Bookworm Room

Tweet The Archbishopric of Canterbury used to be a pretty important job.  The guy who held that position, going back to the earliest Middle Ages, was the premier leader of the English church, whether that church gave allegiance to Rome or the British Monarch.  The current Archbishop, Rowan Williams is, as best as I can [...]

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Tweet I’d like to think this is a joke, but modern Britain being modern Britain, I’m actually sure it’s not.  One can only hope that at least some people will give the correct response to such an intrusive, inappropriate question:  “Bugger off!” Are you straight or gay? Police and nurses to be asked their sexuality [...]

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Tweet Thirty years ago, I went to England through my university’s junior year abroad program.  Although I had visions of walking across Cambridge’s or Oxford’s sun-dappled lawns, I actually ended up in the north of England.  My disappointment swiftly turned to pleasure when I discovered that the north of England was much more “English” than [...]

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Tweet It turns out that the young man who hung on the Union Jack flag in order to climb a cenotaph dedicated to the dead of WWI, a cenotaph that has inscribed on it in large letters “the glorious dead,” has apologized, claiming he knew not what he did. Hogwash. First of all, any halfway [...]

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Tweet In past posts, I’ve noted that it isn’t surprising that British women are converting in surprisingly high numbers to Islam.  In a secularized, socialized, de-moralized Britain (and, by de-moralized, I mean a place remarkably free of traditional morality), the women are pickled in alcohol, and encouraged to have sex at the drop of a [...]

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Tweet Yes, you read that post caption correctly.  British Liberal Democrat Jenny Tonge, in a speech in the House of Lords, claims that terrorism around the world is Israel’s fault, because Israel treats the Palestinian’s badly: On the issue of world conflict prevention, Tonge then said: “It is a disgrace to us all that problems [...]

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Tweet When I studied in England, I did so using money I’d saved from a decade of work (starting when I was ten).  I took care of neighbor’s houses, mowed their lawns, babysat their kids, cleaned their cars, etc.  I had a goal and I worked to pay for it. I was taken completely aback [...]

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Tweet Mohammed is the most popular name for new baby boys. And women, left by their own nation with a spiritual and moral vacuum, and a rare choice of dangerous and demeaning behaviors vis a vis sex, drink and drugs, are converting to Islam in large numbers.

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Tweet My post caption is an exaggeration, but what’s frightening is that it’s only a slight exaggeration, as a government committee really does advise banning meat as part of its push to reduce greenhouse gases.  Right now, it advices using government manipulation to ban these products, but you just know brute force will soon follow: [...]

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Tweet A couple of weeks ago, I ranted about the way bureaucracies are relentless in pursuit of some imaginary perfection.  My focus was health care, but I noted that bureaucracies will always keep going, trying to nail every detail down, so much so that life becomes impossible.  Britain perfectly proves my point about bureaucracies: Local [...]

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Tweet The British government has proposed stealth communism:  all paychecks go to the government first, which then doles out to the wage earner whatever amount the government feels is the wage earner’s due.  Think about it.  As Pat Sajak wrote yesterday, withholding is bad enough, because it deprives the worker of a sense of ownership [...]

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Tweet When I lived in England many, many moons ago, I met an English student who had spent the previous summer working, very, very hard, at the local zoo.  The highlight of his work day was driving around the little kiddy train, and even that wasn’t much fun.  He spent the rest of the time [...]

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Tweet Several years ago, my family and I visited Pompeii, which is one of the most wondrous tourist destinations in the world.  To maximize our experience, we hired a highly recommended guide who walked us over the grounds, explaining everything before us.  This guide’s particular passion was plumbing.  He had no words for the wonders [...]

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Tweet In 1931, Nancy Langhorne Astor’s son Robert Gould Shaw III was arrested for committing a homosexual act (in a park, I believe).  This was a continuation of a long-standing British public policy of prosecuting “sodomists.”  Arguably the most famous prosecution was that against Oscar Wilde, for public indecency.  The trial, scandal and imprisonment destroyed [...]

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Tweet If you want to see what modern socialism looks like, look no further than Britain.  I cannot urge you strongly enough to read this article.  If it is the only thing you read this week, read this article.  Because I read the British papers daily, I can attest to the truth of every fact [...]

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Tweet England is not one of my favorite places anymore, because of the raging antisemitism that characterizes her politics and her street.  Nevertheless, she is our ally and has been our staunch ally for more than a century.  For Obama to abandon her over the Falklands is disgusting.  At Power Line, in a few words, [...]

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Tweet The British, who represent what America will be in 20 years if Obama-stuff continues unchecked, are being offered a way out.  Daniel Hannan, the brilliant British conservative speaker, is hosting a Tea Party.  Here are details.  So far, fewer than 100 people are scheduled to show but that doesn’t mean more won’t show, nor [...]

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Tweet A few days ago, I posted about the fact that, in England, it is illegal to defend yourself against an attack within your own home.  I shouldn’t have gotten so upset about the whole thing.  You see, it seems that I was operating from a ridiculous premise, which is that one actually has legal [...]

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Tweet One of the most basic principles of Anglo-Saxon common law is a homeowner’s right to defend himself against intruders.  Oh, wait!  That’s not quite true anymore.  In England, which practically gave its name to the notion that “a man’s home is his castle,” homeowner self-defense is against the law (emphasis mine): Myleene Klass, the [...]

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Tweet When parents think about what a school should do for their children, they think in terms of the three “Rs,” plus a lovely layering of science, history, and other subjects that maketh a full (and employable) man.  The politically correct Nanny State, however, cares little for education and a great deal for ideology.  It [...]

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Tweet Two views of moral behavior, one from the source, and one from an English divine: God:  Thou shalt not steal.  (Exodus 20:15) A priest in England:  It is far better for people desperate during the recession to shoplift than turn to ‘prostitution, mugging or burglary’. It is true that, under Jewish law, Jews in [...]

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Tweet If I were devising a citizenship test for Great Britain, I can think of some things I would ask.  Broadly, I would ask about her  history (what makes Britain British?), her form of government (details about Parliamentary Democracy), and the duties of a citizen. But you see, I’m not writing the test one needs [...]

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Tweet Britain’s NHS, which is government-run (i.e., Communist) medicine, has, unsurprisingly, Communist outcomes.  Lots of people die unnecessarily in England under the government’s beneficent care: British health care is little better than that of former Communist countries, which spend a fraction of the billions poured into the NHS. A survey published yesterday by the Organisation [...]

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Tweet Disillusioned members of the World War II generation state honestly that, had the England that now exists been the England in 1939, they would not have believed it was a country worth saving.  Most feel that their fellow veterans, those who died in the fight, are rolling in their graves as they look at [...]

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Tweet Just so you know, Britain, the ne plus ultra of single payer care, is having a little bit of death panel trouble: Liver cancer sufferers are being condemned to an early death by being denied a new drug on the Health Service, campaigners warn. They criticised draft guidance that will effectively ban the drug [...]

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