2003/December

A Merry Xmas to those who observe the holiday and a miserable one to the usual suspects and their allies.    BlackFlag News would like to thank all who contributed to the 2003 issues – and we hope to hear from you again in 2004!

AWARD NEWS BlackFlag News is the best! BlackFlag News has been voted 'best real news website' for 2003 by the International Federation of Web Information Distributors.    The Federation cited BFN's fearless approach to reporting, its news penetration and its uncompromising style as major contributing factors to the award. Our graphics department also received a special mention for its focus on 'screen readability'.    BFN offers its thanks to those Federation members and our readers who voted for us.

Xmas Bonus   Xmas Bonus   Xmas Bonus BlackFlag News would like to offer its readers a chance to read this monumental work by one of Romiley's premiere authors.    Read the Book on Jenson Farrago's website    Read about the Book on the Romiley Literary Circle website    Buy the Book at the Lulu.com website This outstanding novel was voted Book of the 20th Century

HOME NEWS Legal profession licking its lips again Serial abusers of the legal system expect to make another fortune out of the latest piece of Euro-harmonization legislation. Homosexualists will be allowed to sue employers, actual and putative, if they think they've been discriminated against, or if they think they've been discriminated against.    And even if the company being mugged had no idea that the mugger is a homosexualist, or the company wasn't involved in the alleged discrimination, or the homosexualist is lying through his/her teeth, the law says that the employer is automatically guilty and has to pay up. Customers are asked not to moan about the rain. Just think about all the reservoirs which need filling. Who won the world cup, Jimmy? Me. He tried to hijack the Queen Mother's funeral as a personal promotion for himself. He tried to do the same with the Downing Street reception for the world cup-winning England rugby union team. The Scottish Vice-Prez wanted a 100% New Labour junket, and when the Rugby Football Union tried to object, it was told to take a hike.    It looks like the Bliar regime will be remembered for its spitefulness in its dying days as well as its serial incompetence. The reason for the hijack was that V-P Bliar wanted to apologize to the team for his party's policy of closing the schools where they learned to play rugby and selling off the playing fields. And he didn't want any opposition politicians hanging around, laughing like drains, while he was grovelling. To the bloke who sent an email to Radio 4's Today saying the death of David Hemmings wasn't news because he (the bloke) had never heard of Mr. Hemmings – just one word: TWAT! Firms which are moving jobs from the UK to India, and which concerned citizens might wish to boycott: Accenture, American Express, British Airways (BA), British Telecom (BT), Capital One, Dell International, Derwent Information, ebookers, HSBC, Lloyds TSB (owners of Scottish Widows insurance company), JP Morgan Close, Morgan Stanley, National Rail Enquiries, Norwich Union, Standard Chartered. 750,000 people were on the streets of London to watch the England rugby union team take a triumphal crawl through part of the city? So how did the security forces propose to protect them from Alky Ida, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein's Irregulars and other tourist organizations? Or did they just say, "Sod it, there's nothing we can do about it," and have a day off? Bloke in naff frock wins Turner Prize. No Ho, Ho! There are no Xmas trees in Job Centres because the management fears that irate customers might use them to belabour stroppy members of staff. There is also a possibility that the sight of a nicely trimmed Xmas tree might drive Moslem and other non-Christian customers berserk; but they're keeping quiet about that.    Further, there will be no alcohol consumed at Job Centre Xmas parties in case the staff go berserk and wreck the joint. And Xmas decorations have been banned because they might injure staff or customers, or staff might injure themselves while deploying the decorations.    Apparently, Job Centre staff have a history of falling off chairs while putting up balloons, leaving cables where visitors can trip over them, damaging walls with sticky tape and drawing pins, and not securing decorations properly so that they fall down and activate intruder alarms. Not content with sexing up dodgy dossiers on Iraq's planet-busting potential, Vice-Prez Bliar has been doing it with the honours list. He stands accused of bunging in the odd tennis player to make the list 'more interesting'.    Outraged Trivial-Democrats are complaining that the honours list is being used to benefit vice-prezidential cronies and generate favourable publicity. Like they wouldn't do the same, given half a chance. Whatever happened to V-P Bliar's promise to reform the honours system? Or did he just mean he was going to change it in the direction of more sleaze? Honours system to be revamped Too many of the recipients of official honours are white, male and elderly. In future, there will be quotas for female, non-white and younger contestants. This change will ensure that at least 50% of the honoured fall into each of the above categories.    As a further change, the Order of Merit will be discontinued as selection on merit will be incompatible with the new quota system. The honours system is run by the permanent secretary to the Department of Constitutional Affairs – and this is the very bloke whom Vice-Prez Bliar has appointed to review the system! Shock of the Month : deceased libel lawyer Peter *arter-*uck wasn't a saint; he was just another money-grubbing scumbag lawyer. Bliar sinks UK's 2012 Olympic bid The International Olympic Committee has taken the hump after the Vice-Prez breached their rules on lobbying (which is the IOC's polite term for bribery and corruption). The IOC's hump is likely to grow in the wake of wriggling by Downing Street spin doctors over what Mr. Bliar was trying to say.    Never argue with a bunch of control freaks seems to be a lesson which the crew at No. 10, and their boss, have yet to learn. Boxing Day shopping in Romiley cancelled Everywhere was locked up tight, including the supermarket, on what has been a traditional replenishing day in years past – everywhere except Jackson's the newsagent and, at about mid-morning, the BP petrol station.

