As Andrew and David have already done so, I’d also like to take a moment to wish Andrew, David, Alison, Mike, Richard, MrSmith, Aileen, Colm, Madradin Ruad, Frank O’D, Daytripper, Cunningham, Garfield, Henry94, Mahons, Kloot, Ernest, Chris G, Allan-Ab, Alan Mac, Chas TX, Monica, Peter, Pete-London, Percy, Parnell, Ann, Ross, Emily, Phantom, Troll, NRG, SBK, Hugh, JG, not forgetting more occasional commentators such as RottyPup and DSD, and not forgetting either absentees such as Felix and Jo, and not meaning to forget anyone I’ve forgotten to include on this list, a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous 2007.

It’s been about 14 months since I started blogging, and about a year since I started visiting ATW. Unlike some political blogs which are rather dry and serious, ATW has always been my favourite, as it is not only intelligent but also lively, friendly and down-to-earth.  I’ve learned an enormous lot (though there’s lots I still have to learn) from reading the debates on Northern Ireland affairs in particular. That has been important to me, because you see, the way the London-based MSM reports about NI is very often condescending and awash with typically Olde-English class-based snobbery, if you get what I mean.  ATW (and via its links, other blogs from NI/ROI such as Slugger) have helped me to broaden my outlook and challenged my preconceptions in the past year.

My special thanks to David for asking me to contribute on here.  I recognise that it is only due to the popularity and skills of David and Andrew’s own writings, that has allowed me a platform and an automatic audience. I’m very grateful for that, and I hope that my small contribution has been a positive one, so far.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Im spending Christmas in France this year as i do almost every other year or so. This little pic which took way too long to upload (so ended up being much smaller than I planned) is of the Hanukah and Christmas decorations in one part of the town centre. The sign reads Happy Hannukah in a few languages and locals gathered last week to celebrate.

The town looks beautiful. The streets are lined with red carpets, fairy lights and frosted Christmas trees. The cypress trees have fairly lights wrapped all around them. The cake shops are packed with locals buying up the prettily decorated works of art. The shopping is less frenetic than London but is still pretty busy.

The Hanukah sign and various festive decorations can be left out every day and night and you can pretty much guarantee they wont be stolen or vandalised.

France is secular – but there are plenty of Christmas symbols which feature more prominently in amongst the commercialism than you would find in the ‘christian’ UK.

Many of the shops have window displays based entirely on the Nativity scene, beautifully put together. The local town centre market sells Nativity figurines and there is generally at least one main ‘big’ Nativity feature in the Old Town around which the locals will gather tomorrow night for midnight mass. The feel at Christmas is more family less commercial.  I cant say they seem to be fighting to maintain a ‘christian feel’ to Christmas. PC just isnt an issue. And remember the speed with which they moved to remove the veil from schools?  Removing religious symbols from this environment and being a secular nation doesnt seem to have harmed religion. And I also wonder how France manages to side step those EU human rights issues? Because, no matter who is in power and what might be said about le declin, France is still a confident nation. It is confident about its self image. I would dearly love to see the UK gain the same confidence.  Perhaps the UK would be better off secular for a start.

Here’s another offering for all you logicians out there from Aileen..now pay attention and see who can work it out first….I’ve just looked at it and had to lie down in a darkened room!!!!

The tiger, the witch and the wardrobe

Delighted to read that a Christian couple have been awarded £10,000 after being questioned by police about their views on homosexuality. Helen and Joe Roberts, of Fleetwood, Lancashire, were questioned after they tried to display Christian literature next to gay rights’ leaflets. The couple had asked for Christian literature to be displayed alongside gay rights’ literature and "were astonished" when Wyre Borough Council refused. During a call to the council to complain Mrs Roberts expressed her religious belief that homosexual practice was morally wrong. That led to the council informing the police, who then sent two officers to the couple’s home to interrogate them on their views. Shame on Wyre Council and well done to Mr and Mrs Roberts!

The MSM tends to portray PM-in-waiting Gordon Brown as an almost supernaturally prudent Chancellor of the Exchequer. Blair and his cohorts suggest that Brown has been an incredibly successful custodian of the Nations’s finances. So….isn’t it fascinating to read today that the income tax burden on British families has soared to its highest level since records began two decades ago, dramatically eroding the amount of money left in people’s pockets, figures released by the Office for National Statistics say.

