Bookworm Room

The only thing I’ll add to the my post title by way of commentary is that this is the America that Obama and the Democrats envision for you, since increased government control inevitably presages the rise of regulations that destroy initiative, innovation and courage: A jobsworth ambulance boss refused to allow his staff to enter [...]

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England is a benefits culture.  The government, although strapped for cash, hands out benefits like candy, and each Briton feels entitled to his or her share.  It’s no wonder, of course.  Not only is there no stigma attached to benefits, there’s no upside to avoiding them.  Already back in the early 1980s, I had a [...]

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After you’ve read this appalling article about Britain’s well-recognized drinking problem, two thoughts:  First, it’s like a Bosch painting come to life.  And second, if you were in England and appalled by what you saw, wouldn’t Islam, a religion that bans alcohol, start to look attractive?

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I gave the post the above title because, in England, even a woman who is a convicted sexual predator gets to keep up her relationship with the victim: A public school music teacher was today jailed for lesbian sex with a 15-year-old pupil – but was given an astonishing green light to continue the ‘affair’ [...]

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All of us have been worried that the Obama Administration, working in tandem with a wildly Democratic Congress, wants to clamp down on freedom of speech.  Heck, in true Orwellian fashion, the House of Representatives has already taken myriad terms off the table for fear that they might be used against their Fearless (albeit whiny) [...]

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We’re getting near the tail-end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that requires dawn to dusk fasting.  Now, I’m a gal who enjoys noshing during the day, so I’m not thrilled about abstaining from food and drink for 10 hours.  I’d be especially unhappy if it was a hot day, ’cause any type of drink [...]

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There is no bliss inherent in the ignorance displayed by one judge in England: A judge lambasted a rapist for claiming his victim was a liar – then commended him for becoming a muslim. Judge Anthony Goldstaub QC sentenced Stuart Wood for seven years for the attack, then told him: ‘You have turned to Islam [...]

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Before their cultural implosion, the English had a reputation for bravery and sangfroid.  Although they are taking a beating in Afghanistan (in large part because the morally bankrupt Labour government refuses to give them necessary support), the troops on the ground are still fighting, dying and showing extraordinary bravery under terrible circumstances: An heroic army [...]

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Today is the 70th anniversary of Germany’s bombing campaign against Poland, the official start of World War II.  I thought, therefore, that this song from 1941′s Babes on Broadway was just right.  It is an explicit tribute to beleaguered Britain, which was, at the only time, not only the sole nation fighting the Nazis, but [...]

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In the post-feudal era, England, at its height, was a nation build on property rights.  Up into the 19th Century, theft was a capital crime.  The 21st Century, however, is characterized by a more “collectivist” attitude that is peculiarly feudal in nature. In the 14th Century, the King was the technical owner of all land.  [...]

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Here, at home, it’s barely news.  In England, it’s a true epidemic, with the current spread and death rate hinting at up to 65,000 deaths as the disease runs its course. Are we in the U.S. hit less hard?  Are we hearing less about how hard we’re hit? I’m asking, but I’m sure not answering, [...]

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Those who are pushing for universal health care here in America might want to take just a second to contemplate what Britain’s National Health Service (“NHS”) is doing in the area of teen sex.  Because Britain has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Europe, which no doubt is quite costly to the NHS, you might [...]

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England has generated a lot of pig headlines lately.  The first round involved Britons actually removing, just thinking about removing, pigs from public sight for fear of offending Muslims.  Those stories were scary in an attenuated fashion, because they symbolized England’s loss of will and her willing submission to a dominant minority. This current round [...]

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England has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Europe.  The British government, faced with this problem, decided to act.  Now, it might have acted by pushing abstinence and seeking ways to encourage intact families.  Concerned, though, that this would have been just too Victorian and moralistic, the British government opted for a different approach:  it [...]

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Britain, which has shown a certain lack of spine when it comes to the Islamists on its shores, nevertheless stood up to Al Qaeda representative Abu Qatata.  Britain, however, is no longer a sovereign nation.  It handed over its sovereignty to the EU, which gets the final say in matters.  And the EU thinks it [...]

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An ardent Thatcherite in England has gotten approval for a statute of Ronald Reagan to be erected outside the U.S. Embassy in London.  Unsurprisingly, given the world in which we live, feelings are mixed — not from the British, but from the current administration: An interior designer from Chelsea who is a leading light in [...]

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Remember how, in a thread a couple of weeks ago, we talked about the fact that there is no middle for European voters?  If they’re concerned about their own governments’ destroying their national cultures, or an unchecked flow of immigrants who (a) game the system and (b) are incredibly hostile to their new host countries, [...]

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Right now, Church of England officials are upset that the BBC’s religious programming department (which is, apparently, a very important department) is going to be headed up by a practicing Muslim.  It is unclear whether he got the position as a result of political correctness or employment mandates, but there he is.  Of course, the [...]

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Picture this:  You’re a believing Christian, and you work for a Christian charity that is under the patronage of your country’s major Christian organization.  One of your colleagues, in a private conversation, asks for yours views about your faith. You say that you’re opposed as a doctrinal matter, but that you don’t personally have a [...]

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When I was growing up, my father was a teacher with a lousy salary and lousy benefits.  The only good thing he had was his dental plan.  It was a wonderful dental plan.  Provided that we got our teeth cleaned and checked twice a year, it would pay the total cost of any dental work [...]

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There’s a row in England over the fact that a kids’ cartoon magazine, published by the Who Cares? Trust, which receives a great deal of public funding, shows a boy wearing a large cross being an Islamophobe, while a hijab clad girl is an articulate, brave defender of human rights.  What struck me about this [...]

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Work demands notwithstanding, I refuse to be the only conservative blog in America that doesn’t post this video of Daniel Hannan, MEP, savaging Gordon Brown’s economic policies — the same policies that Obama seeks to impose here, only on a larger scale.  If this doesn’t have you standing up in your seat, screaming and cheering, [...]

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For three years, a single British hospital that was obsessed with following government health care mandates to the letter, succeeded only in killing 1,200 patients unnecessarily: Twelve NHS trusts are being investigated following a damning report which today slammed ‘appalling’ care at a single hospital. Hundreds of patients may have died after bosses at Staffordshire [...]

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A young British woman, raised in the North of England, escaped her abusive Muslim father and converted to Christianity, a fact that saw her father lead an axe wielding mob clamoring for her death.  She wrote a book about her experience.  When the Times interviewer asked why she didn’t seek help from the authorities, the [...]

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It’s not just that a furious Muslim mob jeered at British soldiers returned home from Iraq and Afghanistan, although that’s bad enough.  What really got me about this story is the picture, about a third of the way down, of the Muslim women who joined in the protest. Again, remember, contary to the meme on [...]

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