Take Your Pick

A slightly different TYP this week. At this link you can listen to the experience of an American who wanted to help build a school in Hiati. The podcast is 22 minutes long but you can listen while you do your usual morning browsing.

Also, sent to me by Edward was the following taken from the Spectator blogs:

Thanks to David Maddox for this gem. During a debate on BBC Scotland last night, marking a decade of devolution, Iain Gray, leader of the Labour party at Holyrood, boasted of the parliament’s achievements:

Has it [the Scottish Parliament] made a difference?" he asked rhetorically. "Yes it has. When the Parliament started one in five children in this country lived in poverty. That’s now one in three. That’s significant progress."

God knows, mind you, how much more of this progress we can take.

Oh, Iain Gray was once a teacher. His subject? Mathematics, obviously…

To think this man was the leader of the Labour party in Scotland!

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Enough Political Platitudes, Time For Action

The horrors of Wednesday afternoon in Woolwich will stay in the minds of many for years.  It will be perpetually in the thoughts of the family of Drummer Lee Rigby for the rest of their lives and I can't even begin to imagine the pain and torment they must be going through today and for many future years.  None would have given a thought that their son/husband/father/brother/uncle would not have been safe while serving in his own country.

Drummer Lee Rigby leaves behind a wife and a two year old son. His murder was a hellish tragedy.

But how many of you felt the media were goulish in their reporting?  The repeated pictures of the murderers were disgusting and must have been extremely upsetting for Drummer Rigby's family.

The wall-to-wall reporting on the BBC and Sky only fuelled the murderers' desire for publicity and they've certainly had that.  Every detail of their lives is being reported and too much information being divulged; all in is an attempt to instil more fear into the public's minds.

Our politicians' and media's reaction to this horrific crime has been to over-react and it's this image which has been whirling round the world. Why did the PM need to call a COBRA meeting twice and create more fear?  Terrorism gets its momentum from such fearful responses. From the PM trying his best - and failing miserably - to appear statesman-like on the street outside No 10, to the knee-jerk suggestion that soldiers openly wear their uniforms outside barracks, was an insult to the intelligence of our military. In the 80s our service personnel were instructed not to wear uniform outside military areas unless absolutely necessary as they were targets for terrorists. The same ruling should stand today.  To suggest otherwise is asking far too much from our military and politicians are shunting the responsibility of their poor decisions in the past on to the shoulders of today's HM Forces.

One of the murderers was born in England, but surely we shouldn't be surprised that a couple of young, converted radical Islamists decided they would do what the Islamic extremist Parviz Khan attempted to do in 2008; kidnap and behead a British soldier. This terrorist was sentenced and shut away for life only this month and perhaps the publicity from that motivated these individuals, who knows? Richard Littlejohn has his opinion and you don't need to be a Daily Mail reader to agree with much of his article.

The BBC had two interviews yesterday which caught my attention, Apart from the continual 'It's nothing to do with Muslims' and 'Muslims have been betrayed', the two interviewees gave an insight into Britain's Muslim world. Both men were Muslims themselves and were interviewed at different times of day.  One was from the Quilliam Foundation and the other from Centri; two organisations  involved in counter-extremism and they supplied a similar message: much more needs to be done to rid the country of Muslims who preach extreme Islam and both admitted there are still mosques and imams who do this openly, without protest from their Muslim community or the wider population.

The Centi speaker said our politicians are afraid or refusing to really tackle the groups and organisations that call for actions like this horrible crime. He was passionate in his plea for politicians to stop pandering to the Muslim leaders who insist that all is well within their communities and recognise that past attempts to bring radicalisation to a halt has failed. We need different tactics and more honest communication between the parties.  If one side insists there are no problems yet the other side has the evidence there is, then surely it's the responsibility of the other side to ensure their evidence is accepted by the other party? We adhere to a Human Rights Act which protects criminals and will, eventually, be the straw that breaks society in these islands. Other countries deport villains yet we spend millions every year going through the court system, only to have another judge say no to the deportation of many whose aim is to pit one section of society against another.

None of this will be of help to the family of Drummer Lee Rigby.  He wasn't even wearing uniform but a Help for Heroes T-shirt. His killers had a plan and it worked.
His family and himself would also have had plans. These have now been torn apart because our political leaders refuse to acknowledge there are on-going problems within the Muslim community. We pride ourselves on being a tolerant society, but there's responsible tolerance and ignorant tolerance. We need to see much more responsible tolerance in this country. There is no place in this country for preachers of hate and murder, yet they walk the streets. The British style of toleration is not responsible and an incorrect ideology.

