With Dignity and Regret

Neighbours, so near yet so far. Great Britain, historically dominating its neighbours, just as it dominated, through its imperialist colonial past, less advanced countries of the world to ransack them of their natural resources and to impose the British system of governance upon them, as chattel dependents.

Ireland, seen as backward as Africa, suffered the same indignity as India. With British landlords, and endemic poverty and neglect and violation of its peoples' needs. Above all, the need to be a free people. The resentment of the British occupation of its neighbours resulted in fear, anger and violence.

What is now left internationally of the British imperial past among the Commonwealth nations is largely a tradition of sound governance, a fair and just system of justice, and a second language of international communication. And, without doubt, residual resentment at the heritage of the dominated by the dominant.

The 'troubles' of a troubled land that suffered great privation because of its poverty and the struggles of its people to survive against brutal odds that included a disease blight that struck its major food crop were exacerbated by the disinterest of Britain to help provide Ireland's people with food to keep them from starving.

Neighbours who take unfair advantage of their less advantaged neighbours and then make no effort to assist them when they fall into dire existential straits are hardly neighbours; they are social predators. That was then, this is now. Now Britain is immensely sensitive to the past. And political correctness is the order of the day.

Now, Queen Elizabeth has undertaken a historic century-visit to Ireland in a long-awaited overture of caring friendship. She spoke of "forbearance and conciliation", of the need "to bow to the past, but not be bound by it". Ireland extended its warm hospitality to the monarch, that very institution that once violated its human rights.

Although there are and will always remain many Irish who will continue to resent Great Britain for its malfeasance toward its neighbour, who express through violent means the violence of their emotions against Britain, times have changed. The mutual brutality and expressions of anguished intolerance have been muted by time.

"It is a sad and regrettable reality that through history our islands have experienced more than their fair share of heartache, turbulence and loss. These events have touched us all, many of us personally, and are a painful legacy. We can never forget those who have died or been injured, and their families."

Conciliatory, heartfelt sentiments from a head of state whose obligation to the future has been made abundantly clear.

Sadistic Cynicism

Britain has formally withdrawn the wedding invitation extended to the Embassy of Syria, in London. And the Syrian Ambassador, surprised and somewhat crestfallen at the dis-invitation, does not in fact think it advisable that he attend. Will they courteously usher him out of Westminster Abbey should he defy them, waving his invitation as proof that he was invited - or put him in the stocks on public display for further humiliation?

Not that there is any really good reason to feel compassion for the man. He does, after all, represent the government and the leader of his country while abroad. And the government and President Bashar al-Assad deserve little respect from the international community, much less Britain and the Royal Family. Both of which, truth be told, saw nothing amiss in sending out the original invitation until the embarrassment of public criticism had them take a second look.

After all, if Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and Sara Ferguson are persona non grata, it does look rather peculiar if Syria's representative appears as an honoured guest. But that's Britain, after all, the country that personifies eccentricity and the class-culture structure, and entitlements. If we think that Britain's sordid and dilatory attention to class-corrective actions and cultural niceties leave something to be desired, look to the United Nations.

Ah, the United Nations, where there are no class distinctions and where all countries are considered to be equally endowed and equally entitled. Belying reality, but making for political correctness, which is the standard-bearer of conduct within that august body. The UN's Human Rights Council presents as one of those creatures of the UN that stands above and apart; perhaps that should be descends below standards.

Canada, among another 36 co-sponsors requesting the scheduling of an emergency session on exploring what can be done about Syria's brutal crackdown on its own citizens clamouring for freedom from classic repression, would like some accountability. It was largely responsible for introducing into the UN the "responsibility to protect" doctrine, which the UN is now grappling with, pleading with Bashar al-Assad to stop killing Syrian protesters.

But the Human Rights Council, having received from Syria a key membership prerequisite in the form of a written pledge to respect the human rights of its own population, and to promote human rights internationally - a standard document required of all potential members elected to the HRC - is prepared to proceed to induct Syria into its 47-member council for a 3-year term.

Like Britain's invitation, away back in January the UN Asian group submitted the names of Syria and three other countries to fill four vacant "Asian" seats. With that submission, the admission of the four are rubber-stamped for acceptance, requiring only a simple majority of the 192-member UN General Assembly in a month's time. The international community, let alone the Arab League, is making no fuss about the Syrian situation, unlike the attention given to Libya.

Neither Russia nor China are prepared to issue a condemnation of the Syrian government, unlike Europe and the U.S. and Canada. Russian Deputy Ambassador Alexander Pankin claims that the situation in Syria "does not present a threat to international peace and security", therefore it is clearly not needful that the Security Council get involved in anything distastefully interfering like sanctions against Syria.

Syria, a clear threat in the Middle East and beyond, with its support for and links to terrorist Islamists militias, Hezbollah and Hamas; with its active encouragement and support of Islamist jihadists entering Iraq to confront and attack both Iraqis and U.S. and British troops there; with its closely supportive friendship with Iran; with its own attempts to build nuclear installations; with its Lebanese occupation; with its involvement in political assassinations; with its violation of its citizens' human rights, was still seen as deserving of an invitation to the royal wedding.

And it stands now, as of May 20, to join the UN's Human Rights Council. This blatant parody of concern for human rights represents the ultimate in paradoxically sadistic cynicism.

Interesting Times

Britain is well known to have been completely infiltrated by rabidly fanatic Islamists. British Muslims famously attend mosques where visiting and home-grown imams constantly preach jihad. The natural outcome of which is that a good percentage of British Muslims harbour sympathy for violent jihad, and a small but significant proportion of British Muslims aspire to become involved themselves with violent jihad. Of that number a smaller yet number have travelled to Afghanistan for terror training, and some of have returned to Britain.

Muslims living in Britain who espouse and encourage views in the Muslim community that run entirely counter to the welfare and values of the country which has given them haven and citizenship, consider Britain a 'colonial Crusader' country hugely invested in conquering and occupying Arab and Muslim lands to continue controlling oil output. Britain's role in NATO and its relationship with the United States in joining to combat international jihad has created the anomalous situation of an immigrant community loathing the politics of its adopted country.

While leaders of the fanatic groups of Islamists dedicated to defaming and challenging Britain's government and its military in their forays abroad with NATO continue to denounce the government, many of them live entitled lives of welfare dependency. Now, with the country in celebratory mode in preparation for the royal wedding to take place at Westminster Abbey, security alert is at a high level. And people are being warned that there may be problems, while the police ask them to be aware and inform the police should they note anything out of character.