POLITICAL NEWS Straw whipped into line on the EU d(r)aft Constitution With a Downing Street guiding hand thrust up the back of his shirt, he is now playing the 'everything's okay' Foreign Sec. after doing his 'we'll veto the lot' act. The same guy is playing both the good cop and the bad cop. How's that for economy in government?    Pity his colleagues can't be as economical. Minister for Europe and Sticking His Foot In His Gob, Denis McShane, is saying only that the government will rubber-stamp the d(r)aft constitution to avoid rocking the boat. While MP Gisela Stuart, who helped to d(r)aft the document is saying only that it's 'unacceptable in its present form'. New Labour = Closed Government. It's official. Vice-Prez Bliar's regime has more to hide than the last Tory administration had. In its first 5 years, his ministers have imposed 50% more official gagging orders on embarrassing matters despite promises of more-open government. But given the general dodginess of the Bliar regime, few people have expressed any surprise at the amount of dodgy dealing which had to be concealed. Council Tax up? Blame Two Jags – Official! The Audit Commission has dumped the blame for last year's massive Council Tax rises squarely on 'Two Jags' Prescott's well-fed carcase. It was all down to the way his department distributed government grants to local councils. The government's auditors described the system as 'fundamentally flawed' and 'lacking transparency'. But they were able to penetrate the murk sufficiently to see that old Two Jags had handed out to Labour areas, cash which he had plundered from Tory-controlled councils. Let's see what the spin-doctors make of that! Is he mad, bad or just sad? "Vice-Prez Bliar is insincere but charming, and he has a flair for the dramatic and a shaky grasp on reality; all of which proves that he's a psychopath." – 'expert' opinion    "Not at all, they're just the attributes of a shyster lawyer turned politician." – rival 'expert' opinion    "Hitler came to power by getting a significant popular vote, then subverting the constitution." – Lord Justice Judge Lie, cheat and don't worry about being caught Education Sec. Charles Clarke says the government's statistics prove that pupils do better at comprehensives, which is why he wants to abolish grammar schools. But the Statistics Commission has found that his argument is based on fiddled figures – like compared with unlike. A politician deliberately telling a porkie? Surely not! The Mugger bogs it up again 70% of Chancellor Gordy Broon's customers think they're overtaxed, according to this month's poll on such things. And 80% think that he wastes 64% of the money that he claws from the taxpayer.    p.s. Prudence is now officially listed as 'missing believed murdered' and the police searching for the corpse are considering digging up the Chancellor's patio. The Mugger bogs it up even more : Tax revenue is down but everything in the garden is rosy. So the Mugger is sticking another £10billion on the national credit card. Why? Because he made a bog of guessing how much the government needs to borrow; probably because he still doesn't understand endogenous growth theory.    p.s. The EU's rules say a country's budget deficit can't be greater than 3% of national income. The Mugger's deficit is 3.4% and rising. Blunk's Britishness tests binned Foreign customers will still swear a patriotic oath (of sorts) to become honorary Brits, but they won't have to be able to speak English or know anything about Britain's heritage. Apparently, the Home Secretary's cabinet colleagues felt that obliging potential customers to study these subjects might upset them. No Hiding Place The government tried to hide a d(r)aft bill on abandoning the pound and 'adopting' the euro (Like an orphaned child? Ed.) behind the Mugger's pre-Budget harangue. A plan to hide the referendum by holding it on the same day as the next general election has also been hauled into the light of day. Which leaves us wondering why the government persists with its dodgy tricks when everyone knows them. Unless Vice-Prez Bliar's regime is so fundamentally dodgy that it knows nothing other than underhand methods of doing its business. The Mugger cooks the books again. He's claiming to have done something positive on the Child Tax Credit front but his 'rise' is internally self-financing and requires no contribution from government funds. How did he work that? He froze one part of the 2-component credit, reducing its value by the rate of inflation. The nett result is that enough people will get less to fund a small increase to the very poor. It's redistribution of cash from the not very well off to the even worse off. How very Old Labour. Vice-Prez Bliar's regime blows £12billion per annum of taxpayers' money on 'regulators' for public and private contracts. This vast sum of money is being wasted according to the Cabinet Secretary (one of the country's top civil servants), who can see no real benefits from spending it. Having predicted that Ken Livingstone would be a disaster as mayor of London – and having been proved right – V-P Bliar has welcomed him back onto the gang so that Red Ken can be a New Labour disaster if he wins the next election. The Mugger is using fiscal drag to help fill his black hole in the nation's finances. He has opted not to adjust tax rates in line with inflation to increase the number of customers paying the top rate of income tax. This stealthy wheeze is expected to take in £10billion, which still leaves him way short of his £37billion deficit. So customers are advised to brace themselves for further assaults on their wallets. Stealth Tax No. 64 (or is it 65?) was sneaked in while the Westminster Wonders were breaking up for their hols a whole week before Xmas. What is it? 40% extra Council Tax on second homes. Not so much a bog as a vast swamp The Inland Revenue, charged by the Mugger with administering his child tax credit scheme, has gone from chaos to tragedy. The Revenue still hasn't got round to making payments to some of the claimants but it has bogged up many of the processed claims by paying out too much. So cash is now being grabbed back in big chunks without explanation, leaving customers destitute at Xmas time as a bonus.    Some families have lost so much from their weekly income that they have qualified for hardship payments – which are dished out by the same Inland Revenue department which hurled them into penury!    If this is the sort of havoc that the meddlesome Mugger can wreak as Chancellor, imagine what fun he'd have in store for the customers as a replacement for Vice-Prez Bliar.

