Sympathetic Modern Poetry

This has been doing the rounds in military circles. You may be (my ego tells me) a wider audience:

Just sat here lurking around and thought of a few lines to update the immortal poem:

I went into a gastro pub to get meself a meal,
This pay as you dine you see it ain’t no real good deal.
The quality is pretty pish, and quantities are dire,
Whoever got rid of t’Catering Corps, has left us in the mire:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy is well paid";
But nobodies getting shot at Westminster, they’re just getting laid-
There ain’t no band begins to play, my boys, which means we have less medics,
And boys get harmed in Snatches and still there are few credits.

I were sent into a war as lairy as could be,
Wi’ no proper role or kit, and nobody backing me;
They sent me to Afghanistan or into South Iraq,
But there weren’t ever near enough of us, to get ‘em back on track!!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy get on wi’ it";
But there’s "No more money in the pot," when the fan is hit by s***-
The fan is hit by s***, my boys, the fan is hit by s***,
It's "Carry on and do your best”, when the fan is hit by s***.

Those lads that you depend on, and fund them on the cheap,
You treat ‘em all like s*** and bugger the mission creep;
Don’t worry that they live in slums, and will do yet for years,
Why should we treat ‘em any different, why care about their fears,

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy 'ow's yer life?"
Well life is crap he says, according to the wife-
Life is crap he says, she’s gone home to mum, I’ve said goodbye t’wife ,
O life it's crap he says, when JPA fucks up your life.

No one likes us, what do you care, when we’re back in camp,
Trying to * your daughters, drinking, and swinging on a lamp;
But we save your arrse so many times, and do your dirty deeds,
But all you do is cut the money, and it’s our family that bleeds:

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy plug that dyke,"
But it's "Please to fill those sandbags, sir," when there's flooding and the like-
And fight those fires, my boys, you cannot go on strike,
Do some other fuckers dirty work, covered in the dung and shite,
When foot and mouth, or other mess becomes the country’s plight.

You talk of cuts, reorganisations, savings and the like;
But it’s getting to the point where we’ll all be on our bike.
Sort out the quarters and the compensation, and prove it to our face,
Give us our own hospital, your treatment of our wounded is an absolute disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "the best little Army that there be!"
But the Covenant is nearly busted; Labour’s done that to us don’t you see?
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' platitudes to appease;
But Tommy, he ain’t blind - you bet that Tommy sees!

The author is a poster on Arrse, "Minnesota_Viking" and can be found here.

Hello Girly

This is just so much fun.

To boost sales, Sanrio has also recently launched a slightly raunchy range where Hello Kitty cheekily displays her knickers.

Errm. Hum. "Missing the Point"^(TM) (and ^dot.com)

We (blokes) don't give a shit about the cartoon kitten. Really. Honest. Swear it on our mothers'¹ graves and all. The whole ****ing point was always to get young² females to display their knickers. Normally, it has to be said, by throwing them artistically over their shoulders while yelling "Take me, big³ boy".

While researching this article, your scribe would like to admit being slightly surprised by the "Hello Kitty" vibe, moderately embarrassed by the "Hello Kitty" panty liners, but this (NSFW) was fine.

Update: This is even better. The "Hello Kitty assault rifle". I know I can't have one but ...


Update 2: Here is the home for all men (or women, though they are somewhat rarer) who cannot get their brains around the phenomena that is "Hello Kitty". Welcome to "Hello Kitty Hell".

1. Once we've killed 'em for the 'surance, 'course.

2. But legal. Honest!

3. Yeh, I know. "Fat chance". Thanks.

More interfering poliscum.

Would you not just leave well alone?

Scottish banknotes should be legally protected in England to stop them being rejected, it has been claimed.

Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrats' Scottish affairs spokesman, said it was time for a change.

The status of Scottish notes as "Bills of Exchange" is absolutely fine. People generally take them off me, without no problems in the last 5 years (and that one was brand new). They clearly recognise you as horribly shifty and fundamentally untrustworthy - i.e. a politician. Which shows how good a judge of character most people are!

