We will return to the www.eursoc.com address shortly, but for now, please join us at the Typepad address.

Look forward to seeing you then. Thank you for reading.

The EURSOC editors. 

Here's Littlejohn again:

"What impresses me most is (Obama's) grasp of history. Blair saw his own election as Year Zero, utterly disregarding what had gone before. For all his expensive education, he was a philistine with no use for the past. 

"Obama is well-read and well-versed in the remarkable American story. He appears to understand that he is merely the custodian of a great office — a concept utterly lost on Blair and his sociopath successor, Gordon Brown."

Very true. Yet when confronted with the devastation has wreaked on the British Constitutional system, the government's defenders claim that the best way to safeguard Britain's status is by writing a new one!

My grandfather also used to tell a story (I think this was once common among proud English people) about the response of a proper Englishman to any aristocrat's boast that his forebears had "come over with the Conqueror". 

He would growl : "And my ancestors were there waiting for him".

Peter Hitchens on class in the Daily Mail:

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2009/01/dont-call-me-a-snob-im-lower-upper-middle-class.html

Nor had many seen the ensuing exploits of Stoke's Rory Delap, a rather obscure eccentric who has learnt to throw the ball from the touchline with the force of an Exocet missile. Delap's spectacular throws can reach the box from almost from the half way line with unstoppable energy, an unheard-of exploit that adds a completely new dimension to the game. It's yet to be fully appreciated beyond the sniggers of the pumped-up lemmings who pass as commentators in the Mainstream Media.

Yet the fans love it.

Every schoolboy is now trying to emulate this anti-star's unusual talent and PlayStation game designers must be struggling to add code to emulate Delap's exploits for their next edition of FIFA Soccer 2010.

Otherwise this was a game of mind-numbing ordinariness. ’Home spun’ says everything about it. More laborers than violinists from a decade of pomp, the game played out in a classic sporting match of 22 nutters chasing a ball through the mud, all guts and heart.

The Chelsea Captain Frank Lampard scoring the final goal in the final seconds, comic book style, the home horde's roar of desperation changing to ecstasy in a second.

It was a match between falling heroes and aspiring ones. Still at 50 quid a seat reminding you of the absurd credit mountain and cash-pumped world of which we are all part.

The score was 2-1 to Chelsea but was frankly irrelevant.

Something had changed.

It was the clapping that did it for me.

Your correspondent has been a football (soccer) fan and player for over 40 years.

http://opinion.independentminds.livejournal.com/223087.html?thread=164719 

Only yesterday we noted how the Independent had agreed to broadcast video content from al-Jazeera on its website. We wonder what the newspaper's next step will be: A partwork of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" to collect and keep over the weeks?

The Independent should monitor its blog pages more carefully; those opposing Israel's actions in Gaza should police more carefully who they march arm and arm with. Most of all, the fools who declare "we are all Hamas now" should be made to think of what lurks at the dark heart of that statement.

(the photo below comes from a pro-Hamas rally in Australia, via EU Referendum Blog

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/01/altogether-rather-sick-making.html ) 

The thirst for exported first-rate Scottish malt whisky beyond the seas has reached a very high tide. In 2007 it reached an export volume of 318 million litres, a 15 per cent increase on 1997. In terms of revenue: 2.8 billion Pounds ( $ 5.6 billion, at the exchange rates of the time); an 18 per cent increase.

The fastest growing market has been East Asia, particularly China, where the value of whisky sales rose from One million Pounds in 2001 to 70 million Pounds in 2007, according to the Scotch Whisky Association. In Moscow and St Petersburg there is now a substantial and expanding market for expensive ( $ 35 per bottle) ‘Single Malt’. That did not exist five years ago.

The well-known Macallan Distillery, overlooking the charming River Spey, founded in 1824, has numerous stills working overtime and two huge extra warehouses have been completed. The family-owned firm produces 6 million litres per year.

