The Queen joins the always-on generation

By Libby

Who says you can't teach an old royal new tricks? Urged on by her tech savvy progeny, The Queen of England now has her own YouTube channel. She just posted a video of her first televised Christmas message to the masses, wherein she expressed wonder at the new technology of the day that allowed her to appear on a box in her subjects' living rooms.

I don't know much about the royal family and have no idea why they feel the need to reach out to the people in this particular manner. A YouTube account hardly seems to fit the image of the very formal, upper crust of British society, but I love that she's willing to embrace the latest technology in order to mash it up with the masses. Makes her seem more accessible. I suppose that's the point.

Now if she also starts blogging, I'll be really impressed.

[cross-posted to The Reaction]

A Changing England

At Real Clear Politics Cal Thomas has an article about Great Britain that I agree with in it's totality. I never thought I would say it, but there you go. He bemoans the changing demographic of England that is spurred by the emigration of Britons and the arrival of large numbers of intolerant immigrants, immigrants who have no interest in assimilation or religious tolerance.

The figures, making headlines in London newspapers, tell only part of the story. Between June 2005 and June 2006 nearly 200,000 British citizens chose to leave the country for a new life elsewhere. During the same period, at least 574,000 immigrants came to Britain. This number does not include the people who broke the law to get there, or the thousands unknown to the government. Britain's Office of National Statistics reports that middle-class Britons are beginning to move out of towns in southern England that have become home to large numbers of immigrants, thereby altering the character of neighborhoods that have remained unchanged for generations.

I have friends in Great Britain and they tell the same story.

Britons give many reasons for leaving, but their stories share one commonality: life in Britain has become unbearable for them. They fear lawlessness and the threat of more terrorism from a growing Muslim population and the loss of a sense of Britishness, exacerbated by the growing refusal of public schools to teach the history and culture of the nation to the next generation. What it means to be British has been watered down in a plague of political correctness that has swept the country faster than hoof-and-mouth disease. Officials say they do not wish to "offend" others

Being an Anglophile I am very offended by what is going on. These are the fruits of empire, but you don't have to give up without a fight.

British media have carried stories about an Italian immigrant who murdered a schoolteacher and was sentenced to life in prison. He is about to be released after serving just 12 years. The government wants to deport him to Italy, but a combination of British human rights legislation and European Union law are making it impossible to do so. This does not bode well for deporting Islamic terrorists who call for the overthrow of the government and incite young people to acts of violence.

It's one thing to be defeated by a more powerful enemy, but to be the cause of your own destruction by showing tolerance to the intolerant and charity to the unworthy is a bitter epitaph.

I pray there will always be the England I remember, but they must wake up. We need to set an alarm for ourselves for we also seem to be dozing.

Jim Martin

UK attacks - lots of hype, few facts

By Libby
Updated below

I had a hellacious work week so I've been a bit out of the news loop and I'm just catching up on events. In checking out the latest developments on the failed "terrorist" attacks in the UK, and I say failed because they didn't cause any major mayhem or loss of life, I think this quote from the NYT best sums up the situation at the present.

After the midafternoon crash through doors at Glasgow Airport on Saturday, accounts by witnesses gathered by news agencies were confused, ....

It's clear to me that what we have so far is a lot of overheated hype by news outlets competing for the most alarming headlines, but very little in the way of confirmed facts. Meanwhile, "western counterterrorism experts" seem to be in agreement with my initial assessment that while the attacks may have been coordinated, this is not the work of AQ but rather some homegrown group of amateur wannabes.

Equally telling and more troubling though is this quote from a Scottish official who claimed the Glasgow crash was definitely a terrorist incident.

But Mr. Rae, the Scottish constable, said there had been no intelligence warning of an attack in Glasgow.

This is particularly troubling in light of this report stating the U.S. had received intelligence reports two weeks ago "warning of a possible terror attack in Glasgow against 'airport infrastructure or aircraft.'" According to officials, "The warnings were kept secret for operational reasons." Yeah, that would Operation Rescue Bush's Tanking Approval Ratings.

I don't any reason the US would withhold these warnings from Glasgow other than they wanted an incident to occur in order to bolster their own case about the threat of terrorists and hopefully to reignite Americans' fear of the Muslim boogeymen that has served this administration so well in accruing unprecendented executive power in the name of "protecting" us.

As always, Cernig has the reasonable analysis, rendered from his perspective on site in the UK. He collects the foreign press links and also sees this a amateur copycat attempt at terrorism.