"We really need you to be our eyes and our ears. If you see anybody in the crowd that is acting suspiciously, please bring it to the earliest attention of our officers."

Recent WikiLeaks documents describing Britain as representing a "crucible of terrorism" over the past several decades have not exactly revealed anything not previously known. But they do highlight what is known, bringing the reality closer to the scrutiny of people who would prefer to wave it aside as irrelevant. Until the next home-grown terror attack occurs, leaving chaos and bloody slaughter in its wake.

Some things have certainly changed in Britain in the past few decades. Where once Britain had the headache of the Irish Republican Army to concern themselves with, they now are concerned with a lethally determined religious ideology of fiercely paranoid hatred. The footman riding the wedding coach of the royal couple will be a security officer, armed, and fully prepared to physically cover the royal couple with his own body should they happen to come under attack by anyone with sinister intent who might breach security.

Five thousand police officers will be on duty the day of the royal wedding. Of that number, one-fifth represent a rapid reaction force prepared to isolate and surround and de-activate violent protesters,whether they are anarchists or anarcho-Islamists. The threat level has been set at "severe", interpreted as meaning that British authorities consider a high potential for a terrorist attack is likely.

A radical Islamist group, Muslims Against Crusades, which has planned a protest against the "Nazi" Prince William, and which has been denied a permit to protest and banned from the area of the royal procession, still intends to gather for the purpose of "disrupting" the wedding ceremony and celebratory occasion. Their website incites followers to get out, gather and "protest" the crusading British military, along with the fascist royal family, labelled as "enemies to Allah and his Messenger".

Friday is fated to be an interesting day of polarized events and participation. Interesting in the sense of that old Chinese curse.

Pageants and Circuses

It's a nice event on the social calendar, to be sure. British royalty at it again. Those magnificent and outrageously grand ceremonials with all their pomp and regal presence are irresistible to many people. Representing celebrity at its utmost elevation. Queens and Princes and the commoner who is living the fairy tale of being selected by a real, live prince. Who may, if succession proceeds as planned, take the throne in the near-to-distant future.

Europe has plenty of royalty and those photographs of pomp and ceremony, brilliant smiles and lavishly extravagant gowns and festivities are always captivating in their way, at least for a brief period. But the amount of space taken up in the news media with details of the forthcoming marriage at Westminster Abbey, and preparations for the grand event tend to be somewhat gagging.

When is enough just that? Just about now.

This brace of young people who have spent the last eight years of intimacy together are now to be formally wed. There's a departure that the last generation has brought to tradition. And the memorabilia that will flood the market; everything from fine porcelain cups, to look-alike dolls, commemorative coins and tea towels with the photographs of the happy pair in pre-connubial bliss.

And then there's that shabby little bit of information that of the royal guests one member of that family has not received an invitation. Two of the Queen's grandchildren, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie will be in attendance along with their father and all others. But not their mother. Quite so that Sarah, Duchess of York is a shabby character herself, but she is their mother.

All manner of foreign dignitaries, ambassadors to Britain from various countries of the world, including those in fairly questionable odour, have been invited, however. Diplomats who represent autocratic, tyrannical and dictatorial, theistic governments who oppress their people. Libya, however, is definitely out; no invitation for them, but Syria's all right.

Terror Honeypot

To the world of the West it is a romantic love story, a marriage of royalty, starring a successor to the British throne. Everyone is enthralled by the forthcoming marriage of Britain's Prince William as a charming knight, and Kate Middleton, as his future consort. Two handsome young people representing tradition and royal heritage.

The event of this century and the century is yet so young...

Westminster Abbey is prepared to host the grand event, celebratory bunting has been hung along the processional route, and excitement is in the air. Foreign heads of state, kings and queens, aristocrats and celebrities have been invited and all are a-twitter with the good feelings and excitement of the event.

Well, there are of course, some anti-monarchist republican-types who are less than thrilled and stating their objections to the celebration of nonentities tying the knot and making legal what they've long dipped into, no longer scandalous but representing the order of the day. Let's bypass them, for their time may yet come.

It is this other Britain, this Britain of immigrants from another world entirely, who live in ardent resentment of everything that Britain represents, yet take graspingly of social benefits they become entitled to like free council flats and generous financial state hand-outs rather than tediously scout out work opportunities.

But because they become citizens and are thus entitled to voice themselves and express their disgust with the country they have planned their own celebrations. To that end, Muslims Against Crusades plan a demonstration on that very day:

"We find that one of the biggest advocates of British imperialism, Flight Lieutenant Prince William, wishes to enjoy an extravagant wedding ceremony, ironically at the expense of the taxpayer", their website advises.

"In light of this, sincere Muslims have decided to organize a forceful demonstration, to once again highlight that as long as Britain continues in its quest to occupy Muslim land and wage war against the religion of God (Allah) that we too shall continue in our efforts to undermine their regime and condemn all of their representatives, military or otherwise.

"We strongly advise Prince William and his Nazi sympathizer, to withdraw from the crusader British military and give up all affiliation to the tyrannical British Empire. We promise that should they refuse, then the day which the nation has been dreaming of for so long will become a nightmare."

A corresponding demonstration has been planned by the English Defence League, an anti-Islamist group. Who dedicate themselves to upholding and supporting British tradition, and strenuously oppose the Islamists who during Armistice Day burned poppies and shouted "British soldiers burn in hell".

This is all rather complicated, made even more so by the fact that British security informs police that there is a high threat level of "severe", represented by the potential of terrorist attacks during this most auspicious celebratory time for Britain's royal watchers. And demonstrations by anarchists are also in the picture.

This event portends an exciting time indeed, to be had by all.

There's a Stretch

Smirking George Galloway is at it again. Things have been too quiet for him. He's ready again to raise a stink. Easily enough done in his presence; a baleful odour of malice emanates from his persona; it has the stink of righteousness in the mind of an anti-Semite. A natural enough alliance with groups who claim Jews represent the oppressors of the world, and Palestinians the perennial victims.

He admires and seeks to promote the vision of Hamas, a terror group outlawed in many Western countries, including Canada. While a sitting member of Britain's Parliament representing the Labour party, he took it upon himself to travel to Gaza and personally meet with the Hamas leadership. He defends Hamas as a responsible political group waging a war against the 'terrorists of Israel'.

Handing over cash and vehicles and other representative items of his great esteem for their purpose and their work, George Galloway proudly presents as a supporter of Hamas, an adversary of genocidal Israel whose military slaughtered untold numbers of innocent civilians to hear him tell it, during Israel's incursion into Gaza to halt rocket attacks against its population.