British households have experienced the biggest increase in taxes across the western world since Labour came to power, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has revealed. The result is that hard-working families have even less money left to spend this Christmas.

But Brown is only doing what all Leftists in power do – stealing as much of our income as possible in order to redistribute this to favoured courier groups. I’m sure that Brown will look on this HUGE taxation increase as a great acheivement, and clearly but the taster of that which is to come under the new guise of "green taxation."

Of course Brown is also calculating that so long as the Bank of England keeps mortgage interest rates relatively low, then all will be OK, and the sedated masses will keep handing him their hard-earned cash.

I see that the IRA/Sinn Fein publicity machine is still working with the planted news story today being that…

“Sinn Féin may decide today whether to call a meeting of its national executive to discuss policing. The party was discussing the issue late last night.”

Look, this is all a no-brainer. The Republicans WILL play their role in the planned political choreography for early next year. They WILL call a meeting to endorse the PSNI, subject to this that and the other caveat. This WILL ensure that an election goes ahead in March IF the DUP are so craven and stupid as to accept the words of gangsters and liars.

At the moment, the great media game is to pretend that IRA/Sinn Fein might NOT call such a meeting. I’m sure this will be presented by the toothless MSM as one that will “go down to the wire” and then, when they do as I predict, it will be presented as “seismic” “historic” “earth-shattering” etc etc. More nauseous peace-processing. Of course any thinking unionist will know that the faux words of terrorists MEAN nothing.

And just so we are CLEAR as to how the Islamist killers see the US mid-term election results……

"In a portion of the tape from al Qaeda No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahri, made available only today, Zawahri says he has two messages for American Democrats.

"The first is that you aren’t the ones who won the midterm elections, nor are the Republicans the ones who lost. Rather, the Mujahideen — the Muslim Ummah’s vanguard in Afghanistan and Iraq — are the ones who won, and the American forces and their Crusader allies are the ones who lost…." 

Zawahri then calls on the Democrats to negotiate with him and Osama bin Laden, not others in the Islamic world who Zawahri says cannot help.

"And if you don’t refrain from the foolish American policy of backing Israel, occupying the lands of Islam and stealing the treasures of the Muslims, then await the same fate…."

 

Ok Nancy, Hillary and co –  time to start talking……? Seems the celebrations of the Dem victory DID extend to the caves where the barbarians lurk…. 

Did you read about the seven-year-old English boy in a wheelchair who has been left in tears after being banned from the school Christmas party – because his parents objected to him taking part in Hindu celebrations?

Liam Walker’s parents withdrew him from the Bristol school festivities marking the Diwali festival because they believed the religion’s karma theory suggested he was being punished for previous sins. In retaliation his headteacher banned him from any Christian events, including the school Christmas party where 200 youngsters exchanged gifts and learned about the nativity story. Astonishingly, the school does not even have any Hindu pupils.

Just let me summarise this for you.

The school, celebrating the Hindu festival of Diwali, has NO Hindu children. Yet because a non-Hindu pupil refuses to participate, that pupil is punished.

Sack the Headmaster. We need to stop this State school madness.

Can we PLEASE abolish the Northern Ireland so-called "Human Rights Commission"? This freakish organisation, headed up by the repellent Monica McWilliams, is such a waste of tax-payers money. Established under the corrupt terms of the Belfast Agreement, it provides no useful function and instead merely facilitates the perpetual victimhood of the Irish nationalist agenda dressed up in the hollow rhetoric of human rightology.

Monica has delivered her Xmas message demanding that her useless quango be allowed to investigate allegations of human rights abuses involving MI5 or MI6 in Northern Ireland.

Monica scrupulously avoids dealing with the TEN OF THOUSANDS of human rights abuses carried out by the IRA terrorists that she happily supported in Government. Payback for such cowardice was her neat little fatcat quango-job. This Commission is an affront to decent people and I view it with nothing but complete contempt. Every penny it costs us is a penny too much.

McWilliams and her ilk are parasites that feed off the UK tax-payer, whilst assiduously cultivating their own narrow anti-British political agenda. They have no RIGHT to proclaim anything in the name of Human Rights.