Thursday, August 31, 2017

Brexit: I Am Smiling From Ear To Ear!

EU Brexit negotiators were left “flabbergasted” after their British counterparts launched a legal deconstruction of the so-called “Brexit bill” Wednesday as the Brussels talks headed for an increasingly acrimonious impasse, EU sources have told The Telegraph.
British negotiators spent three hours launching a painstaking, line-by-line rebuttal of the EU’s demands for €100bn divorce settlement to the barely concealed fury of EU negotiators.
"There was total amazement,” the EU source said, “Everyone was completely flabbergasted that this young man from Whitehall was saying that the EU's preparation on the financial settlement was 'inadequate'. It did not go down well."

Good Grief!

12-Y-O Boy Allegedly Told to 'Turn the Other Cheek' After Reporting Rape at Elite Christian School.

brentwood-academy
Brentwood Academy, an elite private Christian school in Tennessee where annual tuition is nearly $25,000 is now facing a $30 million lawsuit alleging that school officials failed to report the repeated rape of a 12-year-old boy by older male students. Headmaster Curtis G. Masters is also accused of telling the victim to "turn the other cheek" when he reported the abuse.

ISIS & Stolen Art.

The Underworld of ISIS Art Smugglers

By , CP Cartoonist | 
Two art traders involved in a trading network that sells millions of dollars worth of ancient art and artifacts stolen by the Islamic State have shared details behind how valued pieces of Iraqi and Syrian history went from the hands of cold-blooded terrorists to collectors in the West.
In interviews with The Wall Street Journal, Syrian art traders, defectors and antiquities experts helped explain how the terrorist group profited handsomely from an international supply chain that is flipping antiquities, relics and artifacts looted by the group and made lucrative profits possible.

Please, Please, Please AND Good Riddance!

Soubry could quit Tories over Brexit.

First Conservative MP breaks ranks as David Miliband intervenes in the Brexit debate with call for vote on exit deal Aol.

London Always Takes The Lion's Share Of The Cash!

James Austin, Sheffield. Yorks Post.

After living in Sheffield and regularly taking trains to Manchester, Liverpool and Doncaster, I am often left disappointed by the slow running services which cost me an arm and a leg. The rolling stock is old and dilapidated (especially on the Sheffield to Doncaster route) but they also smell.
HS2 is not going to solve these problems any time soon. What we need is a connected train network that links up Northern cities. I can get a train to London quicker than I can get to Liverpool, now this is nuts.
If we really want a Northern Powerhouse this issue must be resolved quickly. I love train travel, but with more money being spent down South, coupled with a poor service and increasing fares I’ll be forced to travel by car.

Sick Little Labour MP.

Birdie.

India: Bishop Slams Freedom Of Religion Problems.

A prominent Indian bishop is speaking out against his country's crackdown on freedom of religion as another state passed anti-conversion laws.
Joseph D'Souza, moderating bishop of the Good Shepherd Church and president of the All India Christian Council, warns the legislation will 'sully the image of India globally' and foster division not unity.
Compassion India ran dozens of projects for thousands of children before it became a victim of India's crackdown and was forced to leave.Compassion International
It comes after the state government in Jharkhand, northern India, joined seven others in passing a new 'freedom of religion bill' which D'Souza described as a 'cleverly disguised anti-conversion law' in an article for the Washington Times.
'A majoritarian political appeasement and religious homogeneity, which the anti-conversion laws promote, is a step toward division, not unity,' he writes. 'These bills increase local misuse of the law and attacks on Christians and churches by extremists. They sully the image of India globally.'
He accuses both President Nahendra Modi's BJP and Congress parties of supporting these laws which mean anyone found guilty of the vague crime of converting people could be sentenced to a minimum three years in jail.
'Barring the general justification that these laws are intended to protect vulnerable people from fraudulent conversion through "allurement" or "coercion," there's no doubt the primary suspects and assumed perpetrators are Christians' he writes.
'Implicit in the anti-conversion laws is the assumption that there's a foreign Christian agenda to convert Indians and that the tribals and Dalits — also known as "untouchables" — are especially susceptible to conversion schemes.
'Perhaps the anti-conversion laws stem out of a suspicion against Christianity based on the history of colonial British rule; or perhaps they're fueled out of a fear that religion will split the country, as it did during the India-Pakistan partition.'
But he goes on to say Christians do not condone forced or fake conversions and themselves promote people's right to choose their faith.
'There's no schism between being a Christian and an Indian,' he writes, arguing India's booming economy will be hindered unless religious freedom is instilled.
It comes after he told Christian Today there was a lot of colonial baggage associated with Christianity in India and at the heart of the BJP's Hindu nationalism is a concern for the unity and integrity of India.
The overwhelming fear is of another split, like the 1947 partition to form the Pakistan-India border that left more than 1 million people dead in savage inter-communal rioting and massacres, he said.
'At the heart of the colonial baggage is the dis-membership of India based on religion,' he told Christian Today.
'Unfortunately movements for independence are in the north where there are also many Christians.
'What right-wing Hindu groups in India fear is if Christians grow there will be another Pakistan.'
But he insists Indian Christians like himself want to be part of a unified India. 'We never again want another Pakistan.
'Extremist elements of Hinduism have to be very careful they themselves do not polarise India on the basis of religion.' Christian Today.