And now George has identified another adversary. The Government of Canada, and its Immigration Minister under the Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Jason Kenney, invoking his authority as a Minister of the Crown responsible for issuing visas, denied one to Galloway on the basis of his support of a terror group.

A decision which was later overturned by a Canadian federal court which insisted that it was too much of a stretch to label him a Hamas supporter merely because he delivered an 'aid convoy' and money to Gaza in care of Hamas. That the ban on permitting him entry to Canada to speak at an anti-Israel rally was unwarranted.

And thus, George Galloway has launched a lawsuit, suing Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney for defamation. Holding him responsible, through his Toronto lawyer, of being the cause, by alerting British media of Canada's barring of his entry to Canada, of his later loss of his seat through a failed re-election to Parliament.

The Blair government of which he was once a part, tossed him out in 2003 for opposing Britain's role in the Iraq war. And when he ran as a candidate in his riding for the left-wing Respect party in 2010, he was voted a remote third. Which proves that he is singularly unpopular in his riding, not that his refusal of entry to Canada a year earlier motivated voters to deny him his seat.

Obviously, his political antics, his vainglorious search for publicity, his identification with terror groups and his slander of Israel have not endeared him to that particular voting public. Unless we assume too much of the discriminating voters in the riding he sought to represent.

Protesting Austerity

European countries suffering downturns in their economies, and struggling to surmount those difficulties have seen loud and violent protests launched against parliamentarians who have attempted to introduce austerity measures geared to meet those fiscal challenges. Such measures raise the ire of their constituents. No one wants to see their entitlements cut back. Certainly not the unions, on behalf of their members, who have fought long and hard for their entitlements.

The European Trade Union months ago when the protests first began to get serious estimated that 100,000 trade unionists across Europe came out in force. We've seen the kind of violence that erupted in Greece. Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany and Ireland all experienced their large-scale union protests, with people marching to demonstrate their unwillingness to share the pain for the eventual gain.



And then, staid old Britain had its week-end of protests that turned into an anarchical rampage through the streets of central London, with hundreds of thousands of people marching to protest government cuts. Once people have been advantaged by union-bargained entitlements they are understandably loathe to see them fractionated, to become once again disadvantaged. They are not interested in hearing that their sacrifice is for the greater public good.

That want to retain what is rightfully theirs through the precedent of honest union bargaining and societal acceptance of their due. A peaceful, orderly march. That swiftly descended into an anti-capitalist show of force. Among the peaceful union marchers appeared black-clad figures intent on demonstrating their contempt for order and good government. Their own demonstration was inclusive of setting fires, smashing into banks, hotels and high-end shops.

They tossed whatever was handy at police. And what was handy began to include light bulbs filled with ammonia. Over 4,500 police were tasked to maintain order for the march. It was well enough known that anarchists would be present since they made no effort to shield their planned activities from public knowledge, preparing their action on Facebook and Twitter, making no bones about their violent intentions.

But the government promised retailers in London's main thoroughfare that their enterprises would be well protected; more than sufficient police would be on hand to ensure adequate control of the crowd. The police, often enough accused of a heavy-handed response to peaceful protests had their work cut out for them, attempting to control the hundreds of anarchist goons.

It took five hours of battling before things simmered down. Before which, banks were broken into, shop windows were smashed in New Bond Street, battles took place on Pickadilly; the Ritz hotel was attacked with paint; a "Trojan horse" set afire in Oxford Circus; Fortnum and Mason was "occupied" by protesters who smashed windows and looted merchandise. A fine time was had by all.


-- by paulµ43, on Flickr

Professional creme de la creme

How about that, a highly credited secret service that flat-footedly performed in the most embarrassing manner. These credentialed professionals were so awkward in their experienced conduct that a rag-tag group of civilian protesters turned rebels contemptuously took them into custody as they flagrantly demonstrated their talents for an amateur-hour performance.

Wrong place at the wrong time, chappies. Come back some other time when the nascent civil war has been concluded.

Oh, it's a mission. A rescue mission. Yours for the purpose of spiriting a British diplomat out of the country because of the dangers inherent in remaining there. So, why didn't you leave a calling card, state your official mission, ask permission to cross the border, present as a legitimate group of professionals whose task is to be respected.

After all, fellas, a whole lot of others have preceded y'all, dontcha know.

"The reason they were arrested was that they came into the country unofficially and without any arrangement with the Libyan authorities. Libya is an independent nation, we have our borders [and] we should expect them to be respected by everybody." Got that? A spokesman for the rebels' National Council, no less.

He and they may detest and abhor their current government and its tyrannical head, but they do respect the autonomy of their sovereign state, chum. Call before you drop in, it's common courtesy. Even in a chaotic, incoherent situation like what prevails in Libya at the moment, where the protesters are rather politely stating their goal and government forces are bashing the hell out of them.

No fewer than seven SAS soldiers and an MI6 officer. (The glorious, legendary MI6!) Coming in on a helicopter. Over rebel positions. What did you expect them to think? They are, after all, being bombed by government troops. You presented as possibly more of the same. True, you persuaded them you were unarmed and thus to be trusted.

But you were armed, and thus not to be trusted. What kind of stupid moronic idiocy is that for an operational performance? Practising for what, amateur hour at the local pub?

Right Royally Unsavoury

Those born to power, wealth, prestige and/or royalty appear to gravitate toward one another. They are distant cousins, in a manner of speaking. Having shared immense privileges denied other, ordinary members of society. These are the casually cosmopolitan, those born to the manner and manor royal.

Schooled in diplomacy and exemplary social manners, they flit about the world in a concentrated vortex of extravagance.

It need not be surprising that the second son of Moammar Gadhafi, the socialist-revolutionary king of Libya, who bought a costly but to his family affordable doctorate at the prestigious London School of Economics, might have bumped into Britain's Prince Andrew at any number of posh affairs.

Each had something to sell. Prince Andrew the respectability that comes with doing business with a member of the British Royal family in his position as Britain's trade ambassador. And Saif al-Islam Gadhafi ("Sword of Islam" Gadfly), access to Libya's vast oil fields. Of course former Prime Minister Tony Blair had something to say about that, too.

More than happy to agitate on Col. Gadhafi's behalf, dangling the carrot of access for BP, for the release from Scotland of the architect of the Lockerbie bombing atrocity. If it's good enough for a member of the royal family it's fine and peachy with the government.

That business camaraderie was naturally extended to intimate familiarity. Which led, as gestures of friendship between equals often do, to invitations to come along and abide awhile at the family estate.