Diageo (stupid name), the world’s largest drinks company, is a British conglomerate which owns the brands: Bells, Johnnie Walker, J&B,Black&White,Talisker, Lagavulin, Dalwhinnie and Cragganmore. It is spending over 100 million Pounds to build a new supertanker-size distillery at Roseisle on the Moray coast. It is intended to pour out 10 million litres per year.

It is propitious that this good news comes as we approach Burn’s Night, on Sunday 25, January. It is the 250^th anniversary of the birth of the Scottish national Bard, Robert Burns, and the hearths in the  Highlands and the Lowlands will be burning a bit brighter.

 The best places to celebrate Burn’s Night are the grand  Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh (+44-131-556-2414) and the stately Caledonian Hotel, Edinburgh (+44-131-222-8888).

There will be pipes, giant Haggis, Neeps and Tatties, copious glasses of the golden nectar of auld Ecosse and more than a few kilted Lady Lassies.

If you cannot make it to Scotland this weekend, enjoy the same spirit at home with delivery Haggis from  Macsween of Edinburgh (+44-131-229-9141) and order a case of ‘Extra Special’ from Arthur Bell & Sons  (+44-179-648-2003).

To make Haggis yourself, the traditional recipe is: wrap the following ingredients in a cleaned sheep or lamb’s stomach lining. Ingredients: Dry oatmeal, stock, chopped mutton suet, lamb  or deer liver, sheep heart and lungs, chopped onion,Cayenne pepper,salt and pepper. Then cook gently in a hot oven or Kiln.

On the 25^th, this correspondent will be tasting either Dewars, Glenmorangie or The Famous Grouse (Princess Margaret’s favourite), with his Neeps and Tatties.

While remembering the auld Scots proverb.

“Be happy while you’re living, For you’re a long time dead”.

For a country of five million muslims, many without work, the prospect of November 2005 style violence inspired by the "resistance" of Hamas is a terrifying one. But is it likely?

According to the head of SOS Racisme, France's most prominent anti-racist group, events in the Middle East reveal rather than create conflicts at home. A good point, but to follow it, he adds that the current government under Nicolas Sarkozy is to blame:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/16/death-threats-imam-france

The centre-right administration sees being French as being "white and Catholic" and has "a closed interpretation of national identity?" This is no good: Sarkozy has done more to end the white middle class grip on power than any other President, including Socialists like François Mitterrand. He has appointed minorities to important cabinet posts; he has called for positive discrimination to help non-white French people and immigrants find state employment; he has put Fadela Amara, a campaigner for women's rights in the housing estates, in charge of a commission to improve life and prospects there.

Sarkozy is admired by young people from Muslim backgrounds who start their own businesses - they like his energy, his brashness, the way he plays the outsider when it suits him - they see something of that in themselves. Better Sarkozy and his work-hard ethic than France's Socialists, who can be guaranteed to shower minorities with words of solidarity and promises of public assistance, but offer headstrong young people with good ideas and energy few means of escaping the depressing dependency of the Hood.

In Britain, too, racism hit the news last week when a stolen video revealed Prince Harry using the word "Paki" to describe a comrade in his military unit. Opinion was split between those who believed Harry a raving racist who should be drummed out of the army, and those who thought he was an idiot who should watch his mouth, not least because the British Army clearly employs people who would sell out their fellow soldiers for a few bucks from the News of the World.

The reaction from the public was notable by its absence. Still, this hasn't stopped the Ministry of Defence running an investigation into racism among its officers and soldiers. The fruits of this appeared in the Guardian today:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/19/ministry-defence-race

where it was announced that certain men serving in the British armed forced had posted offensive and racist remarks on Facebook.

These remarks included support for the far-right British National Party and more use of terms like "Paki" and "raghead" to describe their enemies in Afghanistan. One soldier claimed he liked to listen to SS Marching Music to relax, another listed "ethnic cleansing" among his hobbies.

While Prince Harry's officer class still hail from Britain's finest families, the rank and file come from some of Britain's poorest regions, where the Army offers one of the few means of escape and advancement. It is no surprise that some support hard-right groups, though it is hardly welcome.