Finally a quiz

That says the "Right Things"^(TM) about me. "Right", in this (and every other) case of course meaning that it agrees with what I think, rather than bearing any perceivable relationship to reality (h/t Martin):

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 60% Conservative, 40% Liberal Social Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal Personal Responsibility: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Defense and Crime: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

This one, getting back to normal, is off by at least 47¹/₂% - or, maybe, it is the effect of Christmas (or the gin!):

You Are 52% Cynical

Yes, you are cynical, but more than anything, you're a realist. You see what's screwed up in the world, but you also take time to remember what's right.

How Cynical Are You?

PS - I really, really loath Internet Explorer. "Working" - that's the excuse for not watching endless "Morecombe & Wise" Xmas "Special"s on DVD, anyway - on my father-in-law's box which is just about coping with running W2K and IE6. Yuck.

Poliscum

What is it about politicians that they find the concept of "property rights" so difficult to get hold of? Tim blogged about the effects of the tragedy of the commons on the "Common Fisheries Policy" and now Wee Alex has apparently said (of the Lewis chess set):

he found it unacceptable that the pieces were scattered around the UK.

That would be, Alex, because they are owned by different organisations or people - who can freely choose where and how they are kept. I can understand why the people of Lewis would quite like them back but you are hardly going to be spending your own dosh getting them back, are you?

PS - What game of chess do you play with 93 pieces? Not the one I learned, that's for sure.

Light blogging

While I spend Christmas hiding from the monster-in-law (and her cooking). Still, pretty much anything is edible after a 1/2 bottle of gin :(

Amazon "Explore Dissimilar Items" Utility

Okay, so the great office cleanup continues and, as absolutely appropriate for the last working day before the holiday, our cheap shredder packs in. So we need a new one.

Amazon is a surprisingly good source of office kit (best value, we have found, for printer spares), so worth a try. An initial search troughs up a piece of Draper kit - which looks less tough than the one that just expired.

"Explore Similar Items" - worth a try? You tell me!



Back to "Google is your friend", which takes me to this, which will do until I can convince Mrs S-E that her company needs to buy one of these:

A Blast from My Past

Helping Mrs S-E clear up our shared office space, I came across this little ditty from my ancient (so ancient it has been run off on a Gestetner machine - remember them?) past:

In the beginning was the Plan. And with the Plan, at the start of all, were the Assumptions.

And the Assumptions were without form and the Plan was completely without substance.

And the darkness was on the face of the workers and they spoke unto the Heads of their Departments saying "It is a crock of shit and it sinketh unto the very heavens!"

And the Heads of Department went unto the Area Manager and sayeth thus: "It is a pail of dung and none may abide the odour thereof."

And the Area Manager went unto the Divisional Director and sayeth unto him "It is a container of excrement and it is very strong, so strong such that that none here may abide by it."

And the Divisional Director went unto the Employee Relations Manager and said unto her, "The voices of the workers have spoken and they say that the Plan is a vessel of fertilizer and none may abide its strength."

And the Employee Relations Manager went most speedily unto the Human Resources Director and sayeth, "It contains that which aideth plant growth and it is mightily strong."

And the Human Resources Director crept on his belly to the Managing Director, for such is the way of the servants of HR, and said thusly: "It promoteth growth and it is very powerful."

And the Managing Director did meet with the Board, upon the very heights of heaven, and the minutes were engraven on tablets of the whitest marble and the record did show that he spake thusly: "This powerful new Plan will actively promote the growth and efficiency of the division and of this area in particular."

And the Board did gaze upon the vastness of the Plan and ignoreth all of the Assumptions. And they believed that the Plan was good and so the Plan became Policy.

And the stench became most mighty and the Assumptions were thrown down. Yet the workers laboured still in the reek, complaining bitterly.

Clegg Scuppers Bid for Democrat Nomination

In a move that probably won't surprise Lib-Dim supporters used to their leaders doing everything they can to prevent the party gaining even the faintest sniff of power, newly anointed poster child and amateur cat herder, Nick Clegg, scuppered his chances of the Democratic Party nomination as US Presidential candidate by admitting his atheism:

"I have enormous respect for people who have religious faith, I'm married to a Catholic and am committed to bringing my children up as Catholics.

"However, I myself am not an active believer, but the last thing I would do when talking or thinking about religion is approach it with a closed heart or a closed mind."

