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The body of Peruvian ship’s waitress Erika Soria has been recovered from the wreck of the Concordia. It has been revealed that as the ship went down, and Captain Schettino was busy being one of the first off the ship, the young Peruvian waitress, working on her third cruise, stayed back to help dozens of passengers into the lifeboats. The last time rescued passengers saw her, she was giving her lifejacket to an elderly man.

RIP heroine Erika Soriamolina.

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Top British conservative blogger Iain Dale has run an interesting little quiz to begin the weekend. Here’s his blog. Scroll down to the “Taking The Normblog Test”. It would be interesting to see some American perspectives …

[Jonathan adds: Here is a direct link to Dale's Normblog post.]

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If you are so minded, it isn’t hard to determine who should have their vote suspended until they join the world of wealth creation: those who take wealth contributed by others and give nothing in return (except their purchased vote). There are discrete borders.

The public sector is much harder. It is more diverse, for one thing. No one would argue that the emergency services or the military are not well entitled to their vote. We couldn’t do without them. I would also argue that the diplomatic service, by and large, not only performs an essential function – it is the first port of call if a citizen gets into difficulties overseas – but assists in the creation of wealth, in that part of its remit is to facilitate trade. Indeed, the foreign service is essential to any country’s wellbeing.

Most of the government agencies in Britain do perform a reasonable function, although, being socialists, not particularly well. (I don’t knows enough about the current workings within the US Government, but doubtless other Chicago Boyz do …)

But a whole new, utterly useless industry has crept in. Soft, amorphous, nebulous … the human rights, global warming, multiculti and associated industries. They perform no purpose. There is no hunger among the taxpayers for their existence. Yet they are paid out of the taxpayers’ pockets. The diversity industry is one such. It generates no wealth and performs no service other than placing the yoke of social engineering round the neck of the taxpayer. The human rights industry is another one. The social engineering industry is another. Far from being of service to the taxpayer, I would contend that they are destructive, and if they can’t be shut down, the people attending meetings and doing research and writing reports to no purpose should at least be removed from the electoral rolls because they are, essentially, not engaged in wealth creation or the facilitating of wealth creation, or the governance of wealth creation. In other words, they’re passengers.

In Britain, we also have the fascist Health & Safety departments in local governments which essentially seek to ban everything free people could normally engage in. For example, they want to outlaw swings in parks in case a child falls off. They want to ban parents from taking pictures of their children in public, in case they’re not really the parents, but paedophiles. Other examples are legion. But everything is always for a prim-lipped “moral” – therefore, inarguable – reason.

Also in Britain, and doubtless there will be a similar scam, differently named and presented – actually, being American, probably better named and presented – there is something called a quango. The initials stand for something, but who cares. These are “semi-government” think tanks and various advocacy groups. There are over 1100 quangoes in Britain now, like the liberty advocacy agency Liberty. What purpose it serves other than to provide employment for writers of press releases and spokesmen to go on TV talk shows, who knows? They enjoy favoured tax status, meaning, they are part of the government infrastructure.

Advertised jobs for local town and city councils now bristle with words like “Street football coordinator” (I have no idea) and “Real nappy (US: diaper) coordinator” (ditto) ; “Urdu translators”, “Bengali interpreters”, “Human rights managers” and so on. All of whose salaries, perks and pensions will be provided by the generosity of the taxpayer.

This, clearly, is wrong.

For one thing, the right wing taxpayer is being asked to fund a massive leftist Trojan horse. They contribute no wealth, nor the facilitation of creating wealth, and nor do they perform any essential public service. That they should have a vote on their own perpetuation dwells in the realm of lunacy.

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As we have been talking about chavs, it’s interesting to note that there are around 3m unemployed in Britain – out of a total population of 60m. Some of them are so unemployed that they have never actually had a job in their lives. But the 3m figure is deceptive, because there are other categories of welfare dependency – one of them, getting oneself classified as “disabled”. I don’t have the figures, but there are tens of thousands on disability “benefit” the socialist, non-judgemental term for passengers. This is different from unemployment benefit. Every once in a while there will be a story of someone on “disability” benefit for years whose hobby is riding mountain bikes on the weekends. Another one, a soccer fan, has been photographed refereeing soccer matches. That’s just the stupid ones, though. Then there is “family benefit” for each child born.

Then there’s publicly-funded accommodation – the projects, in Americanese – which gets more spacious with each new child. There are five- and six-children fatherless “families” living in four bedroom homes, paid for by the local taxpayers. Single mothers in these enclaves refer to two children born from the same father as “the twins”. The more responsible mothers in these areas walk their children to school, although they don’t change out of their pajamas and robes to do so. These people have a vote.