It's also part of the bloody-mindedness of many British soldiers. While they defended Northern Ireland from terrorism, there were many in the British mainstream press and even parliament who were more concerned with depicting them as human-rights abusing monsters than people keeping the streets safe in a corner of Britain. Television broadcasts demonised them, state-funded films lionized their enemies. Same in the Falklands; now, the same goes in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The government slashes funding, rearranges their ancient regiments, sends them to war unequipped, and subjects them to human rights legislation designed for social workers in Hackney rather than for men at war - and then gets upset when a minority of soldiers refuse to share the views of the New Social Order?

One soldier on a discussion board claimed that many of his comrades were upset by hate preachers and flag-burners on the streets of Britain. What's wrong with that? These men fight and give their lives for their country, yet the authorities see nothing wrong with allowing the supporters of their opponents perform in British cities? How do they expect soldiers to react? Would we rather they welcomed pro-terror activity on the streets of the country they are laying their lives on the line to defend?

The Guardian's first port of call for comment on the release of the report was a British Muslim group whose home page celebrates the appearance of George Galloway MP (and professional nutter Yvonne Ridley) at one of its pro-Palestine meetings. If you were a serving soldier and you read this report, you could be forgiven for feeling that a large section of the British media elite despises you and everything you're fighting for.

News that the Independent will be broadcasting news from al-Jazeera is hardly going to make soldiers feel that they're getting a fair hearing at home.

No wonder that a few end up supporting nutters like the BNP. We are regularly warned of the dire consequences should we fail to take into account the demands of various extremist groups in our midst: Change our foreign policy, betray our allies, demolish our ancient laws. Why should British subjects be any different: Mistreat them, offend them, and feign surprise when they reject mainstream politics?  

The Ministry of Defence has vowed that the Facebook contributors will be "hunted down and dealt with most severely" which is about as bloodthirsty a statement as you're likely to get from the MOD these days.

Apart from the fact that the chap professing a love for SS Marching Bands was probably a joker (do any of these people have any idea of the sort of humour soldiers enjoy?), Facebook posts are hardly a real reflection of values.

Of course the Army should ensure that racism directed at comrades is not allowed to flourish in the British armed forces. But it must consider carefully if witch hunts inspired by the left-wing media are the best way of dealing with the problem. 

At least 40 Islamist terrorists in Algeria appear to have died of Bubonic Plague, the "Black Death" that killed over 25 million people in Europe in the fourteenth century.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/algeria/4287469/Black-Death-kills-al-Qaeda-operatives-in-Algeria.html 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/179276

A year on, the reporter writes, many cafés remain shadows of their former selves. In the coldest winter in decades, clients huddle outside in the street to enjoy their cigarettes; inside, the outlook is bleak. The Sarkozy government's claim that millions of non-smokers would suddenly discover the joys of restaurant dining once smokers were ejected into the streets doesn't ring true, as most outside the ministry expected. In fact, research suggests that numbers in bars, clubs and restaurants have fallen by 10-20 percent since the ban came into force.

"The life of the city of lights is being hollowed out. And the cafés that once served as lounges for the poor, meeting rooms for businessmen, tabletop ateliers for artists, are losing not only clientele but the conviviality that was their true raison d'être," writes Newsweek's man.

A nation which once boasted 200,000 cafés now has a fifth of that number, and two more close every day and there is a dawning realisation that the smoking ban has accelerated the decline in this most French of public spaces, the French equivalent of the Roman forum.

EURSOC has covered this territory before. The smoking ban has many enemies. Paris's many café-stool revolutionaries claimed that the ban on smoking was tantamount to a ban on them gathering in public places - another state plot to stifle dissent. Homeowners who lived above café premises complain of the noise and litter outside, left by smokers who are driven into the streets. Café owners who want to survive have had to invest in covered terraces and expensive, environmentally-unfriendly gas heaters to keep their clients from freezing. The mainly North African owners of "chicha" bars where clients gather to smoke perfumed tobacco argue that no-one goes to their bars except to smoke: The ban, in other words, is intended to drive them out of business. Some have closed; some have complained of an 80 percent drop in custom; others continue in the hope that the police have better things to do than harass café owners and their clients.