ProGoditarian party hopeless and mind-numbingly dull author Jeffery Archer impersonator, Bloke Hickathingy called for Clegg's immediate lynching as a "disgrace to lying poliscoundrels everywhere" later adding that, if this sort of honesty caught on, he would have to hire more professional liars PR people. Well known extreme cultist and low flying Clinton wannabee, Twit Dimley added, "There shall be no religious test for elected politicians. Ain't it peachy the Founding Fathers never heard of my lot. I thank Smith that this atheist scum Plugg will never be elected to any office of insignificance."

Current President, His Imperial Chimpness W the Junior, refused to comment but a spokesman later informed this channel "It's not his fault. Dick's a Republican. He knows you should light cigars. No interns were harmed in the making of this mistake."

Highly successful caretaker leader, Vince Forgotten-His-Name Already, criticised his new leader for using a single word answer to any question.

A survey for this channel discovered that 93% of British Archbishops really, really didn't care and were getting back to putting the Christmas cards up as soon as we got off the phone.

The Tautology of the Minimalist Socialist State

Alex Hilton is in a fairly significant huff having been the subject of an unusual breach of civility from the normally mild Iain Dale. (Ed notes: because Alex is a lefty blogging twat, of course.) Now, normally, I would completely ignore this declaration of all out war from one of nu-Labour's highly trained pygmy attack shrews, even one who is a demiclone of the Millibore.

But, being slightly bored and even more averse to finding some housework to do, I decided to wade into the morass of imbecility that is "Comment is Free" (Ed notes: "of Sense, Substance and Spelling") and see just what had provoked Iain's ire. I found it here.

Now plenty of people have already embarked on pointed critiques of this obviously-still-hungover metro-socialist drivel. I particularly loved richmanchester's comment on the clear priorities of the C19 down-trodden - Alex was quite obviously right in his certainty that the agricultural labourers of Tolpuddle were martyred (although they weren't, exactly, they were transported not hung, but that is the sobriquet that history has bequeathed them) and the Manchester and Salford Trades Council organised the first Trades Union Congress for:

social causes against racism, sexism and homophobia

Still, what actually makes this a work of virulent knobbery is not his assertion (in the best Neil Harding or Kezia Dugdale "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie - out, out - err, oh - still her fault" mode) that Toryism is evil - it is his entirely unwarranted contention that socialist does not imply statist. While I will admit that socialist does, absolutely, not require authoritarian (nagging is enough), the basic underlying socialist principles require a larger and a more interfering state than libertarian or even conservative ones. I would recommend Chris Dillow's excellent book "The End of Politics" to anybody interested in this.

From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need."

Karl Marx, 1875, "Critique of the Gotha Programme"

The basic principles of modern British socialism, because that is what the Milliclone was whittering about - communal ownership (of labour, values and aspirations, as well as capital), redistributive (if not actually punitive) taxation, of equality of outcomes rather than equality of opportunities - these all require state interference. And for the state to effectively interfere, it must set targets and it must measure against them. And that takes people - non-productive, inefficient people and, in Britain at least, relatively highly paid and very well pensioned. And, because of the inefficiency, it is not about raising the standards of my local secondary school until they are the same as Eton - or of the laughably named "Adam Smith College" until it is the same as Edinburgh - regardless of the amount of money thrown at them. Unfortunately it is about dragging down excellence to mediocrity, about ensuring that the pampered child of the doting middle class has no better start in life than drug-dependent child of a serially-engaged benefit junkie.

So the size of the state increases, as does the number of people dependent on its direct beneficence. As the number of people who depend on the state increases, so do the arbitrary ways that it can wield its power. Soon, it will wield the state's ultimate sanction, death, for merely trying to help yourself.

Now, he tries to justify himself by referring to the "free market". This is, of course, making the usual politico's confusion between the political term "free market" - i.e. no interference from government - and the much more important term, as far as economics is concerned, "efficient market". The purpose of an efficient market is to reach the optimum balance of exchange between seller and purchaser. Clearly, governments can interfere with this - for reasons good, arbitrary and bad. There are many other things that also interfere - poor communications (especially for perishable goods), inefficient transportation, criminality of all sorts (although how exactly you differentiate this from political activity, I leave as a matter for the reader) and social or cultural pressures. Pretending that "government involvement" in a market, or the lack of it, is the sole governor of market behaviour is abrogating far more effect to our politicos that they deserve but, then, that's Alex for you.