In this instance it was Saif al-Islam bed-and-boarding as an honoured guest of the Duke of York at Buckingham Place and Windsor Castle, enabling this son of Libya to meet with senior British cabinet ministers and charmingly wow the socks off everyone.

In view of the rather unfortunate turn that relationship has taken, with Prince Andrew having little option but to publicly disavow any possible personal friendship with a bloody fiend, setting government troops with all their military equipment and might on unarmed anti-regime protesters, a trusty metaphorical shoulder-shrug dismissed it all.

It took another relationship with yet another unsavoury character, a child-sex predator, to get the tch-tch going in earnest. Might it be true? Prince Andrew, Duke of York, son of Queen Elizabeth II, consorting with a pedophilic pederast, visiting him at his Florida home which just happens to be a mansion where, a la Silvio Berlusconi, under-age girls were sexually abused?

Saying it isn't so, doesn't make it not-so. For that did happen: That a man who served 18 months in prison for child sex offences, was entreated successfully by Prince Andrew to personally help pay off his wife Sarah's (the Duchess of York whose legendary debt and her financial travails had her schilling for Weight Watchers) tedious debts.

There now is much talk between government ministers of revoking the prince's position as the country's trade ambassador. He is, let us be frank, rather a huge embarrassment to the government, the nation and his family. Which appears to have developed a penchant for embarrassing itself.

This one, however, is the exemplar of a mangy opportunist.

Passive Tolerance

Never too late to awaken to the situation one has helped develop by indulgence toward the entitled demands of those who succeed in gradual advances overtaking a receptive country's culture and values and politics and social structure, to exchange it for another.

This is a phenomenon being seen all over Europe, as open-minded, generous and not-too-perceptive governments reflecting the progressive attitudes of those who elect them to high office, saw fit to infuse their nations with a wealth of immigrants incapable or refusing to assimilate.

Living in their separate and separated enclaves by deliberate choice through rejection of prevailing social mores and cultivated political values, a stealth campaign was mounted to assert the rights of immigrants to special dispensations, recognition that their culture, the
ideological, political and judicial demands of their religion be paramount to the prevailing national constants of values.

See no evil, hear no evil, but evil was being spoken and it was being picked up and echoed and embellished and claimed as a right too, through the merits of multiculturalism, and the acceptance of cultural relativism. Which bred a hearty share of home-grown jihadists soon enough mounting violent attacks on the very institutions and populations which had so generously welcomed them to find refuge on their shores.

But no more. The Islamists living so comfortably within Britain that they feel confident enough to preach their incendiary messages on public street corners, not needing to be confined to fundamentalist mosques have been placed on notice. Which will help their studied defiance no end, since they feel entitled to believe it a mere matter of time before Britain is theirs.

But Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron has seen that hand writing its message on the wall that seems to have escaped his predecessors whose faint-hearted responses were deplored as being too onerous and unfair. Like other countries of Europe who have enacted some fairly innocuous laws like banning hijabs and minarets, Britain has now declared itself to have ended its 'passive tolerance'.

Freedom of speech and religion, democratic and equal rights regardless of creed, gender, sexual orientation is a verity, and those who insist on their right to express and to spread extremist views, as it is put, will be actively confronted. Isn't that so quaintly British? Actively confronting extremists. Is this a war of words, of ideas, of values, a rejection of fundamentalism?

A confrontation with those for whom the white British protestants opened their hearts and minds to admit dark-skinned, tradition-bound, culture-obsessed, religion-biased refuge-seekers who then turned around and spat on them and their vaunted freedoms?

Ah, there's the explanation: no more public money, no sharing of political platforms for those who degrade democracy, equality and integration.

That'll do it.

Acts of Sickening Barbarity

Fascinating, completely irrational, but fascinating. That the source of a problem cannot see the kernel of reality involved in escalating that problem into one of global significance. Claiming instead to have been victimized. this is not what one normally thinks of when believing that maturity and intelligence equate with responsibility. Particularly when that maturity and presumed intelligence reside in the personage of a British Cabinet minister.

House of Lords-ensconced Lady Sayeeda Warsi, formerly co-chair of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative party and currently minister without portfolio in his government, took it upon herself to lecture Britain for its purported hatred of Muslims. How extraordinary; on the evidence of institutionalized coddling of fanatical Muslims the world outside Britain had the indelible impression that British Muslims were well done by.

Not to hear Baroness Warsi, however. From her privileged heights as a devout Muslim, far from the experience of the squalid, teeming ghettoes and their fiery, eloquent clerics in mosques which are breeding ignorance and hatred resulting in the kind of unrest and belligerence that makes for easy recruits by Islamist jihadists, she sees only the unfair labelling of Muslims between the camps of the 'moderate' and the 'extremist'.

To well-balanced people, making that distinction between those who are 'moderate', which is to say reasonable, non-threatening, and those who are decidedly 'extremist', translated as fodder for violent jihad in nature, would appear in and of itself moderate and reasonable. In other words, an attempt made to distinguish good citizens from potential terrorists; at the very least those whose discontent and grievances pose as a threat to the country.

That threat has raised its head sufficiently frequently through the successful commission of viciously bloody attacks on British public transit users, and other vulnerable venues, and the just-in-time arrests of others planning carnage and destruction to convince authorities that the problem is real, attention to it justified. Yet even so, Britain uses kid gloves in response to iron-fisted threats, bending over backward toward political-social 'correctness'.

There is also the reported perceptions and feelings of mainstream Muslim society in Britain, including those whose only experience has been that of growing up British, albeit Muslim, second-generation Brits who worship Islam, yet are hugely in support of the theories that abound in Islamist propaganda. Among which is the outstanding charge of international Islamophobia.

Suicide bombings are quite obviously not unknown in Britain. And the threats of more, including the secret service and police successes thus far in apprehending additional threats-in-motion. So why would there not be a public back-lash of some dimensions growing inevitably on the back of the real fears that terrorists gloat they are able to foist on civil society?

Baroness Warsi would do far better by her religious community and her loyalty to Britain expressed in fewer accusations of discriminatory talk, and the implementation of more sincere and frequent attempts at educating the Muslim community toward the truth and the reality of the threats emanating from Islam into the wider community.

Like it or not, if the Muslim community feels hard pressed through perceived accusations and suspicion coming from the non-Muslim community, they must acknowledge its cause. They must also spare no efforts to disown, reject, condemn the violence and the threats that erupt from those from within the Muslim community to threaten and antagonize and terrorize non-Muslims.