HEALTH NEWS Get fit or else! The government's Fitness Police will be given broader powers in the new year, says Lady Antonia Bliar, the UK's official First Person. From January 3rd, the Fitness Police will be able to order New Labour's customers to use stairs instead of lifts and escalators to force them to take some exercise.    Lady Antonia is a strong advocate for the National Fitness Campaign, although she has refrained from setting any of the usual targets for the campaign. The government sees enforced fitness as a primary means of reducing the strain on the NHS. Thus it is not unlikely that the powers of the Fitness Police will be extended after a 'bedding in' period to include a system of instant fines for people who persist in avoiding a 'staircase workout'. It has been reported that the vice-prezidential personal gymnasium at Downing Street has been gathering dust for the last few months as Vice-Prez Bliar has grown complacent about his waistline. Is this yet another case of a politician failing to lead by example? The European Commission has discovered, via a questionnaire, that the British are the least fit nation in Europe. A short walk is beyond most of us, and as for climbing stairs – forget it! And we come 3rd, behind Sweden and Finland, in the terminally chronic category, health-wise. Eating salmon banishes wrinkles Apparently, salmon is rich in dimethynylaminoethyl (DMAE), an antioxidant which reduces skin dryness while banishing lines and redness. The Scots salmon industry has welcomed these recent findings from the USA and it is smiling benignly on a campaign to launch a 3-day salmon diet, which is being pushed as an alternative to a minor facelift.    Salmon also contains omega-3 fatty acids, which are believed to relieve the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. If the present salmon diet campaign takes off, consumers are warned that salmon is likely to be priced out of the shopping baskets of all but the conspicuously rich. Worried about superbugs, the government has appointed 'infection tsars' for the NHS. "Just what we need," commented an insider, "more managers instead of more cleaners." And then someone realized this isn't news and there's no new money on offer. It's just the government recycling an earlier scheme in its usual dishonest fashion, and trying to count it twice on the list of New Labour's greatest achievements. When standards fall, cook the books Vice-Prez Bliar's local hospital up North dropped from 3 stars to 2 when re-rated. So what happened? Did they improve the hospital to recapture the dropped star? No, a dogsbody in Health Sec. Alan Milburn's outfit wrote a memo of complaint and lo! The star was restored. And lo! The hospital became eligible for an extra million quid of taxpayers' cash.    Nice to have influential friends, isn't it? ADVERTISEMENT WHO is looking after YOUR website right now? A. A friend. B. That web designer bloke. C. The guy with the beard. D. What? Don't trust a vital asset like your website to any old Joe. Guys with beards ALWAYS know what they're doing! Trust no one else. www.GuysWithBeards.co.uk your first stop for website design & maintenance

