Remember, remember, the Fifth of November...

“Remember, remember, the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I know of no reason,
why Gunpowder Treason,
should ever be forgot…”


It is at this time of year that we, in the UK, celebrate ‘Guy Fawkes night’, November the 5th. Though more often at the weekends either side of it. In remembrance of a plot to blow up parliament in 1605.

It is said that that Fawkes was: "The only man to ever enter parliament with honourable intentions"

These days it sometimes seems we celebrate it, almost as much for the fact that someone actually had a go in the first place - as for the foiling of the attempt.

Guy Fawkes (13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606), b. 13 April 1570 in Stonegate, in the city of York and former centre of power of Richard III.

Christened 'Guye Fawxe and raised a Protestant Anglican he became a Roman Catholic at 16, possibly because his tutor at school was Roman Catholic possibly because his stepfather was.

He joined the army of Archduke Albert of Austria and went to fight alongside the armies of Catholic Spain, against the Protestant United Provinces in the Netherlands.

It around then that he took to calling himself Guido, the Spanish version of Guy. He served for many years as a soldier and in the process gained became an explosives expert.

A group of English Roman Catholics, lead by Robert Catesby, hatched a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, during the state opening when all the movers and shakers would be there.

The plan being, killing King James I of England and ending Protestant ascendancy by wiping out everyone crowded into parliament. They probably picked Fawkes, as much for his expertise with explosives, as his muscular devotion to Roman Catholicism.

James was a moderate for the time, criticising both fundamentalist Puritans and Catholics. So there was little assistance on offer from an over extended Spain.

The plan was due to be carried out on November the 5, 1605. Guy was looking after the explosives hidden in the cellars of Parliament in the early hours when he was caught red handed and arrested.

One of the plotters had let the cat out of the bag by warning William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, not to attend the sate opening. William Parker went to the authorities and that was the end of that.

Fawkes was made of pretty stern stuff and refused to reveal who his fellows were, even under torture – until they did the job for him. Realising it had all gone wrong they rather gave the game away by taking up arms against the authorities.

Fawkes was found guilty and executed.

The BBC ran a poll in 2002, to find out who the public thought were the ‘100 Greatest Britons of all time’. Guy came in at No 30…

UK think tank wants to Downgrade Christmas to be 'even-handed' to non-Christians

The Institute of Public Policy Research in all it’s think-tanky ‘brilliance’ has decided it might be a good idea to downgrade Christmas.

I know it’s become too commercial over the last few decades - but why? To help make the UK more multi cultural. That’s why?.

Just when the consensus amongst the ‘great and good’ had worked it’s way round to the conclusion that ‘multiculturalism’ does not work, is devisive and causes more harm than good. The IPPR is marching the other way.

They are suggesting it in the interests of even-handedness and argue we should mark other religious festivals in the same way.

Some problems there – Exactly how many of them?

If you are not going to accord all religions the same treatment what ones do you ignore and how do you justify it?

Should they all be Bank Holidays? When will anyone work if they are?

Their ‘solution’ looks rather more like just another opportunity for the law of unintended consequences to wreak damage and cause ill feeling, just another bunch of cognoscenti eroding of social cohesion…

UKERC worried they have their sums wrong.

The UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) recons it may have got it’s sums wrong by up to 30%.

Firstly we need to realise that the figure up to 30% clearly includes zero percent, the weasel words are ‘up to’.

Of course the underlying implication is that just persuading people to buy energy ‘saving’ devices is not going to do it, because those wacky citizens will just waste the money saved by using less energy on something else that uses energy and destroys the planet anyway.

So ‘SOMEONE’ needs to ensure they can’t spend all that extra money that would otherwise just be burning (and that produces CO2 too, doesn’t it) a hole in their pocket.

Well taxation ought to solve that problem and it will be a ‘GOOD’ and ‘MORAL’ tax that saves the planet too.

Now lets follow the money…

The UKERC are funded by three ‘Research Councils’:
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

And who finds them? Why the UK Government - they are basically organs for distributing tax payers money. Much from the Department of Trade and Industry’s share of it.

Now lets look at the UKERC’s argument. Take Compact Fluorescent ‘bulbs’, leaving aside the mercury pollution they can cause and the fact that, at least in my actual experience, they do not last anywhere near as long as advertised.