She could begin by using her own academic and professional education and her political and social status to address the question her own prime minister posed earlier: "how we are allowing the radicalization and poisoning of the minds of some young British Muslims who then contemplate and sometimes carry out acts of sickening barbarity."

"Islamophobic" English Defence League?

The English Defence League has sought, in Britain, to enlist the support of anyone and everyone, from the Asian to the Jewish community in their response to Islamist fanatics who have entrenched themselves and their religious agenda in the United Kingdom. Civil society considers the EDL to be fascist in temperament and tenor because they espouse the view that fanatic religious ideologues violently engaged in overturning classic British societal norms and values must be challenged.

The group has come to Canada, appearing in Toronto at the invitation of the Jewish Defence League to speak at the Toronto Zionist Centre so the leader of the British anti-Islamist group could address interested supporters. Mainstream Jewish groups have deplored the decision by the JDL to throw their lot in with the EDL, claiming that by so doing the JDL has aligned itself with a racist and violent group more interested in setting up walls of misunderstanding between groups than being accommodating.

How can self-respecting people be 'accommodating' to virulently racist and religiously-invested ideologues who worship violence and whose end game is to subsume Western values and culture into an Islamist one subservient to Sharia law? Leftists and unionists have allied themselves with the cause of the Islamists with their political/religious/ideological commitment to overturning democratic- liberal values inimical to Islam's need to control individuality and surrender the persona to the strictures of Islam's demands of the faithful.

No one within Canadian society is opposed to the peaceful presence of Canadian Muslims wishing to share the country's freedoms and benefits through collective aspirations to make of their futures what could not be attained in restrictive, constricting Islamic societies. All that is asked of any identifiable group be it ethnic, cultural, religious or ideological is to respect the pluralist society of which they have become a part, and to obey the laws that apply equally to all. If the prevailing social mores are found to be offensive and antithetical to religious beliefs, it should be recalled that they are indigenous and require respect.

Dominant social 'activist' groups within Canada such as the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid and the Canadian Arab Federation consider themselves socially progressive, but they are by their very practise socially regressive. Their claims that the EDL represent a fascist, racist, neo-Nazi organization belies the evidence of inclusion. While Muslim groups in Canada have created social and political divisions rather than integrating with the country's values and adopting its priorities as their own, their right to do so is supported by the left.

No one is supporting negative reactions or violence against Muslims as those who decry Islamophobia are so eager to claim. There are, however, those who decry rigidly fundamentalist Islamism that creates divisions and suspicion between segments of Canadian society, bringing to the country and its institutions resentment and vicious slanders that have their genesis in another geography and other cultures. Groups that oppose radical Islam and its apparent and real threat to civil societies, however, are usually branded fascist by the liberal-left.

Who cannot sufficiently go out of their way to helpfully and eagerly support the Islamists' claims they are unfairly slandered, capably playing the fundamentalist Islamists' game in psychological reverse-mode.

Priceless Reasoning

"Opportunities to travel and volunteer abroad cannot only channel energy and engender a concern for others, but also take the glamour out of the al-Qaeda narrative and increase appreciation of Western citizens for the rights granted in their own countries." Demos

It comes across as too precious to believe. A British think-tank, of all sources, preaching to the Western world that more work must be done to lead impressionable and vulnerable young Muslim men away from the allure of signing on to violent jihad, and substituting attractive alternatives, like enticing them to allow themselves to be recruited for good works, volunteerism, altruistic pursuits that would better fill the boredom gaps for them.

And save the world a whole lot of grief. Why didn't anyone think of this wonderful solution? It stands to reason that appealing to the better nature of restless young men nursing a grievance and learning to really get into the hate-thing, enjoying themselves immersed into the nitty-gritty of learning how to conduct themselves in a soldierly fashion at Pakistani-based jihad training camps, would save these young men from themselves.

And save us from their bigoted, racialized, quasi-religious, ideological-political violent initiatives. Guess we suffer from an abysmal lack of practical imagination. The British think-tank Demos, however, is to be congratulated for arriving at a formula that would serve to attract and move young Muslims into the direction of good works to salve their irate sensibilities, reacting to "Islamophobia" being exhibited by the world of infidels.

The Edge of Violence, the report issued by Demos, appears to be rife with brilliant ideas. It makes good sense, does it not - to encourage young men who have grown up in Western communities, taken advantage of all the freedoms and opportunities within, inclusive of university education - to appreciate those experiences. Question: why might it be necessary to point out to them how privileged they have been to begin with?

Since homegrown radicalization was pioneered in Britain, and later seen in fewer but still alarming incidences elsewhere, while Britain still remains champion of these emerging jihadists, it puzzles the mind why these delightful solutions are not being put in place there. Why is this think-tank bruiting their solutions toward Canada, Denmark, France and the Netherlands, without first experimenting in the United Kingdom?

Of course the very question of why Muslim youth find violent jihad so appealing should be first addressed. And perhaps the answer is as basic and elemental as youth eternally turning to the forbidden, the excitingly alluring with just the right edge of danger to excite their hormonal passion for adventure. And perhaps, just perhaps, the 'right values' were simply never engrained in them through the home environment.

Mind, it helps when the youth in question are not overburdened with too many brains at birth, and they might have been bypassed by normal genetic endowments leaving them somewhat sociopathic by character. Aided by the fact that for some, the familial atmosphere is conducive to illicit activity and resentment of the prevailing culture in which they find themselves.

Violent extremist groups which solicit recruits in fairly public fora are not all that hard to find. They seem to feel they can operate with impunity as hate mongers and conduits to groups more than willing to train callow youth toward mature terrorists, functioning at a level deemed satisfactory for all concerned.

The researchers whose message is that government and its institutions may not be fully capable of apprehending these activities and protecting the public and the state, may have taken their cue from the British experience. The recommendation that individuals, organizations, communities, must become involved in weeding out, identifying, and offering alternatives to violence-prone youth might be useful to the Muslim community itself.

Which begs the obvious question: why must the Muslim community be instructed in this kind of harm-reduction, rather than see it in and of themselves as their duty and obligation both to their 'vulnerable' youth, and to their communities, and above all, to the country which has given them refuge and the opportunity to live decent lives?

If vulnerable immigrant populations value in any measure whatever the opportunities opened to them by their migration to Western countries, and their place within them, it should be in their vested interest, and an automatic response to firmly eschew the values that are at obvious odds with those of the West. A firm hand should be taken as a matter of course, in directing their youth toward norms that honour the social contract.

