Tough test of Britishness widened

Mainly applicable to white immigrants from Eastern Europe. Not applicable to hordes of illegal Muslim immigrants of course

Britain has almost doubled the number of new arrivals who must sit new tests on the English language and British way of life. The Blair Government announced yesterday that the tests would be extended to all people seeking to stay in the country indefinitely, after first imposing it last year on applicants for British citizenship. About 200,000 people applied for citizenship last year but another 180,000 would have been covered by the new requirement on people seeking indefinite leave to remain, a status one step short of citizenship.

The so-called Britishness test has also been widened to cover questions about the nation's welfare system, a move lampooned by critics as training new arrivals how to apply for welfare.... The Britishness test involves 24 multiple-choice questions to be answered in 45 minutes, with applicants needing to get at least 18 correct. Sitting the test will cost $34 but failed applicants can sit it as many times as they want, unlike the tougher policy in The Netherlands where there is a maximum of three attempts.

People over 65 will be exempt from the tests, and those with poor English can opt to take a "skills for life" and language course rather than doing the test.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

France, steeped in genocidal blood, must face trial: "In April 1994 the French Embassy became the setting for the formation of the extremist Hutu Government that was to organise and carry out the meticulously planned genocide of the Tutsis. Witnesses spoke of these ministers, many now facing life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, sitting in plush embassy chairs comparing notes on where the killing was going best. Their host, the French Ambassador, later helped to evacuate those extremists to Paris, away from the apocalypse they had created. The ambassador then made a bonfire of two rooms piled high with documents linking his Government with that of the Hutu dictatorship of Juvenal Habyarimana... During the next three years Mitterrand had no compunction in sending in troops to save a brutal and corrupt regime. The Hutu army received millions of dollars of French weaponry; and the French elite training corps trained its Rwandan allies in how to dismember bodies, fire its new heavy artillery and use attack Gazelle helicopters."

Theologian rejects Christ. Allah OK: "To live peacefully with Muslims and Jews, Christians must put aside the notion that their faith requires the creation of a Christian kingdom on Earth, a Lipscomb University theologian told an interfaith gathering at the university. 'We are not going to get very far in our relationship with Jews or Muslims if we do not let go of this idea,' Lipscomb professor Lee Camp said at Tuesday's conference. The unusual gathering of several dozen clergy and lay people was devoted to resolving religious conflict in Nashville and around the world. 'We need to forsake the Christendom model,' Camp said. 'The most basic Christian commitment ... is that we say we believe in the Lordship of Jesus. But, if we claim that, how can a Muslim or Jew trust us, if we say Jesus is the Lord of all Lords?'" Update: Bill Hobbs says Dr Camp was maliciously misquoted.

Jihad against music: "Music is forbidden in Islamic law, although this law is often ignored. Muslim hardliners don't ignore it, and they don't want you to, either..... An Al Qaida-aligned cell has declared war on music and the Internet in the Palestinian Authority. The group, entitled "Swords of Islam," has claimed responsibility for attacking stores that offer music and Internet. About a dozen such stores have been bombed in the Gaza Strip."

A good start: "Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderon, began the first full week of his six-year term Monday by signing a decree to reduce his own salary and the salaries of top government officials by 10 percent. The money saved, which amounts to around $2.5 billion, will be spent on social programs and law enforcement. As VOA's Greg Flakus reports from Mexico City, the new president is also seeking more foreign investment to boost job growth in his country"

Ford in deep doo-doo: "Struggling Ford Motor says it has pledged substantially all of the company's assets--including factories, equipment and its highly profitable Ford Motor Credit arm--to obtain $18 billion in badly needed loans that will help finance its turnaround effort. It's the first time in Ford's 103-year history that it has been forced to pledge its core automotive assets as collateral to obtain financing. But the cost of borrowing money for Ford increased substantially last year after credit rating agencies cut the company's debt ratings to "junk status."

Democrats To Slash Missile Defense: "This has long been one of the most bizarre articles of faith among liberals -- that a purely defensive system to stop the incineration of entire cities is morally wrong. Don't buy the various claims they make about the system not working or being too expensive or, strangest of all, it being "destabilizing." Wouldn't want to "destabilize" that carefully-calibrated Balance of Terror in our favor or anything. As can "can't work," it can, and elements of the system work even now. As for too expensive -- well, how much is Los Angeles worth, exactly? Seems to me it's pretty pricey, and would be difficult to replace. The liberals are committed to spending trillions to stave off a farfetched threat of losing ten meters of shoreline, but won't spend a penny to defend against an increasingly-likely attack against the US via missile. We can simply use a smile as our nuclear umbrella".

Britain: Adulterer wins the right to privacy: "A high-profile figure in the sports world who had an affair with another man’s wife has won a court order banning the betrayed husband from naming him in the media. In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, Mr Justice Eady granted a temporary injunction to the adulterer — who is in the “public eye” but can be identified only as CC — against the husband, AB. The judge ruled that even a public figure engaging in an adulterous affair had a “right to privacy” under the European Convention on Human Rights to protect his wife and children. The order, which stands until further order or the main trial on February 12, gags the husband from spilling the beans about the affair from “revenge” or “spite” or to make money from the story... The judge, who could find no legal precedent from the 19th or 20th centuries, said that he was faced with “the striking proposition that a spouse whose partner has committed adultery owes a duty of confidence to the third party adulterer to keep quiet about it”. ... He added that since English law did not offer an enforceable right to privacy, CC’s claim was that publication would be a breach of confidence"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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