Ed Clarke and His Imperial Satanic Majesty both have thoughtful (and, obviously, for DK, somewhat sweary) posts on state centralisation - read them. Ed does slightly miss the point though - it isn't Tesco-isation. Tesco, for all its faults (and, if you happen to be reading this anyone from Tesco in Cumbernauld - you are going downhill fast, especially for fresh fruit and meat - but that may just be location, location, location) is not a bad supermarket - as its profits show. The food is reasonable, there is variety of qualities and quantities, they provide free ATMs and a reasonable invasive snoopery incentive scheme. What you were actually searching for, Sir, is NAAFI-isation. Now, anybody who has ever been in a Naafi shop in the UK, Germany or Iraq knows just how bad they generally are. About the only thing you can say that they generally have a reasonable selection of a trashy CD players and lads magazines. Opening hours are shite and prices are high. British government run, you see - it isn't inevitable - the various US PXs range from the surprisingly nice to the absolutely superb, the Canadian CANEX system is really effective (if never the size of the Yank malls) and the charity ECHOS restaurants are amazing.

You see, all twat's "modern british socialism" boils down to is an endless kiddy's whine of "it's not fair", backed up by all the coercive power of the modern bureaucratic state. I'll answer it the same way I do my son: that's right. Life isn't fair. Grow up and get on with it.

The Tories aren't evil - government is evil. That is why we need to restrict it to the minimum necessary to ensure a viable state.

Iraqi Interpreters Speak

From, without wishing to be rude, the "horses' mouths":

The two interpreters in Syria described why they had to flee for their lives.

"Three guys with machine guns attacked me inside my house," Latif told me, "and of course they knew I was an interpreter.

"They stole everything but I begged them to leave my family alone. They said - we're going to take your son ... imagine the terror of that!"

Latif had worked for the British for three years and it was only because the militia heard that soldiers were in the area that they ran out of his house and his son was saved.

"We feel the British forces are responsible for our lives," said Amir, whose father had insisted he leave before the militias put a bullet in his heart.

"We need asylum anywhere, but we hope it could be Britain."

With thanks to Panorama. Now go and visit Dan and then write to your MP.

Divide and Conquer

One of the tools abused endlessly by the charlatans that rule us is "special treatment" (good or bad) for specific groups. After all, we are all "minorities" if you slice the cake thin enough ... (for an example "reductio ad absurdum" Oxbridge and Eton educated multi-millionaire Dukes are not exactly common!)

So I wasn't too surprised to notice, yesterday, several copies of a huge poster bemoaning assault and violence against workers and pointing out that such is a crime. Of course it is. Assault and violence against anybody (and, in some cases, animals, inanimate property and even politicians) is a crime. You are not even allowed to beat the maliciously indigent (I can see the opportunity for an unpleasantly populist change in the law, here) So why single out workers (apart from the fact that they probably are a minority in the blighted socialist wasteland of Falkirk)?

It doesn't matter. It really doesn't. It is the split by specificity that matters. Take detention without charge. The mendacious statists have got it from all sides with their latest plan to increase the detention for terrorism suspects to 42 / 56 / 90 (I forget which number they are trying now) days. Liberty and Amnesty, as you would reasonably expect; the Guardian & senior Labour figures, quite properly but slightly more surprisingly; Polly, her very self; right wingers; left wingers; the previous Lord Chancellor; Tories and Lib-Dims etc, etc. Almost universal condemnation. Why?

Well, not just because it is illiberal and unjustified. Because we all know, like the Serious and Organised Crime Act, that laws initially announced to apply just to terrorists (aka, unless you are Spanish, Islamists, at the current time) will soon be extended to apply to paedophiles (and there won't be too many prepared to speak up for them), murder suspects and, eventually, those merely guilty of embarrassing (or merely interrupting) our politicians.

Divide and conquer. We need to take a stand, one and all, at each and every attempt to diminish our human rights. Guantanamo & extraordinary rendition; suspension of habeas corpus; extended detention without charge; electoral sleaze; banning protests at Parliament - all great ideas of Gordon and his mates.

Update: And I forgot to add - the use of RIPA Part III (whether actually decryption or key requests) against non-violent animal rights activists as opposed to terrorists (Islamist or ALF) or kiddy-fiddlers.

Dolly the Socialist?

I can't be the first to have spotted this remarkable likeness. Enquiring minds want to know just what has Professor Wilmut been up to?