Those Muslim groups and communities which benefit from life in Western countries and raise their young to take their place within the larger communities as equal citizens, equally deserving and desiring of all the civil freedoms and opportunities of all other groups, have an especial obligation to identify and counter those groups that espouse other values.

The ignorance with which conspiracy theories are accepted and used to nurse grievances which feed into the general atmosphere of "us versus them", is one that the leaders of Muslim communities must take seriously and make every effort to counteract. The one practical recommendation - that Muslim imams pass language proficiency tests, and an increased deployment of Muslim police officers - seems potentially useful.

And then, in the Canadian context, one ponders on the peculiarities of a revelation that two young Muslim men wanted on murder charges, one of whom escaped the country thanks to the assistance of two other young Muslim men charged as accessories, were enrolled in academic police training classes with the intention of becoming police officers.

How Perfectly Jolly!

The worst of all possible worlds; Britain has long attracted and gone out of its way to support and give haven to individuals and groups whose brand of Islamism is ferociously out of whack with what its followers claim it to represent, as a religion of peace. The Islam that the mullahs and imams and other clerics who comfortably settled in Britain - to speak at its many mosques, in Arabic-speaking fiery speeches denouncing the very country that gave them haven, exhorting young Muslims to violent jihad - is the one front and centre in the world of terror today.

What is astonishing is the very fact that official Britain has been so avuncular about the presence of those ferociously fulminating clerics for so long. Long enough to ensure that more than one generation of Muslim men has been tainted with the compelling need to enlist as martyrs for the universal Islamist cause leading to the Caliphate they are so devoted to. Young Muslim men, born in Britain, educated there, seething with discontent and anger at the West and its values, sufficiently at home in the country to form university student unions recruiting for jihad.

These are young men who know the country fairly intimately. It has, after all, been the country of their birth, if not in the end the country of their birthright. That would only come to pass when Britain does truly succumb to Islamism and adopts universal sharia law. That's some atmosphere to be certain. That the country's counter-terrorism agencies are on constant guard now against the carefully determined plans by home-bred Brits whose religious conversion to deadly violence poses a threat to stability.

Given that Scotland Yard has admitted it is currently giving high-alert attention to one hundred terror cases, thirty of which are considered to be 'pressing', while approximately ten are classified as 'urgent' or 'imminent'. That's shaving it pretty close, isn't it? Islam4UK is kind of snappy too, is it not, as a hopeful sloganeering mantra of Muslim youth devoted to the downfall of the government of the country, determined to mount one of their own in due time, in tune with a new judiciary.

It is certainly instructive how fundamentally attractive men like Anwar al-Awlaki and Osama bin Laden are inspirationally to bored young men avidly seeking the adventures of their lives. Exciting adventures are just what the doctor ordered to banish those insipid boredom-diversions of petty crime from the near horizon in favour of not-so-covert activities conducted right under the eyes of slow-moving intelligence agents.

The latest to be arrested in Britain, young men of Bangladeshi origin - if it's not of Pakistani origin; geographic neighbours withal - are said to have been influenced by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. They were affiliated with a banned group, which makes things all the more attractive, doesn't it? A Police Commission spokesman described the arrests as being "intelligence-led" on the suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism.

Terrorism? Actually, not; holy war. As opposed to the kind of unholy war being waged in Afghanistan, for example, by British troops within the NATO command. These were young men accustomed to standing on street corners handing out leaflets promoting holy war. Furthermore, some of them fit right into their neighbourhoods. Neighbours spoke approvingly of them as "...a very nice family, the dad always says hello, he's very polite."

And at another house where arrests were made, observant neighbours had their own impressions to relay to the curious news media: "He has a lot of people coming and going in the early hours of the morning - it's very odd - and you can often hear religious chanting and singing coming from the house." So, they're quite jolly, quite British, quite stiff upper-lip about it all. After all, this is the land of eccentrics.

British terrorists? Just another brand of eccentric Brits.

Wretched, Perfidious Albion

Well, that's Great Britain for you. Not so great in many ways. Let us count the ways; principles, morals, ethics, hypocrisy, prevarications, lies and more damn lies.

The once-great empire that dominated much of the world as an imperial powerhouse, one that ruled the high seas, was a force to be reckoned with. In its colonial past, while it raped much of the undeveloped world of their natural resources, it also left a heritage of social and political and judicial and bureaucratic excellence.

More latterly, Britain is a country that has itself become colonized by its former colonies. Which have inextricably wrought a deep and dense social, political, religious and cultural indentation in the country's original social, cultural and historical realization. Values, always readily corrupted for the right cause, are even more vulnerable to exploitation by the country's ruling class in a newly classless society.

The greatest value Britain ever recognized to its future and its socio-economic-political well-being was always trade. Trade and enrichment was what always propelled it, as well as Spain, Portugal and France into the unknown byways of seafaring opportunities to land in foreign and exotic countries and to despoil them of their riches. From Egypt to India, Afghanistan to Iran, Britain was there, and dominant.

Britain has never experienced too much of a social-psychological upheaval making pacts with the devil. And Britain's devil has always been hegemonic trade. More latterly, the highest institution in the country is not necessarily its Parliament, but rather its colossus of fossil fuel energy availment formerly identified as British Petroleum.

Britain saw fit to coerce the government of Scotland into releasing the unreconstructed Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi under false pretenses of humanitarian concerns for the man's purported descending state of health, nigh unto death. For this would ingratiate the government with Colonel Qaddafi and cement trade relations, as political manoeuvring demands.

That 270 innocent people died in the Lockerbie crash, including 3 Canadians and 189 Americans was unfortunate. That $1-billion in BP investment in Libyan oil extraction might be imperilled without consent to liberate the Lockerbie bomber from a Scottish prison was, however, catastrophic and could not conceivably be countenanced.

"The U.K. communicated to the Scottish government that there were significant national interests in expanding trade relations with Libya." U.S. Senate investigation.

Limp-Wristed Security

What precisely is it about Britain that has resulted in the country becoming a haven for brutishly violent Islamists? Well, the country's much-vaunted freedoms, for one thing. It seemed to occur to the British authorities in the last decade, that they really had no idea what the foaming-at-the-mouth Islamist clerics that entered the country so seamlessly were uttering when they preached violent jihad, and instructed Muslim youth in their duty to Islam.

There were, eventually, a few of these incendiary imams who were invited to leave the country and others who amazingly ended up in incarceration. By then, however, the die had been cast. Britain lent itself readily to the very forward-appearing leftist inclinations to allow diplomats, lawmakers and high-ranking military from countries which the leftists considered human-rights-abusers of Palestinians, to be summarily arrested. Israelis all, interestingly.

