However, the decision does clearly send out a totally wrong message to terrorists that Scotland and the UK remain soft touches. And the cowardice is further demonstrated disgustingly by the politically correct BBC, prattling on about “people not caring what happened a generation ago” and a former UK Ambassador to Libya stating that if we didn’t release this man “Libya would look askance at the UK”. Puerile nonsense. Why send our brave soldiers to die in Afghanistan, ostensibly to “nip terrorism in the UK in the bud”, while we release a man who is convicted of 270 terrorist murders ?

And of course the naivety and gullibility of politicians desperate to appear humane is beyond belief. The Scottish government was reportedly given assurances that the convicted murderer’s return to Libya would be low-key. So what happens ? Well surprise, surprise, last night he landed at Tripoli’s Mitiga Airport (above) to a hero’s welcome as thousands greeted him waving flags – some even waving Scottish flags - and posters. Now the average bloke in the street or in the pub could have told you well in advance that such a piss-take was bound to happen. So when the bloody hell are our mealy-mouthed politicians going to wake up and realise that we’re dealing with people who regard “compassion” as weakness ? And if this convicted murderer is walking about Tripoli in a year’s time after having made a miraculous recovery, what will Kenny MacAskill’s explanation be then ?

In Malaysia a Muslim model will receive 6 strokes from a rattan cane after admitting in an Islamic court to the “crime” of drinking beer in a bar. Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno (pictured above) said yesterday that she asked Malaysian authorities to punish her in public instead of in a prison, but they refused to go against official procedures. Shukarno is scheduled to be the first woman in this Muslim-majority country to be flogged under Islamic law after she was arrested in a raid and sentenced by a sharia court for drinking alcohol at a hotel lounge last year. “I want to send a message that I really regret what I did, so I want to be punished in front of other people,” Kartika said in a telephone interview from her northern home state of Perak. “If other Muslims can see me being caned, I hope it will convince them not to drink.” What a load of bollocks. And this is the kind of medieval nonsense that idiots like the Archbishop of Canterbury would like to see in the UK when they advocate the adoption of Sharia Law here.

The mother of Caster Semenya (pictured above) has hit out at claims that her daughter’s win in the Women’s 800 metres final at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin was invalid because she is a man. The Athletics authorities have asked South Africa to test the 18-year-old’s gender, after her muscular physique and extraordinary performances sparked speculation over whether she was really female. But her mother, Dorcus Semenya, defended the athlete’s victory in Germany. “I am not even worried about that because I know who and what my child is. Mokgadi Caster is a girl and no one can change that,” she said. Fair enough, Mrs Semenya – this blog isn’t saying that your daughter’s a man – all we’re saying is that in a certain light she looks like a man.

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Aug202009

LET’S DOUBLE OUR SALARIES INSTEAD OF FIDDLING EXPENSES

Posted by Caledonian Jim in Daily Posts

In the UK a senior Conservative Party opposition Member of Parliament (MP) threatened to reignite the row over parliamentary expenses yesterday with a call for MP’s annual salaries to be doubled. Sir Patrick Cormack (pictured above), who made a failed bid to become the House of Commons Speaker earlier this year, said in a submission to the committee on standards in public life that MPs should receive the increase, from £64,766 to more than £130,000 a year, in return for scrapping their controversial second-homes allowance. The MP for Staffordshire South acknowledged that the proposal could be seen as “politically unacceptable”, but insisted he had “reluctantly” concluded that it was the “best way to restore public confidence in parliament.”

Are these guys for real ? At a time when the average bloke is struggling to pay the bills, desperate to keep his job, fighting the bank manager and staving off repossession, we’ve got a cretin who thinks that “standards in public life” and “public confidence” will be enhanced by doubling MP’s salaries to compensate them for no longer being allowed to fiddle their expenses. It’s high time the entire stable of self-seeking, out of touch, arrogant, greedy MP’s was mucked out and the stench of their corruption in a time of economic retrenchment washed away.

Google has been ordered to reveal the name of an anonymous blogger who bad-mouthed Liskula Cohen (pictured above), a New York model, in a case that could restrict Americans’ ability to slag off people on the internet. A New York state supreme court judge that Cohen was entitled to know the identity of the person who maligned her alleged sexual practices, hygiene and appearance on a blog titled “Skanks in NYC”, in order to pursue a defamation suit. The now defunct blog, which appeared on the Google subsidiary Blogger.com, threatened to cost her bookings, her lawyer said, because the page was readily available through an internet search of her name. Google refused to reveal the author’s identity so Cohen could sue for defamation, citing the company’s privacy policy. Cohen asked a New York court to intervene. The blogger fought to remain anonymous, saying the words were opinion and mere “trash talk”. The Judge disagreed and found Cohen may insist in a suit that the statements are factually inaccurate, but needs the blogger’s name to do so. “The thrust of the blog was that Cohen is a sexually promiscuous woman,” the Judge wrote in her decision.

So Google turned over the blogger’s e-mail address, and Cohen said she immediately recognised it as a woman she knew from the New York party scene. “She’s an irrelevant person in my life,” Cohen said on ABC television’s Good Morning America. “She’s just somebody that, whenever I would go out to a restaurant, to a party in New York City – she was just that girl that was always there.” Cohen said she phoned the woman and forgave her, but the woman had yet to apologise. Her attorney said the decision would send a message to bloggers about the limits of permissible internet speech. Well firstly, if Ms Cohen was inclined to forgive, why did she bother finding out the name of the blogger in the first place ? And looking at the wider issues in relation to the “limits of permissable internet speech” – well I don’t think the World Wide Web should be constrained in these matters by either US attorneys or publicity seeking airhead socialites.

In Gaza the governing group Hamas has made its first feature film, “Imad Aqel” (billboard above). Many of the actors are reportedly Hamas members and, since the movie was finished, 4 of them have been killed in an Israeli attack. The film began showing at a cultural centre in Gaza at the weekend. Shot on the grounds of Gnai Tal, one of the Jewish settlements evacuated in 2005 when Israel withdrew from the territory, it is a 2 hour, action-packed thriller celebrating the life and martyrdom of Aqel, a commander of the Hamas military wing who topped Israel’s most-wanted list. According to newspaper reports, the line that elicits the biggest cheer from the Gazan audience is when one of the characters declares: “To kill Israeli soldiers is to worship God.” That should ensure that the film gets shown soon, with regular repeats thereafter, on the fashionably pro-Hamas and anti-semitic BBC. Whether the licence payers like it or not.

In Italy bank vaults may soon resemble delicatessen cellars if a plan goes ahead to accept expensive wines (above) and dry-cured hams as collateral on bank loans. The idea, which was launched this week by an influential Italian bank chairman and wine producer, was backed by an Italian minister and follows the tradition of Italian banks storing massive wheels of parmesan cheese as loan collateral. “We’ve done it with cheese, why not with prosciutto and good wines like Brunello di Montalcino and chianti classico?” said Gianni Zonin, chairman of the Banca Popolare di Vicenza and head of wine producer Zonin. “This is a great idea, it has my blessing,” said Luca Zaia, the Italian agriculture minister. Now I’m seeing my bank manager next week – where did I store that tin of broken biscuits ?

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