A British Eurosceptic MEP has unleashed a volley of insults against the President from the European Council.

Nigel Farage, who leads UK Independence Celebration (UKIP) MEPS within the European parliament, said Herman truck Rompuy had “the charisma of the damp rag”.

He as opposed the former Belgian prime minister to a “low-grade bank clerk” and stated he arrived from a “non-country”.

The attack, which stunned the chamber, came as Mr Von Rompuy manufactured his maiden look in parliament in Brussels.

“I don’t wish to be rude,” Mr Farage started out, ahead of launching right into a personal invasion lasting various minutes.

“Who are you? I’d in no way learned of you, nobody in Europe had ever learned of you,” Mr Farage thundered, as noisy disapproval at his intervention inside the chamber rose.

‘Competent and dangerous’

“Oh, I know democracy seriously isn’t favorite with you whole lot,” he mentioned, addressing the members of parliament as they voiced their shock.

“ There was one contribution that I can only keep in contempt, but I’m not about to comment additional ”

Herman truck Rompuy, president of European Council

Mr Farage – acknowledged for his outspoken interventions – did, nonetheless, admit that he thought Mr Truck Rompuy was “competent and capable”, adding that this manufactured him “dangerous”.

“I have no doubt that your intention is usually to be the quiet assassin of European democracy and of European nation declares,” he explained.

Mr Farage’s celebration, UKIP, campaigns for the withdrawal of Britain from the European Union. It has 13 representatives inside European parliament.

“You seem to be to own a loathing for your incredibly concept with the existence of nation states,” Mr Farage continued, adding: “Perhaps that’s since you arrive from Belgium, that is fairly significantly a non-country.”

Mr Lorrie Rompuy, 62, was chosen unanimously through the governments in the EU’s 27 member states to consider on the role in the initial long term European Council president.

Described as camera-shy and often provided the nickname the “grey mouse”, he is noticed like a coalition builder, credited for steering linguistically divided Belgium out of crisis.

Inside a generally low-key response to the comments, Mr Lorrie Rompuy explained: “There was just one contribution that I can only keep in contempt, but I’m not gonna comment more.”

source

Common Motors said Wednesday that it had been shutting down Hummer, the manufacturer of significant sport-utility vehicles that became synonymous using the term “gas guzzler,” following a deal to market it to some Chinese maker fell apart, The New York Times’s Nick Bunkley reports from Detroit.

G.M. mentioned only that its planned purchase of Hummer towards Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines Business “cannot be completed,” with out offering a cause, however the $150 million option had been stalled because the corporations awaited approval in the Chinese government. G.M. got been attempting to sell Hummer for a year or so, and struck a preliminary deal with Tengzhong very last June.

The two corporations got planned to close the offer by the end of January, then delayed the deadline by a month inside hopes of getting the green light from China.

“We have considering deemed a number of opportunities for Hummer along the way, and we are disappointed that the contend with Tengzhong could not be finished,” John Smith, G.M.’s vice president of corporate preparing and alliances, claimed in the statement. “G.M. will now function closely with Hummer employees, dealers and suppliers to wind lower the small business in an orderly and accountable approach.”

It was the third time because G.M. emerged from bankruptcy safety final year that a offer to advertise just one of its unwanted brands collapsed. The company is shutting straight down Saturn right after a sale fell by way of, and it started to halt operations at Saab following an contract with Koenigsegg AB in Sweden was known as off. G.M. later reached an agreement having a Dutch organization, Spyker Autos; that cope closed Tuesday.

G.M. also is closing Pontiac nonetheless it never attempted to offer that company.

G.M. mentioned it however would honor Hummer warranties and furnish service and parts to current Hummer owners worldwide. Hummer has just about 400 dealerships globally.

The cope would have designed Tengzhong the initial Chinese business to sell vehicles in North America, even though it planned to hold Hummer’s operations in the United States.

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, President Obama caused a bit of an international incident this weekend when he bowed before Japanese emperor Akihito.

Not surprisingly, his adoring fans in the media have done everything in their power to cover for this peculiar demonstration by the most powerful man in the world.

