinking these thoughts. The [...]
Bookworm on Feb 14 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England, Multiculturalism
I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for England. I adore British history, especially because I’ve always admired its trajectory towards true enlightenment. It had all the bad qualities of other European nations — serfs, Crusades, slavery, inhumane work conditions, etc. — but it always seemed to shake them off sooner [...]
Bookworm on Feb 13 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England, Islam, Law
Two excellent articles out of England about the folly behind the Archbishop’s idea:
Our British laws are there to protect Muslim women
What parallel sharia means in practice
Sphere: Related Content
Bookworm on Feb 13 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England, Muslim violence
I would like to be upset with what the British judge did, but I think he’s right:
The country’s top judge has dealt a significant blow to a key plank of the Government’s anti-terrorism legislation after he overturned the convictions of five Muslim men jailed last year for downloading and sharing extremist terror-related material.
The Lord Chief [...]
Bookworm on Feb 12 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England, Welfare
I don’t really know what to say here. This is just so sad. If I had to guess, I’d say it was a combination of unlimited immigration, unlimited welfare, and the stagnant economy of the socialist state:
More than 2.2 million British children - one in five - now live in households dependent on [...]
Bookworm on Feb 11 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England
Later today, a government’s representative is going to make the following important announcements:
Western governments have “the moral imperative to intervene - sometimes militarily - to help spread democracy throughout the world.”
The same speaker says that “fostering democracy in the Middle East ‘is the best long-term defence against global terrorism and conflict.’”
He feels that keeping democracy [...]
Bookworm on Feb 10 2008 | Filed under: Britain, England, Islam, Law
I was trying to set up a post that selectively quotes from Melanie Phillips’ articles explaining the utter insanity behind the Archbishop of Canterbury’s muddled remarks about bringing sharia law into the British legal system — but I couldn’t. Each paragraph is so information-packed and important that (a) I couldn’t pick what to quote [...]
Bookworm on Feb 09 2008 | Filed under: Britain, Medicine
Britain’s health care system is again having problems. This time, the problem is that physicians are over-prescribing painkillers, causing addictive behavior — and doing so despite strong official guidelines to the contrary. This could just be a medical trend, but one does wonder if it’s also because doctor’s in Britain are no longer very good? [...]
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