Unlike in the more pragmatic United States, welfare recipients are not given food stamps, but actual money. This is spent on cigarettes, beer and various cans of sweet, ready-mixed cocktails, lottery tickets, food that doesn’t require a knife and fork, and plasma screen wall TVs. New fathers and “uncles” drift through. A year ago, one single welfare-dependent mother with her six fatherless children and new “partner” all flew to Goa (“as present to myself”).

It flies in the face of natural justice that, in national or local elections, the non-productive and parasitical should be able to vote themselves a raise out of the pockets of the productive.

I propose that anyone who has been on welfare for six months or more be disenfranchised until they become a wealth-producing member of society. They are a constituency unto themselves and, in some areas of Britain – and probably in the United States and certainly Canada – can outvote taxpayers, and candidates are mindful of this.

It beggars belief that someone who drives to the supermarket at 1 a.m. to stack shelves through the night, or someone who spends their working life asking “Would you like fries with that?” or someone who risks his life rescuing people from burning buildings, or who stands on a train platform at 6 a.m. in an icy wind waiting for the train into work, or lives three weeks out of a month on an oil rig, or nurses cancer patients should share their earned franchise with the parasites.

It is true that in Britain, the parasite class doesn’t bother much with national elections for some reason – although national politicians continue to kowtow to them. But in local elections, the unemployed, those on disability and a host of other programmes, can swing the election and get councillors who will cater to them into office. (I’m not saying they’re intelligent enough to organize this intentionally.)

In today’s computer age, people could be removed from the electoral rolls at the click of a key, and, once employed, their vote could be restored by the click of a key.

Once they are off the electoral rolls, politicians will cease to cater to them.

By the way, I wouldn’t include old age pensioners in the franchise. And there would be a grace period for people who had become unemployed and were actively seeking work. One man, one vote was fine for the days when one man was responsible for himself.

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Has any country ever fallen at such velocity as Britain?

Over the past 12 of 13 years, the Labour government has created a gigantic welfare/client voting block whose beneficiaries are, shall we say, low on ambition, and public housing is swilling with “single mums” with five, six, seven or more children by different fathers who have long since left the building. There are now families of three generations in which no one has ever held a job. Chavs, we call them. Their uniform, men and women, is tennis/sport shoes, sweat pants and a t-shirt.

A member in good standing of the client bloc is the father of little Alfie Patten, now 13, a wan-looking, confused little boy. Alfie’s father has been in touch with well-known publicist Max Clifford, who arranged for Alfie – supposedly the father of a week-old baby – to be featured in The Daily Mail. He hardly looks nine and his voice at the time of the supposed conception hadn’t broken. The girl in question is 15.

Alfie’s dad stepped out of his door each morning, wearing a rubber devil’s mask, to fill waiting reporters in on the latest details, presumably, as he made them up. He’s now pared it down to holding up a sign that says “No comment. Ring Max.” Alfie’s father and mother, the girl and girl’s mother have had, for the past four or five days, an adhesive and congenial relationship as they contemplate the sums of money shortly to be received.

But it emerges that Chantelle, one of the most popular chav names, seems to have been rather popular around the neighborhood, and a 16-year old trainee chef and a 14 year old boy both claim to have had sexual relations with her at around the same time. They both claimed that they, like little Alfie, had slept in Chantelle’s bedroom, with her mother’s knowledge. Other boys have since come forward … Alfie’s dad has said little Alfie is eager to take a DNA test. (Personally, I doubt that Alfie can spell DNA, never mind understand what it is.) Now, so have the other boys.

The only person in this melange who comes close to having a responsible attitude is 14-year old Tyler Barker who says he’s worried about who the father is and “I hope it’s not me”. Meanwhile,
Alfie’s dad has asked Max Clifford to get bids for Alfie to open the envelope containing the result of his DNA test on national TV.

When the “news” was first announced, little 13-year old Alfie, not an avid school attendee, was asked by the press if he intended to be financially responsible for the baby. “Wot’s financially?” he asked.

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After reports that the Japanese Finance Minister, Shoichi Nakagawa, was helplessly drunk during the meeting of the G7, doubtless the announcement that the Japanese Prime Minister is the first head of government to be invited to meet Obama lowered the heat slightly in Tokyo. But other than that particular circumstance, does it really matter who’s the first to have a meeting with the new American president any more? Are other leaders round the world sobbing into their hankies? Immediately after WWII, it mattered which nation was so favoured; and after the Berlin Wall came down, the message conveyed by their head of government’s place in the queue to meet the new incumbent mattered to the new former Eastern bloc democracies, but does it mean anything today?