There have been other victims of the ban: France's nightclub owners claim that the smoky fug kept other odours at bay: Women, in particular, are avoiding nightclubs which smell like locker rooms since the ban was introduced.

Newsweek doesn't cover these angles, but the decline of French civil society and conviviality is evident in its report. One café owner complains to the reporter that cigars are about pleasure, and modern society is opposed to pleasure. The same proprietors also report a steep decline in sales of alcohol. Long gone are the days when the French worker was tipsy from breakfast to bedtime: Funnily enough, those days went the way of France's post-war industrial revival and its domination of the arts.

Puritanism reaching France, the land of a thousand pleasures? Such a decline. 

Many column inches have been dedicated to how Vladimir Putin's energy policy is a "wake up call" for the west, or an extension of Soviet military muscle by other means. EU officials use the crisis to call for a more integrated energy policy, noting Moscow's use once more of its favoured "divide and rule" policy when dealing with Europe - two EU capitals have already opened unilateral talks with Gazprom in order to get supplies running again. Whether or not a united EU policy would help is unsure - but like calls for more European cooperation in fighting in Afghanistan, it is a sure way to speed up the political unification of Europe.

In Britain, the pro-nuclear lobby has used the crisis to argue that Britain must intensify its efforts to rebuild its nuclear power capacity: The previous ten years have been "wasted" and Britain, trapped between its own nuclear intransigence, dwindling domestic supply and Russia's power play, face black outs in a matter of years as energy shortfalls begin to bite.

Rosemary Righter gives a comprehensive overview of the issues in The Times:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rosemary_righter/article5518959.ece

She notes that the fall in fuel prices has damaged Gazprom badly; furthermore, the crisis has brought together very different EU governments in the understanding that reliance on the Russian energy giant must end - or even be cut entirely. Surely this is not good news for Russian's flagship industry?

The EU Referendum Blog casts doubt on the idea that Moscow would go to such lengths just to put Ukraine through the mangle:

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/01/something-very-odd.html

Most interesting, however, is its suggestion that something might be very rotten in the state of Russia: Gazprom might not have the gas to sell.

Pointing to a 2007 Newsweek story -

http://www.newsweek.com/id/81557

it notes that Russia barely has enough gas for its domestic market, buying the rest from central Asian former Soviet Republics and selling it on to the west at four times the price. However, these former USSR members are becoming increasingly assertive themselves and are keen to cut out the middleman, brokering their own deals with nations like China.

Newsweek reports that Gazprom hasn't opened a new field since 1991, and "supplies are dwindling."

Looking at the new energy market in central Asia and the far east is a fascinating activity. The sheer scale of the former Soviet Union, stretching from central Europe to the Pacific, makes Gazprom's energy wargames a global issue: Oil from Turkmenistan destined for Turkey or Bulgaria via Russia might be redirected to China. Truly, the world seems a smaller place.

However, Newsweek's piece ends on an off note: "now that Russia's former vassals are discovering their power, Moscow may have to ditch its trademark energy strong-arm tactics, and adopt a new gas diplomacy," it concludes.

This was 2007; before the invasion of Georgia, before the current gas crisis. The idea that Russia might be adopting diplomatic measures seems unlikely, given the plight of those in central Europe, who shivered through one of the coldest winters on record as Vladimir Putin turned off the gas taps.

Lebedev is yet another of the line of Russian "oligarchs", often former KGB men, who rose to fame following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the market free-for-all which followed in the early 1990s. From shady power in government and secret services, they went on to more prominent, though usually no less shady success in business. A decade later things turned full circle, with Russian's wealthiest men consolidating political power at home to match their financial clout. Increasingly, they look abroad for opportunities: London, along with the South of France and Switzerland have become favourite destinations for Russian oligarchs to set up home and business, particularly if they have fallen foul of Moscow's Alpha Male, Vladimir Putin.