Perhaps it wasn't Dolly's shortened life that persuaded him that cloning was not yet safe?

So on our left we have Iain's "lefty blogging twat" and on the right we have Gordon's spineless blogging poodle.

Mind boggles.

Thank God it's Christmas soon. Some (Nigerian?) punter reached here (no, I don't know why here, of all places) with this Google search:

online private email contact of new barristers in london that has not receive scam in 2007

Luckily, as this site doesn't contain the email contact details of any barristers in London (as far as I am aware), none of you are going to receive more 419 emails as a result of this. But I'm sure you'll get them regardless and many of you will deserve them!

Oh, for fucks sake!

Can the turkeys at HMRC not stop embarrassing the country for a couple of weeks, at least? Now, losing a couple of CDs is relatively easy - I have no idea where mine of the Berlin Philharmonic performing the 1812 overture is. They're not big and they're weren't being handled "securely". But this:

Contraband seized by customs officers has gone missing from a secure depot close to Coventry airport.

Police have been called in to search for the goods which disappeared from the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) store before last weekend.

A HMRC spokesman refused to comment on claims drugs, firearms and passports may have gone missing.

Utterly useless cunts. The mind boggles. Let me see, perhaps, "A junior official forgot to lock the door". Still, no chance of any minister resigning over this, or any other, fuck-up.

Much as I appreciate

the cite (Ed notes: any cite - he'll pimp^* for Technorati "authority"), why did a rant of mine appear here:

A Victory for Common Sense?

http://booksnws.com/?p=2385

9 days ago in Lesbian and Gay Novels · Authority: 5

A Victory for Common Sense? By Surreptitious Evil(Surreptitious Evil) … Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, told the Times he did not think the case should have reached court."Many young people download objectionable material from the internet, but it seems if ...

I have not even pretended to write a novel - never mind a "Lesbian and Gay" one.

* Well, I do have my pride.

Why would anyone?

I was unsubscribing from receiving ITV spam (and, for reasons best left unsaid, using Internet Explorer to do so) when I saw this:


Now, what would possess anybody to "click here"?

Update: if you click on the picture it does become readable.

RIP NHS BlogDoc?

I hope not but this?

If so it is be a tragedy for his friends and family and a significant loss to the UK blogging community.

I wait to see ...

Update: Dizzy thinks it's all a wah. I hope so. Just an idiot with a bad taste joke.

Update 2: As of 9th Jan 2008, he is back and blogging.

Who ate all the pies?

Charlie did!

Give up and just give the mutt his gong. And then go here and enjoy :)

On the Chain-Gang

Well, let's see if we can keep it going. Meta-meta-meta-blogging.

Update: Meta-meta-meta-meta-blogging?

Control Freak states Obvious

Well, well. We didn't know that, did we:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown ... told Commons committee chairmen that public and private firms had to come to terms with IT security issues.

But, just remember, deh Gubbinmunt does it better.

As I Can Turn Back Time

No, not the musical (if slightly plastic) one:



Lo, "Feel The Power of Socialism" ^(TM) as the very sun obeys my duly elected democratic mandate to be an utter moonbat:

Venezuela creates its own unique time zone on Sunday, putting the clock back half-an-hour on a permanent basis.

President Hugo Chavez says that an earlier dawn means the performance of the country will improve, as more people will wake up in daylight.

...

The time change is the latest in a series of reforms implemented by President Chavez, who has already changed the country's name, coat of arms and flag.

At least he hasn't gone completely gaga (yet) and changed the names of any months to honour his mother (although, the way he is going, the huge gilded statue is probably not too far off.)

However, you don't have to go as far as Latin American proto-fascists for this sort of idiocy. We breed them locally, too - Update:

Energy Saving (Daylight)

Mr. Tim Yeo, supported by Mr. Crispin Blunt, Peter Bottomley, Sir John Butterfill, Mr. David Chaytor, Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory, Mr. David Kidney, Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews, Lembit Opik, Richard Ottaway, Dr. Desmond Turner, Mr. John Whittingdale and Sir George Young, presented a Bill to advance time by one hour throughout the year to create lighter evenings, for an experimental period; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 7 March, and to be printed [Bill 21].