With this in mind, the College Republicans at the University of Connecticut have put together a marvelous video to demonstrate how world leaders across the globe have addressed the emperor recently without bowing (video embedded below the fold, h/t Andrew Malcolm):

Now THAT’S entertainment!

As proponents of same-sex marriage across the country planned protests on Saturday against the ban, interviews with the main forces behind the ballot measure showed how close its backers believe it came to defeat – and the extraordinary role Mormons played in helping to pass it with money, institutional support and dedicated volunteers.

Nowhere in the article did the Times worry that promoting a national blame game might provoke a witch hunt against innocent Mormons. Not even close, for in a painstaking account that lasted more than 1500 words, reporters Jesse McKinley and Kirk Johnson waited until the very end to mention that angry protests had been happening at all:

That said, the extent of the protests has taken many Mormons by surprise. On Friday, the church’s leadership took the unusual step of issuing a statement calling for “respect” and “civility” in the aftermath of the vote.

The Times felt no need to explain who was behind the protests or to offer any statement from a gay activist in agreement on stopping the violence. After a thousand words spent laying Prop 8 directly at the feet of the LDS church, an obligatory call for peace was tacked onto the end.

Thankfully, some newspapers were honest enough to cover the entire situation.

To the credit of the Washington Post, reporter Ashley Surdin did an excellent job of reporting what the Times would not about the violence in California:

Protests and vandalism of churches, boycotts of businesses and possibly related mailings of envelopes filled wit white powder have followed the passage of Proposition 8, the ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriages.

In Sacramento, a high-profile theatre director resigned from his job of 25 years after a boycott threat over his $1000 donation in support of the measure. In Los Angeles, a Mexican restaurant owner, a Mormon who donated $100, was reduced to tears and left town after hundreds of protestors confronted her at work, by phone and on the Internet.

No wonder Mormons were so surprised by the “extent of the protests” launched against them. Since the Post article was published on the same day as the Times piece, there was no excuse for the Times to play dumb about the violence.

Persecution of Mormons eventually spilled out of California and appeared in other states as gay activists stepped up their efforts. The Denver Post reported on November 12, 2008, that a local church found a copy of the Book of Mormon set on fire and laid on the front steps. Mormon individuals across the western states were also harassed:

Over the weekend across the Wasatch Front in Utah, windows at several LDS ward houses were shattered by rock throwing and BB-gun shooting protestors. The property crimes in Utah are being investigated.

Vandalism, harassment, sacrilegious actions, and private citizens being publicly branded in an epidemic that stretched over multiple states was the “extent of the protests” that the Times glossed over in its coverage.

The paper eventually got around to covering the story again, but still had no sympathy for Mormons hiding in their homes for fear of being pelted with rocks.

On December 10 reporter Jesse McKinley returned to Sacramento for an update on the protests. Instead of condemning the ongoing chaos, the Times actually lavished praise on gay activists for being more forceful:

Many grass-roots leaders say the emergence of new faces, and acceptance of tactics that are more confrontational, amount to an implicit rejection of the measured approach of established gay rights groups, a course that, some gay men and lesbians maintain, allowed passage of the ban, Proposition 8…

The new activists have impressed some gay rights veterans.

The article oozed with excitement about gay activists having “a sudden burst of energy” and “impatience with the status quo.” This time, not one single word was spoken about violence. No critics were quoted or even mentioned, and McKinley felt no need to suggest that the activists should let the will of Californians be recognized.

Perhaps if Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s worst crime almost exactly one year later had been voting for Proposition 8, the Times would have been more outraged about his religious convictions. Instead, Hasan shot 13 innocent people on an Army base in Texas.

When faced with evidence that Hasan’s motives had sprung from fundamental Islam, the Times got right to work blaming it on everything else.

NewsBuster Matthew Balan reported on Monday that the paper refused to admit Hasan’s religious beliefs had anything to do with the massacre. Instead, an explanation could be found in the fact that he’d allegedly been teased by his colleagues:

He had been the subject of taunts and felt singled out by his fellow soldiers for being Muslim, friends and relatives said. His uncle in Ramallah, West Bank, Rafik Hamad, said Major Hasan’s fellow soldiers had once called him a “camel jockey.”