Lebedev's fortune is in private banking, hotels and air transport - he owns a 30 percent stake in state carrier Aeroflot. While he was recently valued at $3 billion, his main businesses would be expected to be severely compromised by the credit crunch.

It is unclear what he will pay for the Standard.

He has some previous in newspaper publishing, part-owning the Novaya Gazeta paper, which is one of Russia's more critical publications. Two of Novaya Gazeta's best-known journalists, Anna Politkovkaya and Yury Shcekochikhin, died in mysterious circumstances in recent years: Both were critics of the Russian establishment. Lebedev himself is thought of as something of a critic of Putin, though a subtle one.

As the above demonstrates, Russian standards of press freedom are not something many British readers would wish to emulate. Lebedev says that his interference in the running of the newspaper will be "zero" but few expect the new proprietor not to make his mark in some way.

The Guardian reckons that this is likely to involve the creation of an "international" advisory board made up of Lebedev's chums, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac.

This is hardly promising for the Standard's traditional centre-right line. It is almost certain that editor Veronica Wadley will be asked to step down, a prospect greeted with some delight by left-wing commentators who loathe the Standard for its uncompromising support for London Mayor Boris Johnson, who unseated Ken Livingstone last year. While it would be a surprise to see the Standard become anti-Boris, some hope for a more "progressive" editorial line. Will Andrew Gilligan, who ran an excellent series of investigations into the antics of "Red Ken's" dodgy henchmen, stay will the paper?

Moreover, it is certain that Lebedev's purchase of the title has been discussed, negotiated and approved at the highest level in Britain. British newspapers are not state owned, but changes of ownership are subject to intense scrutiny by government and the courts. Clearly the British government sees no danger in a prominent newspaper passing into the ownership of a former KGB agent. If other rumours are true - that Lebedev is interested in buying ailing national daily The Independent - Britain must prepare itself for an important new player on its media scene.

The Standard is a casualty of a media war of attrition between its former owners (the Daily Mail and General Trust - DMGT) and its rival, Rupert Murdoch's News International, which publishes The Sun. Murdoch sees the Daily Mail as a rival to his tabloid daily; he launched an advertising-funded freesheet The London Paper in 2006 to make a dent in the Evening Standard's readership: The Standard's owner responded with London Lite, another freesheet. Neither is renowned for editorial or production standards and in the current advertising downturn, they cannot be making their proprietors much money.

Has Murdoch succeeded in pushing a rival business out of the London market by backing the "spoiler" freesheet? Seriously weakened, DMGT and its subsidiary Associated News were forced to sell up, even if the buyer sent shudders through Britain's media community.

We shall see - if Murdoch's London Paper closes its doors in the next few months, don't blame the credit crunch alone.

Flamboyant keyboard player Peter Mandelson had carved out a career on the pub circuit in Europe; "DJ Spin Doctor" and tour manager Alastair Campbell had retired to concentrate on writing his memoirs.

Only Gordon Brown carried on the band's name, keeping the limping, past-it routine carrying on, surrounded by new unknown session musicians who quite fancied taking his job.

New Labour fanzine the Guardian describes how the band put aside their personal and musical differences to reunite:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/13/tonyblair-gordonbrown

But what drives this urge to get the band together? New Labour's talent well has run dry - see the fact that Harriet "Harperson" Harman seriously considers herself a successor to Brown for brutal evidence of that. The cabinet's new boys and girls aren't up to the devastating recession the UK now faces, the first of the New Labour era, though one which, on reflection, was building up steam throughout Brown's stewardship of the economy. Laughable though it might seem, Blair, Mandelson and Campbell bring some big-hitting clout to Brown's plans to guide the UK out of recession.

But more pressing, for Brown at least, is the prospect of an election. Brown's government trails the rival Conservatives in the polls, in a public spat Britain hasn't seen the likes of since Blur and Oasis squared up in the mid 1990s. Trendy young David Cameron and his freewheeling Tory Party are set to unseat Brown from Number One (and Number Ten) and the Prime Minister is getting nervous.