TRANSPORT NEWS Keep off the pavement, you motorists Driving onto the pavement is to be made an endorseable offence in the new year. This Highways Commission recommendation will be included in the next Road Traffic Bill, which will impose stiffer fines on people who park on the pavement – plus 2 penalty points on the criminal's driving licence (if he/she possesses one).    Cheeky motorists who place their vehicle entirely on the pavement will be required to pay at a triple rate and receive 3 penalty points.    Motoring organizations have reacted with confusion and embarrassment to the announcement, which was sneaked out of the Department of Transport during Prez Bush's recent visit to London and Sedgefield. Greater criminalization of vehicle use is a bad thing to the motoring organizations but they are wary of the 'Mums With Prams' lobby, which has been threatening increasingly militant action against those who force them into the road to avoid a pavement obstacle. Trains need a holiday too The Railways Authority has announced that no trains will run between 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve and 6 a.m. on New Year's Day 2004 +1. The entire system will be shut down for essential track maintenance.    A Railways Authority spokesperson added: "People shouldn't be wandering around the country on trains during the holiday season. They should stay at home, where they belong, over-eating, drinking too much, messing about on the Internet and watching telly." Ignorance could be an excuse Motorists are an ignorant lot, a recent survey says. 94% of those questioned did not know that the £30 fine for using a mobile phone while driving was introduced on the 1st of this month. And most respondents were also ignorant of the detail of this new law, e.g. they did not know that they can't use a mobile when their vehicle is stationary in traffic.    38% of those surveyed said that they would ignore the new law, which will be safe to do in some parts of England and Wales as certain police forces will just be warning motoring criminals for a couple of months. But this will not happen in Scotland, which is a separate country with its own parliament and its own legal system. There, the fines were imposed from hour one of day one – with licence endorsements to follow as soon as possible. Push-button non-motoring Chief police officers want all cars to be fitted with an electronic immobilizer, which can be operated by remote control. The idea is that fleeing criminals can be halted at the press of a button. Unless the crooks have used counter-technology to deactivate the immobilizer. And unless they're using an old vehicle which doesn't have an immobilizer.    We also have the prospect of really clever crooks pushing a button of their own to immobilize pursuing police cars. And if police cars are exempt from immobilizer regulations, the prospect of crooks nicking them wholesale as getaway vehicles.    Looks like this particular bright idea could stand a bit more thinking time!