An equivalent 60-watt bulb that can actually be used with a dimmer would cost around £11.60. The saving that can be had from using it is around £7 per year. Even a standard 100w equivalent would cost around a fiver. So in fact initially one would have less money to spare having paid out more for the bulb than normal. One could not expect the bulbs to have paid for themselves before at least 9 to 19 months.

Only then can you nip out and waste your extra £7 a year on a 4X4, or a plasma TV. Or maybe loft insulation, or another CF Bulb, or double-glazing - Because if you are into saving energy then that is the direction you will probably be thinking in.

Freedom of Speech in the Blogshpere

Sheffield Wednesday has finally obtained a court order forcing the fan site Owlstalk’s Owner Neil Hargreaves to reveal the e-mail addresses of three fans who made comments on the site.

The ‘club’ had gone after 13 fans all told feeling sensitive after questions were raised on the site concerning greed, selfishness, trustworthiness and honesty there.

This might be interpreted by some, as a case of the pot calling the kettle black, given some of comments about certain groups of fans made by Sheffield Wednesday’s Chairman that found their way on to You Tube.

Most of the cases were ‘thrown out of court’ and the club has had to cough up £9,000 in costs.

Not having seen the comments it is difficult to form an opinion as to weather they were over the top, or not - and if so how, but the whole matter has echoes of the ‘silence of the blogs’ incident involving Alisher Usmanov and Schillings, who appear to have gone after sites that commented on allegations published by Craig Murray, but not to the best of my knowledge sued the author.

Still it would be good to have a reliable indication as to what is and is not acceptable to post and comment.

People say some pretty heated stuff about politicians for instance. Especially when what the politicians say, or promise, turns out to have a negative correlation with reality.

Then terms like pork pie salesperson may be bandied about and comments often touch upon truthfulness and honesty - at least.

Rubbish Tax. Coming to a bin near you - As soon as they can get away with it…

It looks like Nu-Lab are going for the same technique in rolling out the rubbish tax as they used to avoid stirring up the sheeple too much with HIPs. Doing it as quietly as possible in stages while putting out as much of a smoke screen as possible.

They are quietly rolling out powers to ‘pilot’ the charges in the Climate Change Bill.

Now, keep in mind folks, we not only already pay handsomely for this service in the form of massively inflated Council Tax that has galloped so far ahead of inflation it’s lapped it, but most of us have already had the service cut back to once a fortnight.

What is the root cause of all this? Why the good old EU. The Government are concerned the UK could face fines of up to £180m a year imposed by the European Commission if it does not cut the amount of waste dumped in landfill.

So this is actually social engineering to force you to ‘recycle’ via the State’s firm grip on tender parts of your wallet, being imposed on you because of EU dictat, with the added benefit of an increased tax crop.

Presumably fly tipping and bonfires will not count. One also wonders if bins with combination locks will be issued, to avoid someone else’s rubbish being secretly slipped into a bin just prior to collection - Some poor suckers are bound to be caught out when the first thin they know about it is when they get a massive bill.

Nu-Lab’s ‘Waste Minister’ (too obvious to use) Joan Ruddock helps emphasise the way the wind is blowing with the comment: "We all know we can't go on putting rubbish in holes in the ground. We need to find new ways and these sorts of schemes and incentives may be part of that,".

So no avoiding it no matter what – there’s good old British democracy in action for you.

New Labour's Benn Barking up wrong tree

Nu-Lab’s Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, son of Anthony starey eyed Wedgewood Benn is planning to put forward what he describes as a ‘tougher, more effective and more transparent bill to help tackle climate change’.

There is much talk of various environ-mentalist measures that will probably do the economy no good and will probably involve stealth taxes.

Yet again Nu-Lab unerringly gallop off in the direction of controls, regulation, social engineering and punitive taxation.

Assuming that climate change is in fact down to Manmade CO2 rather than say variation in solar output. If the Governemnet are really serious about reducing CO2 emissions then they should be encouraging the building of new generation nuclear power plants. It is estimated that, in total in 2003, the UK produced 786 million tonnes of carbon emissions.

If all of the UK’s power needs were taken care of by nuclear, wind, tide, etc. then this could be reduced to close to nothing

In the future we should be looking to encourage the development of technologies that can power cars and air travel with hydrogen.

But touching on the subject of things nuclear – Remember the threat of the nuclear winter? Or the depression of global temperatures, as a result of major volcanic events?