The paper went on to insist that such taunting was common in the military. Now the challenge was not to prevent another Hasan from going crazy, but to assure that no more innocent Muslims would be affected by public anger:

In the aftermath of the shootings at Fort Hood on Thursday by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan of the Army, a psychiatrist, many Muslim soldiers and their commanders say they fear that the relationship between the military and its Muslim service members will only grow more difficult.

Mormons in California and Utah would have loved for someone from the Times to care about their “difficult” plight one year ago. Window smashing and book burning were arguably more disturbing than the juvenile names allegedly hurled against Major Hasan, but Mormons took the high ground and never resorted to violence in revenge.

Since Friday’s massacre at Fort Hood, NewsBusters has been covering the efforts of several news outlets, including the New York Times, to warn of Muslim persecution in America.

This is quite a departure from the treatment offered other religious groups by the Times, particularly the paper’s disgraceful coverage of Mormon persecution at the hands of rabid protestors in California.

Back on November 4, 2008, when gay marriage was outlawed for the second time by popular vote in the Golden State, angry protestors stormed the streets. Word quickly spread that Mormons had played a big role in getting the ban to pass prompting gay activists to attack Mormon citizens in fits of rage.

Unlike now, the Times wasn’t worried about protecting a religious group from an angry backlash. Quite the contrary, when rumors of the Mormon influence on the proposition grew, the Times was more than willing to actively build the case against them.

On November 15 of that year, the paper used prominent space on its front page to print a hit piece titled “Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage.” In the middle of a literal culture war on the streets of California, the Times thought it wise to convince gays and lesbians angered by the proposition’s passage that Mormons were single-handedly responsible:

Even so, the Times kept on portraying them as bigots and defending the anger spewed against them.

While the Times continues to print sensational claims of American Muslims being ostracized, Mormons are still waiting for the paper to admit to documented proof of violent persecution carried out against another unpopular religion.

Mormons deserve the respect of someone in the media giving them credit. In the face of angry protestors, daily marches, a governor promising to fight their very votes, and a media that glamorized “confrontational” activists, Mormons somehow managed to refrain from random bouts of murder.

No thanks, however, to the New York Times.

More news stories on Britain

Martyn Brown, Daily Express (London), October 15, 2009

A RADICAL Muslim group sparked outrage last night as it launched a massive campaign to impose sharia law on Britain.

The fanatical group Islam4UK has announced plans to hold a potentially incendiary rally in London later this month.

And it is calling for a complete upheaval of the British legal system, its officials and legislation.

Members have urged Muslims from all over Britain to converge on the capital on October 31 for a procession to demand the full implementation of sharia law.

On a website to promote their cause they deride British institutions, showing a mock-up picture of Nelson’s Column surmounted by a minaret.

Plans for the demonstration have been delivered to the Metropolitan Police and could see up to 5,000 extremists marching to demand the controversial system.

The procession—dubbed March 4 Shari’ah—will start at the House of Commons, which the group’s website describes as the “very place where the lives of millions of people in the UK are changed and it is from here where unjust wars are launched”.

The group then intends to march to 10 Downing Street and “call for the removal of the tyrant Gordon Brown from power”.

The march will then converge on Trafalgar Square where protesters expect it “will gather even more support from tourists and members of the public, making clear in the heart of London the need for Shari’ah in society”.

The group declared: “We hereby request all Muslims in the United Kingdom, in Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Glasgow and all other places to join us and collectively declare that as submitters to Almighty Allah, we have had enough of democracy and man-made law and the depravity of the British culture.

“On this day we will call for a complete upheaval of the British ruling system its members and legislature, and demand the full implementation of Shari’ah in Britain.”

Last night politicians and fellow Muslims condemned the group’s incendiary comments, which come in the wake of recent violent incidents in towns and cities like Manchester, Birmingham and Luton, Beds.

Conservative MP and ex-Army officer Patrick Mercer said: “It is extremely distasteful and is stoking the fires of fear within the British public. “If anyone thinks that those views are a step forward in society they are seriously deluded. They are repellent and repulsive.”

