Goat News - Informing the colonies since 2006

[goat starer]

At Chatty request this is a place for posting the latest stories making the headlines outside the United States. A place to uphold those british values of truth and fairplay.

So what's in the news over here....

Iraq - well it would have to be woulddn't it! In the past two weeks we have had the head of the British Army describing the presence of British forces in Iraq as exacerbating the problem. The British press now openly calls the situation in Iraq a civil war. At the same time the head of the armed forces on the ground in Basra believes he will soon be able to hand over security in Southern Iraq to the Iraqui security forces but listening to the descriptions given by troops on the ground on the BBC this morning this sounds like a pipe dream.

Sudan - They have oil, they have turmoil, but at this moment in time their turmoil is not stopping the oil so dont expect large numbers of British or American troops on the ground to stop the genocide in Darfur too quickly.

UK - islam dominates the headlines here. A support teacher was recently dismissed for refusing to remove her veil in class. The School argued (and an industrial tribunal agreed) that as her job was to help children learn English as a second language it would help if they could see her face. Meanwhile several MPs have added fuel to this one by asking muslim visitors to their constituency sessions to remove their veils. Trevor Philips, the head of the Commission for Racial Equality, has said that the polarisation over this issue could lead to riots. More intelligent commentators would say that what tends to lead to riots is people talking about riots! There have been a number of reported vandal attacks on Mosques. HOWEVER as a good goat living in Bradford the truth is that whilst some of the muslim community feel under assault life goes on as normal in our ethnically mixed towns. We all get on better than we should perhaps expect and most of the time things are just fine. PS. it is important to note that any feelings of alienation and anger Muslims may feel are in no way connected to Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel, Guantanamo Bay, Belmarsh etc. Tony Blair said so so it must be true.

And finally the BBC have announced tha winner of teh Wildlife Photographer of the Year award and it is a beauty!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/6063862.stm

PS. There is a civil war in Chad, Hungary are marking the anniversary of the 1956 uprising, The russians and spanish are in dispute over the spanish king allegedly killing a bear, Iceland has broken the international Whaling moratorium by killing an endangered Fin Whale and the popular south african singer Lebo Masotha has been killed in a car crash.

[Griffin NoName]

....and

BBC news is predicting riots in France as annual recurring event due any time now.

BBC fiction - Spooks - is waging a campaign to increase paranoia about all the ways the world can be disrupted - Mossad creating turmoil in Saudi by blowing up trade centre in London..... is the latest

Michael Howard, former leader of the Conservative Party has been helping the police with enquiries into loans for peerages but not under caution.... either because he knows a lot about these things or because it will make it look better when (ok ok if) they interview Blair......

Remember BST ends Sun 2 am.

End of transmission.

[Sibling Chatty]

Thanks, y'all!!

I used to read a lot of international news on-line, but i've been having difficulties recently...the Frankenputer doesn't like to work too long at one time.

It's interesting that the same war scene is described so differently by the government here.

[goat starer]

chatty, you said over there the sun shines out of our Tony's derriere. over here the story is rather different. the big questions no longer revolve around TB but around who will be his successor (widely touted as Gordon Brown but in Britain these things rarely go with the favorite) and whether the Conservatives can mount a credible challenge for govenrnment under their new leader David Cameron. I am afraid we are starting to look increasingly US in political style. TB brought a much more presidential style of government (Claire Short MP - her who resigned over the Iraq war has just left the Parliamentary Labour Party because she says parliament has no opportunity to challenge prime ministerial decisions) and the two main parties are now so close together in the centre that you would struggle to get a kipper between them. There used to be a real ideological divide over teh welfare state, europe, foriegn policy but now we just get opportunistic sniping in the centreground.

[goat starer]

There has only been one important piece of news in the UK today....

and here it is......


http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/england/london/6083468.stm


horiffic yet hilarious

[Sibling Spoffish]

  

Weeeird...


But I have to say that as far as the parties coming so far together as to be almost identical, I think you're lucky. Over here we've got right-wing (liberal) and a labour party that's so central and stuffed up that no one can justify voting for it.  Plus an ex-opposition leader (Mark Latham) who's still writing books to try and 'expose' the terrible workings of the government while only managing to show everyone what a complete  he is.  So yeah, I think we all know who's going to win the next election (sigh)...

[beagle]

Things might liven up over here once (if) Gordon Brown takes over. It's hard for me to see why anyone in the private sector would want to vote for the man whose £5bn a year pension stealth tax has helped force closure of many company pension schemes, and substantially devalued the potential income in retirement of all the others. If the electorate understood what he had done now, instead of in twenty years time, he would be the most unpopular figure in government (up against some pretty stiff opposition).

[goat starer]

Beagle. have you been listening to those nasty tories again? Stealth taxes are a myth and the economy has never been better.

[Griffin NoName]

Exactly Goat, especially now we have 600,000 Polish people doing all the jobs our poor disaffected unemployed masses cannot do because they all have Asbos and are doing community service painting over graffitti. That's been excellent for the economy but I cannot get my head round it. I have no problem with anyone coming and working here, but I can't help trying to do sums in my head about numbers of jobs and numbers of pre-existing people already here who could do them who cant get a job. Things can only get better when Bulgaria and Roumania start contributing to our thriving black economy (nice one John Reed). Must remember to check how much the black economy contributes to GNP.

Oh and speaking personally I feel so much better now my water is being controlled by an Australian company, the German company that bought it last year having sold the business on quickly for a healthy profit (one would hope, can I have my cut ? some of that water was MINE once but I was forced to recycle it). Must start a Reclaim Our Sewers Campaign for Londoners when I have some spare time.

[goat starer]

When Yorkshire water was privatised there was a proposal from the company to operate not for profit - they were not allowed to. How long before we sell the lot to evian i wonder!

[beagle]

Utility companies are a hugely popular investment because of the steady income stream in times of recession, and I've heard there's a lot of Arabic money looking for a safe home due to the high oil prices. The Dubai Ports thing has scared them off the U.S., so it may not be the French who end up owning it.
That might worry a few people, though they'll probably remember to change the Benzene filters (that was Perrier rather than Evian?).

P.S. Noname

I've seen estimates that the black economy contributes anything between 3 to 12% of GNP, though your son is probably well placed to tell you the *real* figure.

[Griffin NoName]

P.S. Noname

I've seen estimates that the black economy contributes anything between 3 to 12% of GNP, though your son is probably well placed to tell you the *real* figure.

I'll get onto that as soon as I've completed my petitioning to save our sewers. At present the discussions are not going well on utilities. I mistakenly thought I'd got a clincher of a question when I asked if he thought it was a good idea to make the people in refugee camps in Africa buy their water.