Writers whose books or articles were deemed to be offensive to the dignity of Islam would see their publications banned in Britain. And if they themselves happened to travel to England for business purposes, they could be sued on the basis of what they wrote being interpreted as defaming Islam. Britain was, and remains, ready and prepared to defend the rights and freedoms of Islamists to silence their perceived enemies.

Accommodating, understanding Britain has for decades been recognized as jihad-central. Which has not protected the country from quite successful terrorist attacks, regardless. It has, however, hugely encouraged 'restless' youth, 'vulnerable' youth, 'impressionable' youth, to believe that theirs is the right to destroy British society and help to make it over into an Islamic state on the way to a larger caliphate. Britain4Islam resonates.

The gestation period was long, but fruitful. Away back in 1996, jihadists were already establishing their British-Islamist credentials. And Britain appeared to be more than a little willing to entertain the possibility of extending sharia to its two million Muslims. Even the Bishop of Canterbury thought there was merit in the proposal, in the spirit of understanding and ecumenism.

Britain is so excessively tolerant,that it does next to nothing, even while its security agents know that terrorist recruiters stand openly in public handing out Islamist-terror tracts. Even while they spout loudly belligerent manifestos, and degrading descriptions of British troops fighting Islamists in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even while the outlawed groups still making their presence in and around London and environs loudly protest the bestiality of British soldiers and celebrate the "magnificent martyrs" represented by the 9/11 suicide attackers.

Out of Britain come Pakistani and Bangladeshi and Nigerian and Saudi men who have grown up as 2nd generation Brits, had their education in the country, mounted their Islamic student bodies in the brotherhood of jihad in its universities, then go on to travel to Pakistan and Afghanistan and Somalia to train as mujahadeen for the cause.

Sometimes returning to Britain to wreak havoc there, and sometimes being apprehended before they reach success.

None of this is a secret, for British 'intelligence', although not perhaps their intellectuals, are well versed in the knowledge of underground and above-ground, furtive and audacious activities. The knowledge is there that the seething mass of humanity known as worshippers of Islam is also blighted with the youth who seem to gravitate toward lives of crime, quite aside from violent jihad.

Britain sees itself as responsible, in the sense that it has not been aware enough, kind enough, offering greater opportunities and understanding to the vulnerable to prevent them from wandering off the straight and narrow....

Luton's Open Recruiting

Does Britain know whether it's coming or going? Even as the country is alerted to the fact that another group of 12 jihadists planning Christmas Day attacks in central London have been apprehended, the phenomenon of recruiting ever more dissatisfied Muslim youth goes on unabated. Four homes were raided across the UK, with links to an extremist group.

London Police and MI5 undercover officers concluded their long-standing investigation by a timely intervention. The arrests were characterized as "timely" by the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and he should know, shouldn't he, given that there is less than a week left to the public Christmas festivities. Which represent the featured sites for attack in busily populous London.

Timeliness is a highly rated construct in such apprehensions. One needs to strike to avert catastrophe. Which makes the average non-intelligence-engaged mind wonder why so little attention appears to be given to the supposedly outlawed terror groups operating in Luton, where the suicide bomber who shocked Stockholm learned his stock-in-trade. It took ten years for Taimour Abdulwahab to become fully indoctrinated in Luton.

The Islamist group al-Muhajiroun operating out of Luton appears determined to shorten that indoctrination period with eager new recruits. And they're operating fairly brazenly. So much so that moderate Muslims in Luton complain that they've been violently targeted by the Islamists for their lack of support, while the authorities appear to be completely disinterested in their presence.

Led by a former inland revenue accountant, Ishtiaq Alamgir, who was behind the organization of an Islamist 'protest' against British troops hailing from Luton, after their Afghanistan tour, which erupted in violence and arrests, the man is comfortable enough in a sense of his own security to operate freely in town by actively recruiting and handing out jihadist screeds and directing young Muslim men to terror web sites.

Celebrating the wonderful achievements of the September 11 hijackers, jihadist supporters set up street stalls in open sight of the curious and the adventurous to distribute their literature and entice recruits, citing "the terrorist activities of Britain", in their efforts to turn young Muslims toward violent jihad.

Well infiltrated within British society, working for the public service, as legal counsels, and alongside progressive leftists who anxiously agree that the Islamists have a legitimate grievance and an open invitation to air their opinions, extending those opportunities to include recruitment to jihad, a lot more will have to be done to extinguish the fires of raging jihad in the country, beyond arresting the occasional careless group planning carnage.

Much certainly depends on it. Yet the British government seems to be having a difficult time getting truly serious about extinguishing those opportunists among its Muslim population who feel free to viciously disparage the government, its politics and its armed forces abroad in defence of Western values.

The holding pattern of attempting to remain abreast of the most pressing alerts to impending attacks may suffice only so long as the police and MI5 can assemble enough time and personnel. As soon as the number of jihadists and planned attacks accelerate beyond the point of no return, what then?

Splenetic Guile

Obviously delighted with those occasional bouts of adulating notoriety for his noxious juvenile performances before a limited, appreciative audience of Israel-bashers, he poses, preens and prattles the nonsense that has garnered him the attention he craves. Uttering the kind of human rights twaddle that leftists greedily lap up as cream to the avaricious cat.

Good clean fun, folks, that's obvious by the photograph on page one of the National Post, of Grungy George (Galloway for those ignorant of his presence in Toronto) hugging himself with joy over the attention he feels he so richly deserves.

Appearing, in the process, like a toothless old boxer with battered-brain syndrome.

Fixated on making Jerusalem 'Judenrein", and creating a vacuum of Jews within Israel, with his generous 'one-state' solution which would, if it came to fruition, solve the problem of a Jewish State in an Arab-Muslim region of the world. One that brooks no presence of a historical tribe's descendants, nor an ancient religion's right of residence.

Those who support his presence in Canada and his hysterical diatribes against Israel, and what he purports to be a Canadian government that presents as a willing tool of Israeli Apartheid, are sadly afflicted with the soul-destroying neurosis of racism, genteelly cloaked in a concern for the misunderstood and maltreated underdogs, the suffering Palestinians.

In the process of delivering his splenetic hatred for Jews and Israel, his support for a terrorist group, deemed as such by the European Union, Canada and the United States, registers him as an enthusiastic sympathizer of Hamas whose charter clearly demands the destruction of Israel, a prospect that appears most appealing to this failed politician who sees his life-work in the appeal of a racist ideology.