Jehovah Jireh.

Oh No - Not More Good News On The Export Front!

DOUBLE WHAMMY OF MANUFACTURING GOOD NEWS

Remember when they said a Leave vote would ruin British manufacturing? Aston Martin today announces a trade and investment deal with Japan worth £500 million. The luxury car manufacturer will massively expand its dealership network in the country, and will open a number of new offices including a global brand centre in Tokyo and a new HQ. At home, the five-year package will benefit Aston Martin’s factories in St Athan, Wales and Gaydon, Warwickshire. Exports from the plants will be worth £400 million. The UK beat more than 20 other countries to secure the deal…
Meanwhile Japanese car-maker Nissan has said it will increase output from its Sunderland plant by 20% to 600,000 units per year, and raise the quantity of parts sourced in the UK from 40% to 80%. Not a hint of either of these good news stories in the Guardian‘s write-up of the Japan trip and its associated trade deals, which crows: “Theresa May will have to allay Japanese fears about the impact of Brexit.” Seems to be working so far…  Euro Guido.

Perhaps Where We Differ, Maggie. (Especially As I Have Got Older!)

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

The Two Labour Parties Masquerading As A Single Entity.

There are two Labour Parties.
There is the Labour Party of the trendy Metropolitan left, full of lawyers, teachers and various overpaid public sector no marks. These folk have an interest in maintaining poverty, mass immigration and 'identity politics' as it's lucrative managing the client state. The Metropolitan left are not comfortable with the British working class - culturally, socially, or politically - and despise them.
Then there is the Labour Party of the ordinary British Joe and Jane, the 'working' working class and regular middle class folks in outdated shorthand. They are an increasingly excluded bunch in political circles but are still potent enough to put a spoke in the wheel of Westminster politicians. The referendum result was a wake up call as to the power of this constituency.
Corbyn and Labour better make their minds up which horse they're going to ride, as they cannot ride both and win, as this EU thing will expose.

Save The 28 Quid!

 Yorkshire Post.

I would like to have been a fly on the wall in the Waitrose boardroom earlier this week as the supermarket top ten dropped onto their desks.