The group was also attacked by Tory MP Philip Davies who said: “This march is clearly a deliberate and provocative attempt to incite racial tension and disrupt community cohesion.

“The simple solution is for these people to move to a country which already has sharia law.”

A spokesman for the Islamic Society of Britain said: “99.999 per cent of Muslims despise these people. This only serves to fuel racial tensions.”

And Tory MP and Daily Express columnist Ann Widdecombe, said: “You cannot have two legal systems side by side and the one we have now works and the British people are perfectly happy with it.”

The rally has not yet been given final approval. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “We have received an application for the march but we have yet to meet with the organisers.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “Everyone has the right to express their view so long as it is done sensibly, without violence and does not incite religious hatred.”

Plans for the march are revealed on the website Islam4UK, which is fronted by preacher Anjem Choudary who has also called for all British women to wear burkhas.

Explaining the Nelson’s Column mock-up he said that under sharia law the construction and elevation of statues or idols is prohibited and consequently the statue of Nelson “would be removed and demolished without hesitation”. At the base of the column the friezes would be replaced with Islamic decoration and giant urns would be filled with gold coins for the poor.

Mr Choudary has said that under sharia law in Britain people who commit adultery would be stoned to death, adding that “anyone who becomes intoxicated by alcohol would be given 40 lashes in public”.

He has also mocked the deaths of British soldiers, and branded an Army homecoming parade a “vile parade of brutal murderers”.

A 25-year-old man was shot and killed while trying to protect his pregnant wife during a robbery.

Images: Husband Killed During Robbery

Two men, ages 18 and 20, are being held in the Cleveland Jail as the investigation continues. Meanwhile, a grieving wife needs help to give her husband a proper burial.

John Bozich and his wife Stephanie, a couple with special needs, faced many challenges. They lived at a transitional apartment building with supportive services and were on a journey to independent living, NewsChannel5’s Lorna Barrett reported.

“John and his wife were really doing a great job of moving their lives in the right direction and were looking forward to the birth of their son or daughter,” said Executive Director Susan Neth.

But their journey together ended at East 60th Street and Bonna Avenue. As the couple walked to a bus stop at about 8 p.m., they were approached by two men with guns who tried to rob them.

“It ended in John stepping in front of his wife at the point a gun was pulled and John was killed,” Neth said.

Stephanie, who was not injuried, was able to later identify the suspects.

The Bozichs didn’t have much money, which makes the crime even more senseless. The agency that helped them on their journey to a new beginning is asking for help in their tragic ending.

“I want our agency and the viewers to do whatever they can to help soften this somewhat,” Neth said. “To help the wife really feel like she can give her husband the last gift of a proper burial and to move forward with her child.”

Donations can be made to Stephanie Bozich, care of MHS, Inc., 1744 Payne Ave., Cleveland, 44114.

The following text was taken from Dmitry’s blog speaking about the tea party protesters:

I happened to be in Washington, DC last weekend, and on the way to and from the National Gallery I had the opportunity to observe the March on Washington, which was in full swing. Once upon a time I had joined demonstrations, not out of some misplaced idealism, but to pick up women (I was still single at the time). The demonstrations were always full of pretty, high-spirited young women, and the context of marching and chanting slogans together rendered them approachable. And so my first question concerning the crowd marching around the Mall last weekend was, “Where are all the pretty young women?” There weren’t any! Surprised, I observed some more. What I saw only deepened my consternation. Not only were there no pretty women to be seen, but the crowd included exactly zero blacks, Latinos or Asians. I don’t believe I have ever before seen so many middle-aged, obese, shabbily dressed, melanin-challenged individuals gathered in one place!

What political interests bind over-the-hill flabby white people to the exclusion of all other ethnic groups? What is the shabby white agenda? Perhaps the signs the marchers carried might offer a clue? Most of them carried white corrugated cardboard signs stapled to a sharpened pine stake, of the sort designed for displaying on suburban front lawns. The slogans they scribbled on them were of their own devising, but the form factor of the signs was identical throughout. The slogans related to disparate interests: health care, monetary policy, constitutional law. I eventually stumbled on a pile of the stock they used to make their signs. These were printed signs: the printed side said either “Office Space for Lease!” or “Condos for Sale!”. The demonstrators would pry the cardboard off one sign, staple it to another sign face down, and scribble on the blank side of the one in the front. These people are refugees from foreclosure-land that somebody organized and shipped in, together with their props!