CRIME NEWS "Congratulations, you have won the Canadian National Lottery!" Anyone who receives a phone call telling them the above should watch out. Why? Because there is no Canadian national lottery, just a bunch of Canadian crooks taking cash from gullible people. They have gathered an estimated $5billion from mainly elderly mugs in the United States – but the true amount can never be known as many people are too embarrassed to admit that they have been done.    The Office of Fair Trading has launched a campaign to warn people here that the crooks are now doing the UK. The case cited is of a pensioner in Southampton, who parted with over £9,000. He paid some cash to a man who phoned him with the good news. He paid some more cash to a voice on the phone which told him that the first caller was a crook. Then he paid out even more cash to the first crook!    The scam works in the same way as the email scams involving millions in an African bank account or a lottery win. [See the Crooks In Action section of Jenson Farrago's website for examples of these emails. Ed] On responding to the phone call or email, the punter is told that he/she has to pay an administration fee to obtain the loot. Once that has been paid, the crooks dump the mug; unless they are cheeky enough to try for a second helping.    Anyone wishing to avoid being mugged should follow the golden rule: If it looks too good to be true, it is! German cannibal goes on trial at Kassel State Court Rotenburg resident Armin Meiwes, 41, was arrested for a murder with a twist in December of last year – he ate his alleged victim. Mr Meiwes used the Internet to seek a 'well-built male prepared to be slaughtered and then consumed'. Bernd-Jurgen Brandes, 43, who was in a severly depressed state, offered his services. On 2001/03/08, Mr. Brandes met his end and quite a lot of him ended up in the cannibal's freezer next to the pizzas. Mr. Meiwes is said to have fried around 20 kg of human body parts (over a period of time) in olive oil with garlic and consumed his treats with sprouts, potato balls and a South African red wine, and using his best cutlery.    As Cannibalism is not illegal in Germany, Mr. Meiwes was charged with murder and 'disturbing the peace of the dead'. Mr. Meiwes insists that there was no murder as Mr. Brandes gave his consent to being killed and eaten, and he has that consent in a video, which he made of Mr. Brandes's last evening alive. The trial opened at the beginning of this month and a result is expected before Xmas.    p.s. For the curious – Mr. Brandes tasted like pork. ADVERTISEMENT IDENTITÉ de FRANCE Attention, Britishers! As citizens of the European Union, you are entitled to use a Citizen of Europe official passport in any part of the world, to receive a Citizen of Europe official driving license after passing an appropriate test, and to obtain a Citizen of Europe identity card, which can be used to claim employment and social security benefits, etc., in any member country of the European Union. THESE DOCUMENTS MUST BE ISSUED IN ALL MEMBER STATES. Your own government will soon be forced to offer EU alternatives to UK passports, driving licences and the UK ID card (when introduced) – BUT IT WILL CHARGE THE SAME PRICE AS THE CORRESPONDING UK DOCUMENT! IDENTITÉ de FRANCE has established a documentation center in Calais which can offer these documents AT 33% LESS THAN THE BRITISH PRICE! So come on, you Britishers. Don't be ripped off by your greedy government. Come to IDENTITÉ de FRANCE for the EU equivalents AND SAVE SOME MONEY! IDENTITÉ de FRANCE, 118c bd. de la Résistance, Calais. HEAD OFFICE : 226 bd. Magneta, Paris, 75101. Tél. 6258.23.47. http://www.IdentDeFrance.co.fr