Update: Britain's new Prime Minister Gordon Brown said it is “clear that we are dealing, in general terms, with people who are associated with al-Qaida.” It seems to me they said that about the 7/7 subway bombing as well initially and later had to backtrack and admit the perps were homegrown amateurs and let's not forget the unfortunate South American kid who was gunned down shortly thereafter as an alleged AQ terrorist trying to conduct a second bombing attempt on the subway and turned out to be completely innocent.

Seems to be we're in greater danger from panic created by ratings-driven media and political hyperbole than actual terrorists.

Update: Cernig is updating practically hourly with fresh links. As the facts are emerging, it appears this is a case of just another group of wannabe 20-somethings that learned to be terrorists by watching television. Be sure to hit the home button at the end of the post and scroll through to see what else Cernig is uncovering. I can't keep up with him.

Meanwhile, I posted on this at the Newshoggers. Lieberman is test running what is sure to become Bush's new talking point, that the faux terror attack should turn us all into quivering scaredy-cats. We're supposed to hide under our beds forthwith and let Bush do whatever he pleases to protect us. A far cry from the new Prime Minister of England's call to his people to show caution but proceed with their lives with courage.

And on a related note, Crooks and Liars has the video of DNC Communications Director, Karen Finney kicking her RNC counterpart's ass on the subject of the politics of terror.

Newsflash - bombs in London don't explode

By Libby

Well, everybody and their brother is blogging about the two car bombs in London today. Judging from the headliners, the remaining Bush supporters have worked themselves into a frothing panic over this latest terrorist threat, but as always, for news like this, I turn to my man in England, Cernig, who has a more sober analysis. He's the must read post on this one.

Looking beyond the alarmist headlines about potentially viable bombs, one discovers buried in the articles that the no one was able to actually get them to explode, not even the cops and as Cernig points out, even if they did explode, the canisters are manufactured in a way, by UK mandate, to minimize the explosion so the construction of the bombs alone indicates amateurs, not professional terrorists. He has much more and has been updating as news comes in.

For all the hype, I'm predicting that this will turn out to be much less serious a threat that didn't really require all this hyperventilating. It's most likely to be random nutcases who formed their own little homegrown wannabe insurgency. However it turns out though, we could take a lesson from the British.

They aren't in a panic driven frenzy begging their government to save them from this horrible terrorist threat by bombing the bejebus out of the Middle East. They simply shrug and carry on with their lives.

Diplomatic pressure softens Iran hostage situation

The Iranian hostage situation continues to unfold. The muckraking SkyNews reports footage of the captured British soldiers has been aired on Iranian TV and also that the sole woman hostage may soon be released. The stills that accompany the article are comforting in that the hostages do look unharmed and comfortable considering the circumstances. I've certainly seen hostages in worse condition in my lifetime.

Meanwhile, the particulars of the taking are, of course, in contention with Iran claiming the UK marines violated their territorial waters and the UK claiming they didn't. Now, six days later the UK has come up with some proof they're correct. My friend Michael van der Galien is more trusting than I and accepts the British version, but the sad effect of having endured four years of information manipulation by both Bush and Blair have rendered me unable to accept anyone's claims on face value.

Meanwhile, Michael points us to Robert Clayton Dean who is all exercised over Iran's violation of the Geneva Conventions.

The Iranians have just announced that they intend to commit yet another violation of the Geneva Conventions: publicly displaying the British sailors they captured last week.

This makes the third violation of the Geneva Conventions by Iran: threatening to try soldiers in uniform for espionage, interrogation of captured soldiers, and now public display of captured soldiers.

He decries the double standard on the left and asks where is the outrage among the "usual suspects" which I assume includes anyone who criticized the US violations of the same.

I'm a bit confused about his point. Of course, Iran should be condemned for violating the Conventions. But is that supposed to excuse us? Leaving aside the enemy combatants, even within his narrow definition, didn't we do these three things to Saddam? Shouldn't he have been qualified for protection under the conventions?

Did he forget our own Attorney General, Mr. Gonzales deemed the conventions to be "quaint" in supporting the US torture policy? The implication clearly being they were outmoded. Should we be then be surprised that the madman from Tehran treats them with equal disregard?

Guys like Mr. Dean like to cast the left's concerns about the conventions as anti-American when we wanted them applied to enemy combatants, but this is exactly what I, and many on the left have been warning about since the beginning; that our treatment of the enemy would eventually endanger our own troops and allies. As ye sow.... and all that.

It seems to me the double standard is on his side of the fence. I'm outraged about any violation of human rights while they excuse the Bush administration, who not only violated them first but codified the violations to make them legal. Using their own words, with which they condemn the left, either you're outraged about both or you don't really have the right to complain about either.