Nosemonkey's EUtopia

The evening went well. The donations for the beer fund were very much appreciated. I was apparently on TV. Thanks to all. More tomorrow.

Updated: Courtesy of the missus (like who found it and stuff) here it is – Nosemonkey on TV. No idea how long it’ll be up there, mind – try it sooner rather than later if you really want. Meant to be there a week, but who knows… The segment’s about a third to a half of the way through the broadcast. Just after Helena Christensen…

I sound like an overly posh twat… Fucking Prince William of the blogosphere, me…

Oh, and the other guy they’re interviewing was one of the first people on the scene after the Tavistock Square bus bomb. Deserves a lot of credit, that guy.

Oh, and since when was I an “internet enthusiast” with an “online diary”?

Ho-hum…

An EU “loyalty oath”? If that idea doesn’t get the eurosceptics all heated up I don’t know what will… It’ll be interesting to see the response to proposals by the EU�s justice and security Commissioner Franco Frattini to “get every immigrant to somehow declare they will respect national law, EU law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights”. Considering that there are MEPs who wouldn’t take an oath to respect EU Law and that the Blair government is already in breach of the Charter of Fundamental Rights (and threatening to pull out altogether), is it really right to expect anyone else to?

If anyone else from the media and stuff – or anyone who contributed to the fund, wants to contribute in person, or who had a near-miss on the day – is interested in attending this thank-you booze-up for paramedic volunteers, drop me an email at nosemonkey [at symbol thing] gmail [full-stop] com. Write-up tomorrow, plus details of any television / newspaper coverage as and when I know – my brief bit of fame of a live TV interview tonight is beginning to look less certain, however (can’t decide whether it’s a relief or a disappointment…)

Update: Well, looks like Auntie’s going ahead after all. As such, expect to see a particularly nervous-looking Nosemonkey being interviewed live on BBC London News tonight at some point after 6:30.

Bricking it…

Update 2: I’m now closing the appeal – thanks again to all who donated. If anyone’s still feeling charitable, Instapundit has a long list of blogger reccomendations for hurricane relief charities after the unpleasantness in New Orleans.

My contribution ended up getting rather lengthy, so I’ve whacked it up at The Sharpener: Uzbekistan blog day: A Central Asian primer and call for action – go read and stuff. Other posts are being compiled by the Disillusioned Kid here.

PM urges European modernisation after ‘bra war’ – yep, Tony’s back and jumping on yet another European bandwaggon. Call me a decadent westerner snob by all means, but his calls for “Europe as a whole to modernise to meet the challenge from China and India” confused me a tad. After all, the problem over Chinese underwear imports is surely more to do with the less than modern working practices in the People’s Republic whereby sweatshop workers can be paid an absolute pittance, keeping overheads down and end products cheap? Is the Dear Leader about to repeal the minimum wage to make the UK textile industry more competitive in the world market? Is that really what’s known as modernisation these days? I dunno – perhaps I shouldn’t have read this piece on free trade earlier…

As I’ve done one Iraq post, may as well do another: Reuters cameraman ordered held in Abu Ghraib –

“A cameraman for Reuters in Iraq has been ordered by a secret tribunal to be held without charge in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison until his case is reviewed within six months, a U.S. military spokesman said on Wednesday… The U.S. military has refused Reuters requests to disclose why he is being held. He has not been charged… he [will] not be allowed to see an attorney, his family or anyone else for the first 60 days of his detention, which began in Abu Ghraib last week.”

Anyone want to take a guess at the ethnicity of this cameraman?

This is what is known in the trade as fucking awful. More than 640 dead, 230 injured in Baghdad thanks to mere RUMOURS of possible suicide bombers, following mortar attacks on a crowd of religious pilgrims.

It should by now be obvious that the people launching these attacks have no more claim to be a muslim than I do. Sooner or later it should also become obvious that if you are living in a state of fear and panic, this sort of tragedy becomes, even if not on this horrific scale, inevitable. Lessons to be learned for Sir Ian “terrorists are everywhere and we can’t stop them” Blair, perhaps?

Still, political points should not be made over the bodies of the dead. But I hold out little hope of any western nations offering anything like the kind or quantity of messages of support and condolence to Iraq over this that London received in the wake of our bombings. Hey, it may be twelve times the death toll (as it stands), but they aren’t westerners, so what does it matter, eh?