Although the topic of war did not seem foremost on their minds, some of the men, and even a few of the ruddy, rugged-looking women, were clad in warrior garb of one of two varieties: quite a few aging road warriors sported motorcycle gang leathers decorated with Harley-Davidson insignia, while others wore frumpy US Military camouflage pyjamas. One very large would-be warrior paraded with a sign that read “I will defend the Constitution by any means necessary.” He could certainly snuff one or two enemies of the republic by belly-flopping onto them with his gigantic gut! But this wasn’t a rabidly militant crowd, unlike some of the pro-war demonstrations I’ve witnessed. For this bunch, militarism is clearly just part of the clutter in their mental attic.

The one theme that seemed to tie it all together could be summed up by the statement “Obama is bad”. This message was often couched in laughable, preposterous bits of hyperbole: “Obama is a socialist/Marxist/fascist”. (To my knowledge, Obama holds no Marxist credentials whatsoever.) Interestingly, some of the signs were decorated with the hammer and sickle, but I did not see a single Swastika. I would venture a guess that this was to avoid mistaken identification; it is probably easier for these people to be mistaken for fascists than for communists. Not that they are either of these: clearly, they are just some regular old shlubby people, self-organized along strict ethnic lines, self-selected by their hatred of Obama.

Since Obama happens to be a politician, a superficial assumption is that these people joined forces in opposition to Obama’s politics. It is, however, difficult to see much daylight between Obama’s politics and those of his predecessor. There is a dearth of ideas on how to reverse the country’s economic slide and point it in a new, more promising direction. Instead, there is a great deal of continuity: in financial bail-out strategies that benefit large financial institutions and wealthy investors (who are part of Obama’s base of support just as they were of Bush’s), in the policy of open-ended military engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Obama’s refusal to investigate and prosecute the previous administration for war crimes, and in most other areas of policy as well, Obama has tuned out to be a Bush in sheep’s clothing.

The latest, desperate effort to avoid national bankruptcy at the hands of the medical-industrial complex is not a new initiative. Medical reform has been attempted before, and the outcome can be foretold with some accuracy: efforts at reform will fail because any meaningful reform would be financially damaging to powerful vested interests, and so national bankruptcy will have to be an essential part of the work-out. Feelings of the electorate on the matter are irrelevant. But opposition to medical reform is a convenient ruse to hide the real motivations of these self-selected white demonstrators. Now, could these perhaps have to do with… racism?

Jimmy Carter has recently blundered into the fray, making the following statement on CNN: “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man,” Carter told NBC News.” This has caused a bit of an uproar. Captain Obvious was immediately paged but declined comment. The Obama administration immediately started to distance itself from Jimmy. Jimmy does say the darnest things, such as calling Israeli policies toward Palestinians “Apartheid”. (Speaking truth to liars is a dangerous sport, because if you do, their lying turns vicious. Everyone knows that anything short of a glowing endorsement of Israeli policies brings an automatic charge of antisemitism. When is Jimmy going to learn?)

Obama’s ethnic and racial identity is ambiguous. He is a self-described mutt. If he is black, then he is black in the way a puppy born of a black Labrador and a golden retriever might be black, not the way a lot of the US prison population is black. He is a cross between a Kenyan and an anthropologist, and a privileged, pampered member of America’s ruling class. His people did not come from Africa in slave ships to be auctioned at Charleston and work on plantations.

He may not be particularly black, but he is definitely not of the same tribe as the Washington demonstrators, who were predominantly of Scots-Irish or English or German descent. This is who America’s proud owners and proprietors have been through most of American history, the ethnic groups that have built the American empire, driving slaves, running factories, fighting the natives and driving them into reservations, driving the Mexicans out of the Southwest, and manning the police departments, the military bases and the prisons. They are the ones who worked to impose Pax Americana on the Americas, and, for a short while, almost succeeded in having their way with the rest of the world.