It’s like the top ten Alan Freeman used to read out on Pick of the Pops, except this one deals in market share, and there’s no music accompaniment.
But the drama must have been palpable among the Waitrose execs, in those stripy green shirts of theirs, as the German discount chain Lidl leapfrogged them into seventh place. By the look of things, pop pickers, the Co-op will be next to be overtaken.
Waitrose and Lidl may be at opposite ends of the market, but those ends are increasingly entangled. Far fewer people now, I fancy, would profess to not wanting to be seen dead in one or the other.
I have never been inside a Lidl. I’m not being snobbish; there just isn’t one near my house. I’m cheap but I’m not driving 10 miles for frozen peas. But I have been inside Aldi, the other German discount chain, which overtook both Waitrose and the Co-op some time ago. In fact, for the last six months I have been doing our weekly shop there.
Earlier this year, they opened a branch not far from me, so I turned right instead of left and headed there instead of Sainsbury’s. When I got home, as if to underline the extent of my parsimony, I compared the bills. I had spent £70. An equivalent shop at Sainsbury’s would have cost me £28 more. You don’t have to be Vince Cable to work out that that is more than just a marginal difference.
I would have spent less still at Aldi had I not been seduced by the prices. Perhaps you recognise the internal dialogue: Only 29p for carrots? I’ll take a bag for us and one for the rabbits.
They were from British farms, too, as was the fresh meat.
This raised the question, why was Sainsbury’s so much more expensive? It’s a quality store so I could put up with paying a small premium. But not £28. That, as we used to say in Yorkshire, is taking the rise.
How is it possible for one or two supermarkets to charge so much less than all the others? It can’t be simply a matter of quality – I’ve been eating food from Aldi since February and I’ve yet to keel over from it.
Range comes into the equation; Aldi and, I believe, Lidl, carry far fewer lines than their rivals, and nearly all are own brands. But unlike those of the traditional supermarkets, they are disguised as real brands, often with packaging remarkably similar to more famous ones. And they are not sold as inferior alternatives to Heinz ketchup or Hellman’s mayonnaise, but as their equals. The chocolate digestive I am eating now, from a tube labelled Belmont Biscuits, may be a tad smaller than a McVitie, but it doesn’t seem to me to be any less chocolatey or indeed less digestive-y.
And who makes own brands anyway? In many cases, they are picked from the same production lines as the names we see advertised on TV.
So, have the other supermarkets been overcharging us all these years? In a way, yes. We’re paying for a whole raft of services that no one ever asked for but which we have collectively accepted as part of the British supermarket experience.
A customer help desk, home delivery, people in the car park wrangling stray trolleys… all nice to have, but not worth £28 a trip.
Then there is the presentation: it has become standard practice to tempt us with attractive packages containing less food than their size suggests. The space between the topmost flake of muesli and the top of the box is known in the trade as ullage – a name I’m not surprised they don’t wish to share with us. In contrast, the Germans know that space is money: the less ullage, the more boxes they can squeeze onto the shelves.
The checkouts are more tightly-packed still. I have only ever seen three open at Aldi at any one time and you’re bundled through faster than you can shovel the stuff into your trolley.
The odd thing is that their model is not radically different to the one pioneered by Tesco back in the 1960s. But as their customers and neighbourhoods became gentrified, so did they.
I don’t blame them. I’m all for upward mobility. But £28 is £28. By opening a branch near me, Aldi has proved that the two need not be mutually exclusive.

Birdie.

England LOSE The Second Test.

When Joe Root declared the England second inning shortly before the end of Day Four - there was no hope whatsoever of the West Indies making a total in excess of 320 on a final day pitch at Headingley.
But. Three factors all came into play:
He could not have budgeted for former skipper, Alastair Cook, spilling two direct - although admittedly hard hit - catches at first slip!
As a Yorkshire player of many years - he knew full well that the heavy cloud cover would mean that the new ball and the old would swing prodigiously. The ball hardly misbehaved.
He had already seen that the wicket was deteriorating to a serious extent on Day Four - which meant that spinner Mo Ali was going to turn the ball at right angles on the final day. IN ASTONISHING fashion - and quite unbelievably - the pitch IMPROVED!

Do not blame Joe for a decision to declare endorsed by former England captains - just give praise to Shai Hope (pictured) and Brathwaite for steering the Windies to such an improbable victory.
What a test match this was!

Please Note This VERY Clear Warning!

Madhya Pradesh - SHAME On You.

10 pastors are in jail for leading a children's camp: How India's anti-conversion laws are targeting Christians