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On the Hugh Hewitt radio show, Mark Steyn referred to the Obama presidency so far as “Jimmy Carter at warp speed”.

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Britain’s House of Lords is our second, or revising, chamber.

Until the middle of the last century, the lords referred to were all hereditaries and many of their antecedents had had a seat in the English Parliament since its inception. It wasn’t a full time job and didn’t pay anything. Most lords had ancestral fortunes to conserve, ancestral lands to manage and family businesses to further. Some who lived in London attended fairly frequently, but most of the rest of them rolled up whenever there was a debate to which they could contribute something by way of their expertise. They got a little daily allowance – their lunch allowance and their train fare – and rolled back to the ancient pile.

In 1958, life peers (the title dies with the holder) were created as a means of widening the range of expertise in the Lords, and for rewarding those who had served the country. Such peers are created by the prime minister of the day.

It worked fairly well until Tony Blair got his grasping, febrile fingers on it. He created a number of life peers who have recently been found to have been selling access and favors for large amounts of dosh. As with all who subscribe to the Left in Britain, Blair professed to believe in “multiculturalism” and made cringe worthy, and destructive, obeisance to Islam. In this cause, he created a title for “Lord” Ahmed.

Lord Ahmed is a large, unexceptional fellow who has no gifts apparent to the naked eye – although texting while driving at 60 mph on the highway appears to be one of his skills. He admits to being behind the wheel, having sent and received five text messages, when he was involved in an accident on Christmas Day which left one person dead. He will be sentenced later his month.

Meanwhile, he keeps himself occupied attempting to destroy freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in Britain. A United Kingdom Independence Party – UKIP (they want Britain out of the European Union) peer invited conservative Dutch MP Geert Wilders to speak about Islam to peers in the House of Lords, and to show his short film “Fitna” which consists of quotes from the Q’ran spoken against scenes of Islamic terrorism, to the Lords. “Fitna” is Arabic for “disgreement and division among people:, and the film addresses the influence of Islam in Holland.

I am guessing that the “influence” of Islam in Holland has no more legitimacy than the “influence” of Islam in Britain. In other words, that which Lefty, submissive governments have ceded to the immigrants without consulting the indigenous owners of the country – and usually without putting the immigrants to the trouble of demanding these privileges.

Lord Ahmad, texter extraordinaire, according to The Spectator, threatened to mobilise 10,000 Muslims to block access to the House of Lords if they allowed Wilders into the building to show his film.

No insult to the Mother of Parliaments and ancient home of free speech could have been greater. The threat of blocking access of members to one of the two houses of Parliament where he legislature meets could hardly have been graver – or more illegal.

In shock, the Lords appeared to cede the point, but a day later found their spine and Wilders was re-invited.

Meanwhile, the politicized Home Office, stuffed with immigrant – not all of them legal – employees, ever ready to do its socialist master’s bidding, has now warned that Wilders, a perfectly respectable, duly elected member of the Parliament of Holland, will not be allowed into Britain citing “a threat to public safety”. (Unlike Lord Ahmad and his reported 10,000 Muslims planning to blockade the Houses of Parliament, I presume.)

The Dutch Foreign Secretary has called Home Office Minister to protest. It matters not. The Labour party line is that Islam is a “religion of peace” and it is us, the owners of the country, who are always stirring up trouble for these sensitive, peaceful people. The Home Office cited the socialist chimera of “community harmony” as their prompt. It was when Blair got into office 12 years ago that his party seized on the idea of using Muslim immigrants as a rod to beat the backs of the British with.

Puzzlingly, Ahmad is now claiming that he will not protest the showing of the film in the Lords in Mr Wilders’ absence, according to “The Times”. So the threat, reported in The Spectator, to mobilise the 10,000 Muslims must have been to protest Mr Wilders’ presence in Britain in general rather than in the House of Lords? How very very of him.

Meanwhile, a Baroness Cox, who seems to be in the thick of all this somehow, said the original decision not to show the film had not been in response to the reported threat by Lord Ahmad, but in response to Mr Wilders’ apparent proposal that Islam be banned. Mr Wilders is an outspoken, right wing MP and this has been his known stance for a number of years.