And now they have grown old, fat and sick and are mired in debt. Their time is over, and they are every bit as upset about it as they ought to be. I can’t fault them for it. Up until last year, they could comfort themselves by thinking: “We may be poor, but at least we ain’t black!” But now they have a black President. What a shock that must be!

What is lost on many simple minds is that the concept of racism is actually a lot of ridiculous nonsense. The term should be retired. It initially presupposed the existence of some sort of natural hierarchy, with a master race (English aristocracy) at the top and semi-evolved animal-like barbarians (Africans, Asians and such) near the bottom. This theory was responsible for a great deal of misery and injustice, but now it has been thoroughly discredited by genetics. The human genome is not differentiated according to race or skin color: we are all one race.

What remains of the concept of race is irrational racial hatred, but racial hatred is neither necessary nor sufficient to produce ethnic strife. Privileged ethnic groups do not have to hate ethnic groups they oppress any more than I have to hate chickens in order to steal and eat their eggs. Ethnicity-based feelings of entitlement and a clan mentality work just as well to divide a multi-ethnic society into warring factions. You might think that intermarriage and a long history together might mitigate against this risk, but there was plenty of intermarriage and a very long history together between Serbs and Croats in Yugoslavia, and between Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda, and look at where that got them. Multi-ethnic societies are fragile entities, and have a tendency to explode. When they do everyone loses.

Whenever two or more ethnic groups live side by side, the danger of ethnic strife, civil war, ethnic cleansing and genocide is always present. What usually triggers it is the presence of politicians who are willing to exploit ethnic differences in order to grab or hold on to power. Do we have any of those here? Do they even know that they are playing with fire? The poor people I saw parading around Washington last weekend didn’t seem so threatening, but where there is smoke there is fire.

It is possible to excuse those who are upset with the way things are in the country. It is, after all, a sad state of affairs. It is also possible to forgive people for being upset that their leader doesn’t look or act like them. Bush did his best to appease them by playing a redneck on TV, cutting up logs with a chainsaw, driving a pickup truck around his ranch during his lengthy and numerous vacations, and cultivating a fake Texas twang to mask his New England upper-class roots.

But what of those in positions of influence who are willing to exploit public frustration and stir up ethnic hatred, all in order to defeat health care reform? Isn’t that exactly what we should expect of those who want to continue to extort money from sick people in order to make profits even while the country teeters toward bankruptcy? Are they too stupid to realize how dangerous a game that is? Or do they think that it might not be too bad for them, and that a bloodletting might be good for their business, making it even more profitable?

In the US, politics is a stupid, pointless, but mostly harmless game. Let’s all do our best to make sure that it stays that way.

Where Have All the Christians Gone?

The number of people who claim no religious affiliation, meanwhile, has doubled since 1990 to fifteen percent, its highest point in history.

AP

Eight U.S. airlines will use up to 1.5 million gallons a year of synthetic diesel made from plant waste starting in 2012, the fuel’s manufacturer announced today.

Rentech Inc.’s fuel will be used for ground-service transportation at Los Angeles International Airport and be made primarily from urban woody green waste such as yard clippings, the company said.

Using the renewable fuel will be American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, US Airways, Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines and UPS Airlines.

Rentech plans to produce the fuel at a new plant in Rialto, Calif., which is slated to open in 2012.

The Air Transport Association of America, the domestic industry trade group that joined Rentech in announcing the deal, called the purchasing agreement the first of its kind and said it could signal an industrywide move toward using lower-carbon fuels.

“This transaction promises to be the first of many such green-fuel purchase agreements by the commercial aviation industry,” said Glenn Tilton, ATA’s chairman.

Likewise, Rentech heralded the agreement as a sign of things to come.

“We expect this agreement to serve as a model for future supply relationships at other airports and for other fuels, including Rentech’s synthetic jet fuel, which was recently approved for commercial airline use,” said D. Hunt Ramsbottom, Rentech’s president and CEO.