This sclerotic and fixated pugilist plans, he avows, to sue the Government of Canada, just as he has invited Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to a round of shattering cerebral function, which would leave the ageing vendor of hatred totally mentally incapacitated. Making him surely even more beloved of those who clasp his incendiary message close to their hearts.

Canada and its unfortunate citizens can now look forward to hosting a social reprobate who deprecates and slanders our government, belabouring it for a stance of which he does not approve, as though his opinion is of great moment. His unsavoury reputation in his native England, and his preoccupation with his huge championing of murderous terrorists mark him as a jolly psychopath in good company.

He can celebrate with the Canadian Arab Federation and the Canadian Islamic Congress in their intemperate proclamations of support for Hezbollah and Hamas and their indelible missions of destruction, for they are kith and kin.

Britain's Finest

For many Canadians he is persona non grata. Not, however, for fellow travellers, those who believe, who think, who act as he does. We're such a tolerant nation, we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, we want everyone to feel comfortable doing what they do, although we do draw the line at harming others in the process of 'doing what they do'.

Unless, of course, those who engage in the 'doing' are conceived of as representing an underdog community, and those whose tender sensibilities become wounded at being accused of being filthy racist human-rights-bashers just happen to be Jews.

It's their own fault, after all; who told them to support the State of Israel?

See, it's not the fact that they're Jews, per se, it's the fact that as Jews they support the State of Israel. Supporting the State of Israel, ipso facto, means they're part and parcel of an Apartheid state that demeans and oppresses non-Jews who live in the neighbourhood.

Part of the debasement of those non-Jews is that they're granted Israeli citizenship and are able to elect represents to the Knesset, but these are inconvenient details we mustn't allow to get in the way of 'facts'.

Fact is, Israel is a totalitarian, brutish state existing contiguously alongside a stateless people whom Israel has denied a state of their own by garnisheeing territory belonging to them. Overlooked by the world at large, the fact that opportunities to create a Palestinian state were always denied Palestinian Arabs by their Arab brethren.

And Partition in 1947 as offered by the United Nations after long and due consideration simply had no appeal to the Palestinians, far less to their Arab-nation brethren, all of whom acted in concert to overturn the creation of the State of Israel. Bad move. Time and time again.

And now, those poor, defenceless Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip whom courageous Hamas militants defend from rapacious IDF troops have their many champions in the world of the West. Not so much in the Middle East where brother Arabs deign not to absorb them as worthy peers, but certainly in the West.

And of course, George Galloway, once a British Member of Parliament whose unabashed support of Hamas as legitimate protectors of Palestinian interests against viciously racist Israel is highly resentful of having been the recipient of a denial of permission to enter Canada on a casual basis for a brief guest visit as a speaker.

An invited speaker, beloved of the peace-loving leftists whose agenda in support of Palestinians, Afghanistan and Iraq Mr. Galloway exemplifies. That Hamas is considered a terror group by Canada is also irrelevant; one chooses as one's friends those whose values reflect one's own.

The Canadian leftist coalition that appealed to the Federal Court on Mr. Galloway's unfair banishment from his Canadian speaking engagement has been left crestfallen at the (wishy-washy) conclusion of Mr. Justice Richard Mosley dismissing the appeal of the ban which was in fact never carried through since Mr. Galloway chose to bypass the potential of being refused entry at the border.

Still, one takes comfort in small victories whenever and wherever they occur, haphazardly even, and by happenstance.

England is stuck with George Galloway, yet another bitterly mad eccentric of whom the country has more than plenty. And long may he remain there, to stew in his very own juices of misery and discontent, labelling injustices as he sees them.

Problem? What Problem?

Britain's Royals are in the throes of yet another embarrassment. They have most certainly borne their share of such embarrassments. Among their familial hangers-on a propensity to indulging in all the addled ills of a society whose Victorian rectitude has long since passed into fond memory. Queen Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Windsor so to speak, entertains one annus horribilus after another, with the odd free year of few scandals in between.

Choices, and consequences. Of course with her unerring sense of noblesse oblige it is not she directly who causes the scandal sheets to mockingly capitalize on the Royal House of Windsor's lapses in social and moral sobriety - indulgences in societal scandal, but she has a family among whom there exists the irresistible urge to behave just as they will because they will it, irrespective of their mother's and their father's stern warning to comport themselves otherwise.

For the most part, it has been the unfortunate choices of their sons (only incidentally their daughter) in selecting fetching but insensible partners lacking that internal second sense that might swerve them away from revealing their corruptible core. Sarah Ferguson the proverbial gold-digger? Say it isn't so, and you'd be telling an unfathomable lie, simply based on her past and current performances. Her behaviour, like that of her predecessors, "deeply concerns" the Queen.

The Duke of York, for his part, is most certainly not amused. On the brink of bankruptcy because she has become accustomed to living the most lavish of lifestyles? Doesn't it happen to many whose grasp of realities eludes the concept of insufficient income not equating with a luxurious lifestyle? Oblivious to the most elemental of mathematical equations; that of incurring bills far outstripping income?

The interest in the Duchess's debt, like that of many insolvent nations of the world, even begins to outstrip her meagre income. What to do? Well, wring the royal hands, and then use some of that munificence to pony up and bail the red-head out of her personal hell leading to the bankruptcy that will present as so embarrassing to the Crown. Better yet, forget the embarrassment; Ms. Ferguson has previously comported herself in such an egregious manner as to have forfeited her right to rescue.

Bailing her out to the tune of the $8-million to which she has indebted herself will only encourage the incorrigible spendthrift with fantasies of limitless spending opportunities to embark on further, future escapades. Barring that, she may yet again attempt to sell her entree to the palace to the highest bidder, and bail herself out; she has become consummately skilled, it would appear, at such skulduggery in attempts to enrich herself.

Poor dear, her defenders insist that it is the result of her generous soul, forever gifting people with the largesse of her large heart and easily disposable income that has landed her in this lamentable condition of penury. She has, her defenders claim, no 'real idea about money', allowing others to take advantage of her, run up impossible bills, because she is so trusting. Handily overlooking her deliberate use of her connections to assure service people she is to be trusted to repay their efforts on her behalf.

Let her sink or swim; she will survive. She will 're-build her career', as a poseur, a cleverly charming charlatan extraordinaire. Really, it doesn't matter what she does, how she does it, when it happens and why, she will evermore pose as an embarrassment to those who trusted their son's good judgement. That's life, isn't it?