Blair, Campbell and Mandelson make a proven election winning team. Brown wants their expertise. But, as ever, there is more to this reunion than meets the eye. Firstly, Brown is a desperate man. After waiting more than a decade for ultimate power, he is watching it slip away thanks to public fatigue and a frightening economic decline, for which he must bear some responsibility. He is keen to leave his mark on history - a second term, won rather than "inherited" would aid that. His followers in the party and in the media urge Brown to commit Labour use what could be his final months in power to push through hardline left-wing policies, a combination of ideological red-meat and class-war populism his successors will find difficult to repeal or untangle (not least because David Cameron has displayed no appetite for repealing the works of New Labour).

Witness Harriet Harman's new plan to make class the guiding factor of all public service decisions. Labour ideologues adore the spirit, while there are many voters who support the removal of anything which smacks of privilege, no matter how well-earned. One party insider has described the plans as "socialism in a sentence" - Harman herself calls it a "New Social Order."

New Social Order. Do they ever learn?

So where do the old architects of New Labour fit in here? Their advice is of interest to Brown, of course, as is the fact that big international businesses find the presence of Blair and Mandelson reassuring. EURSOC has argued that Blair's mission was intensely ideological, a fact other commentators are only beginning to realise, having dismissed the former PM as little more than a PR man handed control of the Party because he could win elections. Blair's ideological commitment to New Labour runs deep.

But there's a further way in which the old band can help Brown. It may be counter-intuitive, but it's there. Blair and Mandelson are wildly unpopular with the public: They represent the spin, style-before-substance policies of the 1990s. Brown, by way of contrast, presents himself as a man of substance and seriousness. He was always the odd man out from the Fab Four, or at least that's how he presented himself.

One of Brown's most convincing tricks since becoming PM has been to persuade the public that the Opposition Conservatives, too, are a bunch of Public Relations spin doctors without a fresh idea in their collective head: In Brown's eyes, Cameron's Tories are little more than a 90s revival act, New New Labour, making a career playing all the old hits of Tony Blair's era.

Reintroducing the original model will show the Tories up for the clueless copyists they are. It will also remind the public of the consequences of voting for another bunch of scheming, on-message scoundrels, particularly if Brown succeeds in enlisting Blair, Mandelson and Campbell while simultaneously distancing himself from them. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bnp-links-to-immigration-service-staff-1334236.html

It's not clear how these statistics are gathered, nor what defines racism, given that even recent arrivals in the UK are quick to learn that the "R" word ensures that your complaint goes straight to the top of the pile (and that the alleged racist becomes guilty until proven innocent).

Nonetheless, immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees do deserve to be treated with dignity and respect even if they are eventually refused admission into the UK, and it is up to the government to ensure that this is the case.

Rather than the infiltration of the Borders Agency by BNP activists being our major worry, we should be concerned by how the British authorities have abandoned immigration to private agencies, special interest groups and human rights lawyers. Yes, it is beyond doubt that BNP thugs have the ability make life unbearable for immigrants awaiting their fate in UK camps, just as camp guards make life miserable for their charges all over the world - but by placing all the blame for mistreatment on a tiny political party shifts the blame: You don't have to be a member of the BNP to mistreat those you're charged with looking after.

Furthermore, the government's dereliction of duty in immigration extends to who is processing claims. As we mentioned above, there is nothing stopping activists of other undesirable organisations waving their fellows through. We have heard reports of recent immigrants themselves joining the service and fast-tracking their countrymen above more deserving cases. The government has signed away much of its ability to police its borders to activist lawyers and judges thanks to the Human Rights Act, which British legal teams interpret with a zeal which exceeds the brief of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Yes, having one or two BNP members play minor roles in Britain's immigration shambles is a bad thing. But this is symptomatic of the government's lunatic abandonment of immigration policy and practice. The knee-jerk response of clamping down on BNP sympathisers and members in companies which might work for the state is counter-productive, too, and fuels conspiracy theories and martyr complexes which are never far away in any debate with that party.