I’ve finally sorted it all out once and for all. The money is ready and waiting behind the bar and the piss-up will commence at some point after work on Thursday.

It’s still not too late if you want to donate – anything received via the PayPal link to the left before 4pm (British Summer Time) on Thursday 1st September will be added to the money already given on the night. Every penny shall go on giving the volunteers of the St John Ambulance Service who helped out in London on July 7th as good a time as possible by way of thanks for their vital work.

Thanks to all those who donated – expect a full write-up here (and possibly some other places) on Friday.

Heh – I’d missed this while away, but going back through those anti-Kilroy posts got me hunting around for news of the silver-haired idiot, who appears to have been keeping an uncharacteristically low profile of late.

So anyway, a bunch of his MEP colleagues are complaining about the guy, and it’s likely to kick off again this week now that the European Parliament’s back up and running.

The East Midlands MEPs who have written to complain about Kilroy’s lack of attendance to his duties include two Tories and a Labourite, as well as someone from UKIP, and based on the little it’s possible to find out about what Kilroy (or any MEP for that matter, now that europarliament.net seems to be down) gets up to in Brussels they appear to have a point. According to the MEPs in question, Kilroy last signed the plenary session attendance register on April 12.

Of course, you could argue that as Kilroy doesn’t believe that the EU should exist, let alone the European Parliament, he’s actually sticking to his principles by attending as little as he legally can, and that those who voted for him would have wanted him to do nothing less (or is that more?). Additionally, by not signing on as often as he could do, he’s actually scabbing less money off the European taxpayer than many of his eurosceptic former chums.

But still – what are the ethics of electing a representative who doesn’t believe in the institution which he/she is meant to be a representative at? Are there comparisons to be made between Kilroy and Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams? Probably, but that would be affording far more serious consideration to the man than he deserves. There’s no principle involved here, because Kilroy’s promise on his election was to “wreck” the EU. He can hardly do that while swanning around forming pointless new political parties and then quitting them as soon as it becomes clear that they are singular failures. Much as, based on the recent lack of coverage this publicity-hungry maniac has been getting, he now appears to be. Hurrah!

German elections: Anthony Wells, it would appear, is my bitch. Hurrah! Check out his newly updated German election polls info, and his sage advice and analysis:

“The figures to watch on the German polls aren’t the gap between the CDU/CSU and the SDP, but the sum of the CDU/CSU and FDP figures – or more specifically, if they are over 50%.

“A couple of months ago they were well above 50%. August has been a bit dicey, with the combined figure often falling to 49%. Once parties that fall below the 5% threshold are excluded, 49% would probably be enough to scrape a meagre majority for the CDU/CSU+FDP, but it’s too close for any real comfort. The most recent two polls however have shown the CDU/CSU+FDP back over the 50% mark.

“On the left, while the SDP have gained some support – recent polls have them at 30% when a month or so ago they were marooned around the 26-27% mark – this is mostly at the expense of the new Left party, who seem to have peaked at the end of last month when they were regularly hitting 12%. Now they are are 10% or lower.”

Top work, Mr Wells!

It may still be more than a month before our Westminster overlords deign to return from their extensive summer hols, but in Brussels it’ll soon be back to business as usual. Deutsche Welle has a handy overview of some of the upcoming issues, from terrorism to the constitution, airline bans to Turkish membership, the Iranian nuclear programme to bras and panties. We can also expect a bit of fuss over the next day or so thanks to today’s Commission report to the European Parliament�s Fisheries Committee about serious member state infringements of the Common Fisheries Policy, (perhaps justifiably) one of the many ongoing obsessions of the eurosceptic crowd.

God proves once again that he can match the terrorists any time. At least 50 dead in Mississippi thanks to Hurricane Katrina – sounds like an absolute nightmare, and a death toll similar to the 7th July bombs already.

You have to wonder why exactly these nutter terrorists feel they need to do anything at all when they’ve got an omnipresent, omnipotent deity with the ability to control the weather (and/or destroy the entire universe any time he feels like it) on their side. If I was in their shoes I’d sit back and let the big guy handle it – after all, why send in the infantry when you’ve got a tank?