The Home Office, meanwhile, has taken upon itself the mantle of film critic saying it was simply endorsing the Dutch Government’s condemnation of the film, which they said “serves no useful purpose”. So now anything that does not serve the state is to be disallowed?

Will Dutch MP Wilders be admitted to Britain? Will “Fitna” be shown in the Mother of Parliaments without incident? Will Lord Ahmad be sentenced to prison for being involved in a fatal accident on Christmas Day? I’ll keep you posted.

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The Edinbugh Festival begins in Scotland’s capital city tomorrow and despite the fireworks of creativity that it always delivers, I think this year is going to be hostage to “Jihad! The Musical!” – “A madcap romp through the wacky world of international terrorism”.

It was written by an Old Etonian and a 25 year old female compatriot.

The Edinburgh Festival opens on tomorrow (Monday), and I await the reviews with interest. In the meantime, here is one of the songs, “I Wanna Be Like Osama” for your evening viewing pleasure.

The chap who plays Osmana is stardom bound, that’s for sure. I’ll let you know when the reviews come out.

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Newly elected Congressman Keith Ellison, a Muslim, must not be allowed to take his oath of office on the Koran.

First, as Town Hall columnist Dennis Prager wrote, Mr Ellison does not get to decide how he takes his oath. America does. Second, it has not bothered America�s many Jewish Congresspeople down through the decades to take their oath on the Bible, although the New Testament has no religious significance to them. Similarly, atheists/securalists have voiced no objections. This is the way you get sworn into the Congress of The United States of America.

But most important of all, Mr Ellison�s stated intention is yet one more Islamic attempt to breach the dyke to allow Islamic habits, customs and laws to seep in slowly at first, and then gain in volume until the dyke is breached. The aggression of this religion cannot be overestimated and those who surrender one-quarter of an inch to people like Mr Ellison, thinking it really doesn�t matter and �we all worship the same God�, are mistaken.

But most critically, what most people are unaware of is, an oath taken on the Koran means absolutely nothing. Muslims are instructed from childhood that they may take such an oath and lie � if it is to advance the cause of Islam. In other words, they cannot swear in a court of law, on their Koran, �No. I swear I did not rob that bank� if they really did. That�s a sin. But if it is to advance the islamic cause, then it�s not only OK, but is to be desired.

That is why such reasonable sounding requests must be resisted. A Muslim can swear on the Koran that he does not know a suspected terrorist, has never even heard of him and has no idea if he is stockpiling chemical weapons in his basement. Because the lies are to advance the cause of Dar-es-Salam � the house of islam � they are seen as a righteous grabbing of an advantage in the 1500 year war with Christianity and Western civilization.

This new Congressman must not be indulged. Mr Ellison is not big enough to defy America, and neither is his belief system.

Discuss this post at the Chicago Boyz Forum.

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When British Airways told London check-in worker Nadia Eweida that she would either have to remove her necklace with its tiny thumbnail-sized cross or hide it under her livery, she refused. Ms Eweida noted that BA allows Sikhs to wear their turbans, although it isn�t required by their faith, and Muslims to wear hijabs, although neither is that a religious requirement. She claims that as a Coptic Christian, wearing her tiny cross to show she is a Christian is part of her religion.

BA, a bullying adherent, despite its name, of multi-culti tolerance for anything as long as it is not British, suspended her without pay. Ms Eweida had a fight on her hands.

To everyone’s amazement, the incident has taken off with a strong tailwind and an amazing cast of characters. Led by the Archbishop of York, who is a black immigrant from Uganda and an articulate, devout and reasoned man, there’s been an unexpected storm of Anglican fury among the supposedly non-religious Brits. A few days later, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who everyone had thought was a Muslim in mufti, announced that the Church of England would sell its �6.6m ($12.7m) shares in BA unless they allow employees to wear a visible cross in keeping with adherents of other religions being allowed to advertise their own faiths. At the same time, Episcopalian churches worldwide rallied as one in support of Nadia Eweida and her right to wear her tiny cross, and threatened to advise hundreds of millions of parishioners not to fly BA.

And for the record, around 100 British MPs, including a Hindu, Conservative Shailesh Vara, and a Muslim, Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, censured BA in the House of Commons.

Faced with this colorful cast of characters, a cowed BA chief curled up and backed down, hoist
by his own petard. In a dazzling display of unintended consequences, he demonstrated that, in the long run, Ms Eweida�s tiny cross proved more powerful than BA�s multi-million pound massive tailfin logo and designer livery.

Discuss this post at the Chicago Boyz Forum.