http://newsfromrussia.com/science/earth/11-01-2009/106922-earth_ice_age-0

Nevertheless, fears of an overdue ice age are not new and come from respectable sources. Prior to the global warming scare, the prospect of a new ice age made headlines on a regular basis. Only since the 1970s has the theory of anthropogenic global warming overtaken cooling as the main issue of debate in climatology. Indeed, it's fair to say that global warming is the more urgent of the two, as its impact will be felt in a matter of decades - the glaciers are unlikely to cover northern Europe, as they did in the last ice age, for another couple of millennia.

So what does the Pravda piece have to say? 

Supporters of the new ice age argue that global warming looks at evidence of the past 1,000 years (many proponents of global warming theory debate this); to get a clearer picture of temperature, you must look back over a million years. And, they say, this shows shorter warm periods, such as that we enjoy now, breaking up much longer eras of extensive ice coverage.

Anthropologists will note that the 12,000 years of relatively warm weather gave mankind a long enough break to develop things like agriculture and civilisation.

So, time to crank up that heater, set Google going off on pointless searches, cut the proposed taxes on Ryanair flights in order to heat the planet enough to keep the ice at bay? We're not so sure. The author of the piece, Gregory F Fegel, is a prolific blogger with a taste for conspiracy theory: He is a supporter of the idea that the attack on the World Trade Centre was an "inside job"

http://www.pscelebrities.com/alice/2006/01/usa-exports-state-sponsored-terrorism.html 

even calling for the US government to be executed for their role in the terrorist mass murder:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/pravda-is-back-to-its-bad-old-ways

The USA also gets the blame for the Mumbai attacks, and much else of the world's woe. Furthermore, he is ferociously anti-Israel and appears to be an admirer of Noam Chomsky.

Usually climate change "denial" (as supporters of climate change theory now insist on calling their critics) is the province of the right and the US right in particular; it is quite interesting to see that this meme has spread to a broadly hard-left, anti-American front. 

Maybe it was in the stars. It has been reported that NASA is selling its much-vaunted and historic Space Shuttles for $42 million a piece. There is a charge of $ 6 million for postage and packing.

They may be flown to the destination of your choice – piggy-back from Kennedy Space Center  in Florida – with the help of a Boeing 747-400F. (The Atlantis model is the version favoured by the cognoscenti). Applications: nasa.gov/transition.

These revolutionary earth-orbiter craft were baptised with names such as Enterprise, Endeavour, Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger. (The best-known space shuttle disaster is the one involving Challenger, when disintegration began 73 seconds into its flight leading to the deaths of its seven crew members).

Admittedly, these extraordinary celestial orbiters are “slightly used”. But, what the hey ? Beggars can’t be choosers.

According to a source at the ‘Mercury News’ at San Jose in the state of Montana (State motto: Big Sky Country), there is keen interest from a potential anonymous purchaser in Great Falls (Population: 58,536). The idea is to that the would-be buyer wants the item for display in his (big) backyard.

There was a burst of re-newed interest in space shuttles after the release of the Clint Eastwood film ‘Space Cowboys’ in 2000. In the closing moments and over the credits, we hear the Frank Sinatra number, ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ , recorded in 1964. (The hit was played to the astronauts of Apollo 10 on their lunar mission in 1969).

Now, USS Atlantis may be flying to Great Falls, Montana.

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten. Houston, we have lift off.

The weapon he chose, instinctively, was a double pepperoni with extra cheese. The hot conflagration  of the Italian-American delicacy hit the alleged assailant straight in the face. (This is according to eyewitness reports).

A police spokesman in Miramar has issued a statement saying that a “teenager” and two associated accomplices have been charged with attempted armed robbery.

In an interview for the ‘ South Florida Sun-Sentinel’, the modest pizza delivery man explained: “It’s all in a day’s work. I wasn’t hurt. I notified the police. I won’t press charges”.  He added, “I thought the cheese would do the trick”.

Que pasa pepperoni.