RIP Drummer Lee Rigby.  I do hope your murder results in serious action instead of wall-to-wall talk. You deserve nothing less and a whole lot more.

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Scotland Has No Desire To Be Independent

 I was alerted to this post of Captain Ranty's by a regular reader. Sadly I agree with what he says.

Like Ranty I too have supported independence for many a year and I was a keen supporter of the SNP for much of that time, but I can no longer support a party which spins the story that ridding ourselves of Westminster rule will allow Scotland to make its own decisions.

If the SNP has its way, cutting the ties with the Westminster parliament will only be cutting out the middleman - much to the delight of the EU.

Currently we are governed mainly by the EU and Westminster and Holyrood are the obedient henchmen who happily inflict every EU directive upon us.  At times you have to dig deep to discover the source of what many consider are irrelevant or foolish political proposals, but dig deep enough and usually you'll find a connection with the EU.  The 'gay marriage' Bills, in both Westminster and Holyrood, are good examples.  The EU wants all European member states to legislate for gay marriage and Cameron and Salmond are happy to oblige.

All too regularly we're told Scots support the EU yet a poll I ran last year suggested otherwise.

Iceland continues to reject the EU, as it has done since 2009. That's why the current Icelandic government will not hold a referendum, because they know the answer will be NO.  Iceland has far fewer resources than Scotland yet the people realise that by handing over control of their country to the bureaucrats of the EU, they would lose their ability to govern themselves.

If Alex Salmond was serious about independence, he would have proposed an in/out referendum on the EU before he set the date for the independence referendum. Was he feart that the answer would be 'out'?  Perhaps.  Or maybe, like David Cameron, he thinks Scotland will be appeased by his proposal that an EU referendum will be held after the independence referendum, if the answer is Yes.

The Scottish government's document states 'We need to become more internationalist and more engaged in Europe'.  How can Scots become 'more internationalist'?  I can't think of any small country which is as internationalist as Scotland.  I've lived in Europe and elsewhere and as soon as I've mentioned I'm a Scot, I was warmly welcomed.

Presently we are 'engaged in Europe' up to our necks.  How do we become 'more engaged'?  By prostrating ourselves at the EU shrine and losing our identity?

I want Scotland to be like Norway or Switzerland; happy to be part of the European Friendship Club yet not close relatives.  Having a 'seat' in Europe seems to be the ultimate goal of many Scottish politicians.  That 'seat' possibly will be far hotter than they expect - and the burns far deeper. Only the people will pay the price.

Note:  I looked for 'scotland+images' in Google and the above graphic was one of the first to show.  How long before the St Andrew's flag disappears if we stay in the EU?

Editor's amendment:  I have changed the 'Scandinavian countries' to Norway and Switzerland as I realise I was implying every Scandinavian country was part of the EEA, which if course is not the case.

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Norwegian Island Spirit

The captions say it all really. 

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Farewell To 'The Mighty'

Yesterday hundreds of people turned out to wave goodbye to the Royal Navy's flagship HMS Ark Royal on her last voyage before being broken up for scrap.

The aircraft carrier, which was formally decommissioned in 2011, was towed out of Portsmouth Harbour watched by a large crowd of silent well-wishers and she sailed by.  She is being towed to Turkey where she will be broken up by a ship recycling company.

A flotilla of small boats sailed with her as she was pulled by tug boats from the harbour.

The 22,000 ton Ark Royal - the fifth Royal Navy ship to bear the name - was launched in 1981 and was known affectionately by her crew as The Mighty Ark.

The decision to scrap the Ark Royal has left the UK without a fully functioning aircraft carrier for nearly ten years until the next generation of carriers come into service.

Retiring her five years earlier than planned was a controversial decision and one which is still disagreeable to many.  As part of a £2.9m deal the Ark Royal will go to the same yard as her sister ship Invincible.

Her last journey would have been a very sad and poignant sight for many naval personnel.

One ex-sailor said he couldn't understand why she hasn't been kept and used as a tourist attraction.  That may have worked well because Britannia, docked at Leith, is now a very profitable business.  However, the powers-that-be decided to rid the UK of a perfectly serviceable ship in order to save money, yet they're happy to spend millions subsidising windmills.

My thanks to JRB for this post. He gave me the motivation.

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