Three months ago, 10 Indian Christian pastors and their colleagues were arrested and charged with cruelty, kidnapping and forced conversion of children.
Police stopped the group of religious leaders travelling with more than 60 children as they were en route to a summer camp in Madhya Pradesh state on May 23. The pastors' lawyers insist all parents had consented for their children to take part in the Christian camp. 
So why do all 10 remain in custody, and what does the case show about the plight of Christians in some parts of India?
According to David Robin, a lawyer with the religious freedom charity ADF International, the case is precedent-setting because the prosecution continues despite clear consent from the parents.
'The root of the case is the allegation of conversion. However all the parents have stated that they are followers of Christ so how can the pastors be guilty of converting them or their children?,' he says in an interview with Christian Today.
'The case is important because innocent Christians are being punished for a crime they have not committed. This case will raise awareness on the unfair treatment of religious minorities in India and will hopefully help reinforcing the constitutional right to religious freedom.'
Robin says a spate of anti-conversion laws, already in force in six states, as well as the government's laissez-faire attitude to mob violence, has fuelled a steady rise in attacks on Christians.
'The anti-conversion laws regulate religious conversions and require that every religious conversion be investigated by the state to ascertain if there is any force, fraud or allurement. The state becomes the final arbiter of whether my faith is genuine,' he tells Christian Today.
'Furthermore, as these terms are poorly defined, they often lead to unnecessary harassment of Christians who are practising and propagating their faith.'
According to ADF International's Deputy Director, Paul Coleman, this incident was part of a trend in an 'increasingly hostile climate towards religious minorities'.
He says: 'Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. The international community needs to wake up to what is happening in India.'
Persecution watchdog Open Doors has monitored the steady rise of mistreatment of Christians India in its annual World Watch List. Now ranked the 15th worst country in the world to be a Christian, India is the highest it has ever been on the influential scale.
CEO Lisa Pearce says: 'There is a clear pattern of rising religious intolerance across the Indian sub-continent, which affects many millions of Christians.
She adds: 'Religious nationalists attempt to forcibly convert people to the dominant faith of their nation, often turning to violence when community discrimination and non-violent oppression do not succeed in imposing their religious beliefs on minority Christians.'
It comes after Compassion, a major Christian charity was forced to leave the country accused of proselytism, abandoning more than 50 projects and around 145,000 children.
Robin says Christian groups should insist on written consent from parents before any work with children but also warns this is 'no guarantee'.
'The most important response however must be to foster greater understanding between religious communities. The mistrust that is being generated must be countered with greater transparency and opportunities for interaction.'
He adds: 'We need to bring persecution in front of the courts and guarantee justice to religious minorities. In India, every faith group is allowed to spread their beliefs. This is not wishful thinking but a constitutional right. We need to advocate for it and make sure that this basic human right is embraced by the political elites as well as by the public.
'The Indian state must ensure that no one is targeted for their faith.'

The Case For Religious Freedom.

A Wisconsin court has ruled that evangelical Christian photographer Amy Lawson is exempt from a local ordinance in Madison that would have forced her to work gay weddings, because she does not have a physical storefront.
Alliance Defending Freedom, which earlier in August said that it was expecting the court to issue such a preliminary injunction in the case, revealed that Dane County Circuit Court issued the order on Wednesday, confirming that Lawson is not subject to a city and state "sexual orientation" and "political affiliation" ordinance.
ADF Digital Content Specialist Sarah Kramer noted that Lawson's lack of a physical storefront has made her exempt from the ordinance.

Catalan Rights To Self-Determination Are Their Democratic Entitlement.

I am not going to write a lengthy piece on the Catalan bid to be freed from Spain. All I wish to point out is that I respect democracy - and forced, unwanted union is the opposite of that.
Had it not been for that very positive by-product of The American Civil War in the abolition of slavery - it is quite clear that, in all other areas, the moral high ground lay with the Confederacy. States' rights normally trump all the other issues. But in the matter of slavery, however, that higher moral ground superceded all else.
Consider Spain's attitudes to: Ceuta, Melilla and Gibraltar.
Broker the Falklands issue into the argument.
Add the Brexit question.
Consider Kosovo.
The democratic voice of peoples must be heard and arguments which talk about suppression of rights to self-determination 'for the greater good' must be shunned. It is the very worst of leftist - or rightist - dictatorial attitudes.
Scotland cannot survive outside the UK without abject surrender to the EU - even supposing that august body might want them! Scotland takes far more from the UK than it gives. Without England, disaster looms - a fact which was clearly recognised in the last referendum on the independence issue.

Catalonia, however, possesses all the wealth which Scotland does not.

Has Farrakhan Repented?

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Fight MODERN Slavery!

 Steve Oversby, Director, Barnardo’s East Region.
RECENT headlines have raised awareness that modern slavery and human trafficking in the UK is much more prevalent than previously thought.
It’s important to remember that traffickers do not care how young their victims are and that trafficked children are some of the most vulnerable children in this country. They are often moved away from their family and friends, only to be exploited for someone else’s gain.
Barnardo’s has provided support to children of all ages who have been trafficked. They might have been sexually abused, used as cheap labour or domestic servants, or have been forced to commit crimes.
It’s vital that professionals can spot the signs of trafficking and keep children safe. And we would echo the National Crime Agency and ask that members of the public look out for signs of slavery including visible injuries, a distressed appearance and any indication someone is being controlled by another person. Yorkshire Post.

The Left MUST Be Despised At Least As Much As The Right!

Economy, Industry and the Incompetent Left.

Worrying!

Drain the swamp? Some churches need to drain the pulpit! By  Alex McFarland , CP Op-Ed Contributor Friday, February 16, 2024 Though we may n...