WAR NEWS Tell a silly story and you'll be home for Xmas One of the British terrorist suspects in Camp X-Ray has agreed to confess to plotting to bomb Westminster with anthrax bacteria to get out of gaol in Cuba and into a British prison.    His British lawyer is calling the whole business 'absurd', but he would, wouldn't he? Business as usual again (almost) in Iraq Taking a break from attacking the US military, Saddam Hussein's personal army tried to go back into the bank-robbing business this month. The target for their heist was an American convoy carrying new banknotes. Which turned out to be rather better defended than the bandits expected and "They got their asses well and truly kicked," to quote the commander of the convoy.    Life was so much simpler in the good old days, when you could just walk into a bank and order the staff to load the contents of the vault into your lorry. Spot the turkey Prez Bush delivered a fake turkey to selected troops in Iraq on Thanksgiving Day. The photo opportunity's inside story was been blown after just a week. The tray of turkey, veg and fruit was just a plastic stage prop and the troops tucked in to military rations, rather than freshly-carved meat, when the cameras stopped rolling. Apparently, the bogus goodies were used to allow a quick recovery from a disaster, such as the Prez dropping the tray. Beware of ethnic agents provocateur Jobsworth senior police officers are at war with one another in their efforts to recruit black and Asian actors for 'integrity checks'. The actors are required to be stroppy and abusive to police officers at the sharp end, and provoke them into behaviour which allows them to be sacked as racialist. The more heads they can cause to roll, the better job the jobsworths think they're doing.    Of course, minor considerations like catching criminals take second place to this witch-hunt. Prez Bush has decided that American tax-dollars for rebuilding Iraq should go only to firms from the countries which saw off the Saddam Hussein regime. And that France, Germany and all the other vultures can go to hell. What's up with that? Useless or just plain cynical? British troops were sent to Iraq with CBW suits which didn't fit, and respirators and detectors which didn't work, and tanks and armoured vehicles which weren't fitted with filters for chemical and biological warfare agents. Which shows that either: (1) The Ministry of Defence wasn't worried about a few squaddies being written off in a chemical or biological warfare attack, or (2) The Ministry of Defence didn't think there was any CBW threat in Iraq – which means that Vice-Prez Bliar's dodgy dossiers really were deliberate lies designed to bump the UK into Prez Bush's war.    Customers - you choose. Minister of Defence Buff Hoon has announced cuts in the armed services which mean that we will never have to fight another war – mainly because we won't have the troops or the equipment to do it. The WoMD issue is dead – Official V-P Bliar will change the subject from now on when anyone mentions Weapons of Mass Deception. This is his way of saying that there were none in Iraq when he rushed the nation into a war, he knew there were no WoMD, he regrets lying to the nation about them and he wishes everyone would stop reminding him of his dishonesty. David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group, which looks for WoMD, is quitting at the end of this year. He's fed up with flogging a dead donkey. Bearded bloke grabbed in Tikrit, Iraq Is the guy pulled out of a hole in the ground in downtown Tikrit really Saddam Hussein? Or is he just a look-alike who was deployed to wind the Yanks up? Or is he some homeless bloke the Yanks grabbed off a back street in the most run-down part of New York and press-ganged into the job of scapegoat?    We at BlackFlag News are having trouble believing that the World's Favourite Despot would be reduced to a hole in the ground – but it doesn't really matter if this character can be passed off as the WFD and ritually humiliated to justify the latest war with Iraq. And if the Iraqis can be persuaded to give him a quick trial, a quick execution and a quick cremation, no one will be able to prove he was an imposter. Iraq's WoMD were just an illusion – official! The latest theory from Whitehall is that Saddam Hussein didn't have any Weapons of Mass Destruction, he only thought he had them! Campbell McAllister, Vice-Prez Bliar's official spokesman (left), has blown the lid off an Iraqi conspiracy of staggering proportions in a pre-Xmas statement.    Apparently, middle-rank figures in Iraq's military and scientific establishments looted generous WoMD research, development & maintenance budgets while assuring their seniors that the nation's WoMD were ready for use but well hidden.    It seems likely that Iraq's remaining WoMD were destroyed after the 1991 Gulf War but the conspirators kept the myth of their existence alive for their leader's pleasure and their own profit. Not to mention the profit of those paid to search pre- and post-war Iraq for non-existent WoMD!

CONGRATULATIONS TO ...   Matthew Stevens for winning his first ever ranking tournament on the snooker circuit. He became UK champion by beating 'Wonder Bairn' Stephen Hendry 10-8 in York. The Jacksonville Jaguars for completing a double trouncing of Bays by 2-9 teams in Week 13 of the NFL season. Their victory over the current Super Bowl champions, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, complemented the Detroit Lions' annihilation of the Green Bay Packers on Thanksgiving Day. Boy, were the Pack a bunch of turduckins! Porn merchant Richard Desmond for realizing that the Oscar Fedicci whom he was trying to sue is, in fact, rival porn merchant Deric Botham's birman cat. The instigators of Beagle 2 for getting their Mars lander separated from the carrier vehicle and heading towards Mars. Let us hope that the probe-eating Great Martian Ghoul is having a kip when it arrives on Xmas Day. The New Orleans Saints for showing us, in their match at Jacksonville on the 21st, what the NFL could look like if the players were allowed to chuck the ball about a bit, rugby style. (Shame about the extra point, though, and the dreadful refereeing in Carolina earlier in the season.)