Just a thought, but if climate change is indeed a threat, down to CO2 or not, maybe someone should be looking into the possibility of duplicating the effect of a nuclear winter on a non toxic controllable scale?

Lectures on Terrorism from Saudi Ruler

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia's is planning a state visit to the UK, that formally begins on Tuesday. When interviewed by the BBC ahead of the visit he claimed could have prevented 7/11 "We have sent information to Great Britain before the terrorist attacks in Britain but unfortunately no action was taken. And it may have been able to maybe avert the tragedy."

The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) diplomatically state they have found no evidence that any intelligence passed by the Saudis could have prevented the bombings.

The king also suggested most countries were not taking the issue seriously, "including, unfortunately, Great Britain".

This is interesting coming from the man in charge of the country that has spread Wahabism (followers of Mohammed Ibn Abdul Wahhab Najdi) on the world. A country that promotes and spreads it with its vast oil revenues. A country that gifted the world with Osama bin Laden and consequently al-Qaeda.

A man who’s regime pathetically tried to blame terrorist attacks on ‘Western alcohol smuggling rings’ and tortured confessions out of random westerners, rather than face reality.

It would be good if his own regime took the matter more seriously and stemmed the vast flow of ‘charitable’ support, that somehow ends up in the terrorists’ coffers. That promotes intolerant religious schools, teachings and teachers. That spreads the disease of terrorism.

Still his Majesty would probably rather see some of his problems exported abroad rather than surface too often in his own kingdom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Serendipity, or tongue in cheek comment? When king Abdullah turned up at the palace they played him a march in his honour. See this report from Channel 4.

“You don’t need to see his identification … These aren’t the droids you’re looking for … He can go about his business … Move along.”

Gordon Brown ‘Concerned’ about Liberty

It seems that Gordon Brown has become sufficiently concerned that the public has finally noticed Nu-Lab’s Big Brother/Fascist-Lite tendencies, to try a little spin to cover them up.

He is apparently concerned about Liberty – One suspects more normally Taking Liberties, in the literal sense.

Of course he would also like to distract the sheeple from such things as: His shilly shallying around over and election and then pathetically trying to claim it was not because he thought he might come off badly that he bottled it. His broken promises over the EU Constitution that is taking another step towards making parliament an irrelevance. Dave and ‘the party formerly known as the Conservatives’ overtaking him in the polls.

Of course he is trying to suggest it was all down to that nasty Blair person’s Government, that was nothing to do with him and things will be different now he is in charge. Trusssst in meeeee Mowglie…..

He of course justifies much of his move towards a total surveillance society, identity cards, DNA testing, etc. on the need to keep us all safe from terrorists. Leaving aside the question of what by the time he has finished will be left of the relatively free society we once enjoyed. The terrorists are winning, even when they fail, by changing or way of life and making our society more like their societies.

Showing rather more of his true colours he insisted he would not compromise the security of the nation. There would be tougher counter-terrorism laws before Christmas. Thanks! Just what we always wanted :-(

He is even threatening us with a debate about a British Bill of Rights and the possibility of a written constitution.

The direction they have been going in one fears that any Constitution Nu-Lab had a hand in writing would be a fascists charter. Still he could always call it something else and argue it wasn’t really a constitution after all ;-) The fact is that any British constitution may be about as relevant as a Town Council’s policies, being subservient to the real EU “Not a Constitution, honest Guv’”.

He also seems to have conveniently forgotten that we already have a perfectly good Bill of Rights - and have done since 16 December 1689 when it became statutory law. But maybe it contains ;-) the wrong sort of rights, by Gordon’s standards…

Maybe he also forgets that Constitutions and Bills of rights are not normally graciously handed down to the citizens by the likes of him and almost certainly wouldn’t be worth the paper they were written of in they were.

Mind you – If he is interested in Constitutions and Bills of Rights then there is plenty of discussion out there on the subject.

Site Stats

I have been looking at the CFG’s stats. Here are some of them:

Language Groups: 92% English, 2% Welsh.
Continents: 53% North America, 40% Europe, 5% Asia.
Countries: 47% US, 38% UK, 6% Canada.
Browsers: 53% Firefox, 24% IE6, 17% IE7, 4% Safari.

I have left out any categories showing 1%.

It is curious that there are more visits from North America than Europe. I note use of Firefox browsers is the same percentage as North American visitors, though I doubt all the former are from the latter. It is interesting to note the Firefox users are in the majority of visitors at the moment.