Look. It is simple. The sun reaches its zenith at astronomical noon. Yes, for convenience, we slice the world up into hour or half-hour chunks. Everything else is just human behaviour. And we know how competent governments are at regulating that.

WTFF?

Were CAB doing with 60,000 records on a sodding laptop? I thought these were local centres, managed by experienced volunteers. Why aggregate the case records? Why on a laptop?

'Tis claimed the data was encrypted. That may be a saving grace but it is not an excuse. Morons.

News at 10 and other cultures.

Oh, this surprised me (online here):

Three out of the five British residents imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay may be back in the UK before Christmas.

Like, err, 'Christmas' would matter to a devout Muslim of Salafist or Wahhabi ilk? Or maybe they have a booking on "Liverpool Nativity".

Update: edited for mong spelling of "Salafist".

Clearly a mistranslation

Via somewhere (apologies) to el Beeb:

the grand old man of French letters, 89-year-old novelist and French Academy member Maurice Druon, who in a blistering retort accused Mr Morrison of confusing "culture and entertainment."

"Culture is not determined by this week's box-office returns. Culture takes place over the duration," said Mr Druon, who noted that it was the "fourth or fifth" occasion on which he's taken up arms over the years to disprove an alleged "Death of French Civilisation".

"Disprove"? I don't see any "proof" here. I see a statement - possibly (iff you are French) an authoritative statement. Bit like the Pope speaking ex cathedra, I think or, if you wish to be logical about it, the fallacy of the "argument from authority".

I have to say that I agree with Mr Druon that commercial value does not equal culture (but then neither is brass rubbing.) On the other hand, Mr Morrison clearly has a point that, even if you allow for those starving in garrets in Montmartre, there doesn't appear to be too much recently of lasting artistic or cultural merit from across La Manche.

More Search Engine Sniggering

Apart from the usual incredulity that, of all of the places on the great wide interwebby thing, they should end up here, some words of advice:

"nadine" brick car accident

You may not like her but that's no reason to be violent. Oh, and I forgot, putting quotes around a single word in a Google search is nugatory.

tate & lyle + phosgene production unit

Clearly the next BMA campaign to restrict our life choices. "Don't eat sugar, it's made with poison gas."

reader for hdsd

Took me a while to find one, but the Transcend M2 seems to work for me. Available here. Haven't tried the M3.

royal navy tartan

Unlike Army Regiments, the RN doesn't have an official tartan. Where you are permitted to wear the kilt (Mess Undress and Mess Dress, IIRC), you should wear your own tartan. If you are not entitled, then see if you can get permission to wear the regimental tartan of an affliated Scottish (or Scots Canadian) Regiment.

Update: for mistyping and M3 link.

A Victory for Common Sense?

This, it seems to me, is good news. However, there is always a sting in the special-pleading-because-we-are-the-religion-of-peace tale:

Muhammed Abdul Bari, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, told the Times he did not think the case should have reached court.

"Many young people download objectionable material from the internet, but it seems if you are a Muslim then this could lead to criminal charges, even if you have absolutely no intention to do harm to anyone else.

To paraphrase then - if young people download objectionable material from the internet and that material is illegal merely to possess under the laws of the United Kingdom and they are Muslim then they shouldn't be prosecuted.

As opposed, say, to secular paedophiles - who, mostly, also intend to do no harm to anyone else. But because harm is involved in the creation of the material, in exactly the same way as terrorist videos of bombings that kill innocent children or offering praise and succour to those terrorists, we criminalise it.

Of course, we could try her under Sharia law, where, as a woman, her evidence would be discounted and a "suspended sentence" is hanging?

BBC Inconsistent in Terror 'News'

Compare and contrast this:

On Tuesday, thousands of Spaniards paid their respects to the dead officer in Madrid under a banner which read "For freedom and the defeat of Eta".

With this "On this Day":

ETA carried out its last fatal attack in May 2003.

The group declared a permanent ceasefire on 22 March 2006.

Update your propaganda, please. If you have to have it up there at all, make it consistent.

Two Worrying Driving Schools

Both local:

• "Happy Hour" - I mean, I know we're all supposed to be alkies^* up here, but ...
• "On-Board Training" - as Mrs S-E said, as opposed to 'Buggered off and left you to get on with it' Training?
  

^* Don't worry, it's 'for' antifreeze not 'is' antifreeze.