FOREIGN NEWS EU forces US to drop tariff on imported steel What the European Commission should do now is impose its own illegal tariff on goods electorally embarrassing to Prez Bush for as long as his illegal tariff was in place. But all the chicken-hearted jobsworths on the EC will do now is sit around, looking pleased with themselves. The All-Ireland Garlic Football elimination final has been postponed until next month 'to allow the players to enjoy a decent Xmas for once'. In 1939, it was Germany 1, Poland 0. In 2003, the scoreline was Germany 0, Poland 1. It seems incredible to be able to report that countries other than the UK have deadlocked an EU summit – but the French, Germans, Poles and Spanish managed it by going home early for their various reasons. Perhaps they didn't want to be there when the Brits unveiled a plan to make a country's voting strength proportional to its nett contribution to the EU's budget. Followed by a proposal that the Single Market and the Single Currency should be followed by a Single Language – English. Xmas Day death toll: Israeli Army 5, Suicide Bomber 4. The Israeli Army goes on to meet Al Qaida in the next round. Odd that Iran can't fund a rapid response rescue service for parts of the country which are known to be highly active earthquake zones. Especially when Iran's government can find the cash for an 8-year war with a neighbour, trying to build nuclear weapons and participating in international terrorism. BSE in USA The secret of how the United States has evaded Mad Cow Disease is finally out – they don't test for it. Just 0.01% of the cattle sent to slaughter during the last 9 years were tested for BSE. Instead of being isolated and examined, cattle with the 'Staggers' were rushed to the nearest processing plant, where every scrap of flesh and sinew was mechanically recovered from the bones for inclusion in burgers, hot dogs and pies. At the last count, 12 countries were refusing to take meat from the USA. The United States is innocent! The mad cow is Canadian and nothing to do with them. But see if that stops the beef bans being enforced.

SCIENCE NEWS How to have it both ways We're supposed to be experiencing Global Warming because more solar energy is being trapped by 'greenhouse gases' in the atmosphere. And sneaky politicians are using the dire warnings of their tame scientists as an excuse for slapping taxes on everything they can think of while pretending that they can do something to reverse climate change.    Now, some of the 'experts' have come up with the concept of Global Dimming. They reckon that the Earth is darker now than 30 years ago because pollution in the atmosphere is reflecting away visible and infrared light. Which leaves us wondering how the Earth can be warming up by absorbing more solar energy if, in fact, it's really reflecting more and more of the incident solar energy.    Something doesn't add up here; but no doubt the politicians are lining up another tax while pretending that they can give us cleaner and brighter skies. Mars Ghoul 1, UK nil Mission Control is contemplating holding a seance to contact Beagle 2 on Mars. Barbara Woodhouse is being considered as a suitable spirit guide.

	"Zimbabwe may quit the Commonwealth and never come back," says Mugabe. "Like anybody cares!" says the British nation. Vice-Prez Bliar pretending that, like Mrs. Thatcher, he can get by on 3 hours' sleep.   Replacing Alastair Campbell with 3 more New Labour stooges at 3x the salary cost to the taxpayer. Diane Abbot, MP, 'forgetting' to declare the £13,750 paid to her by the BBC for appearing on a political TV show.   Baking your own bread at home can cause asthma, says the British Thoracic Society. Banks telling customers that their failure to send out replacement credit cards is due to a plastic shortage rather than their bungling.   Culture-Vulture Sec. Tessa Jowell's dog's breakfast of a Season's Greetings card. It's okay to own lots of guns in the USA but you can be fined in New York for having an ashtray in your office!   Potatoes are not vegetables, says junior Health Minister Melanie Johnson. (What ya bin smokin', Mel?)

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