British MPs May Have to Give Up Drinking on Premises Due to Sharia Law

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None of that now

This story has been reported by numerous British and world news sources in the last few days. We reprint the article from an English language Indian paper largely because it described Westminster as a "crumbling neo-gothic pile."

Yes, there are currently at least ten bars and restaurants on Parliament premises, "well-stocked with competitively priced drinks." Who knew? No wonder Question Time has always been so fun.

From The Tribune: 

British MPs may have to comply with Sharia law 

London, January 30 

British lawmakers may have to comply with the Sharia law including an alcohol ban when they move out of the Westminster Palace which is set to undergo much-needed repairs as the new complex they will shift into is governed by the Islamic law. 

A UK parliamentary committee searching for a new temporary home for the House of Commons away from the Palace of Westminster has identified Richmond House, home to the UK's Department of Health, as a favoured option. 

But the building in the Whitehall political hub of London was transferred to finance an Islamic bond scheme of ‘Sukuk’ two years ago, and a condition of its lease is that it cannot be used for purposes not sanctioned by Sharia law. 

An official told The Times newspaper that under terms of the deal agreed with the UK Treasury, the sale of alcohol is among activities explicitly forbidden. "It is true. If MPs want to use Richmond House they'd better give up any hopes it will include a bar," he said. 

MPs and peers were told this week that they are likely to have to move out of the Palace of Westminster entirely for at least six years to allow for a four-billion pounds overhaul of the crumbling neo-Gothic pile. 

According to the newspaper, parliamentarians will have to leave behind at least 10 licensed bars and restaurants, each well-stocked with competitively priced drinks. 

The Richmond House complex, just north of the existing parliamentary estate, has been narrowed down as a favoured options as it can easily be taken within a security cordon and could comfortably accommodate a temporary debating chamber. 

In July 2014, UK Chancellor George Osborne had announced that the Treasury was launching the first Islamic bond in a western financial centre. 

The £200 million bonds, known as Sukuk, would help make Britain "the western hub of Islamic finance" and the ‘undisputed centre of the global financial system,’ he said. 

The 182-year-old Palace of Westminster currently has 10 bars on its premises. 

— PTI

O God, I Give Thee Thanks that I Am Not as the Rest of Men...

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Turtlenecks über alles

Many Americans have turned their brains off.

If you vote for Hillary Clinton or Chris Christie, that's rational and acceptable. If you vote for Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump, you're angry, have stopped thinking and are preparing the way for dictatorship.

Or so it is claimed.

Father emotes again:

Why Everybody Loves Bernie….and Donald 

January 27, 2016 by Fr. Dwight Longenecker 

All the innerleckshuls are consternated, frustrated, irritated, annoyed, befuddled, confused and amused by the popularity of the Donald and Bernie show. 

“Why are they so popular? What is the attraction? How can so many Americans be in love with an unrealistic, pie in the sky socialist on the one hand and a fake tan, fake teeth, fake hair, fake everything casino owning creep on the other?” 

The Republicans actually have an impressive line up of candidates. They aren’t angels, but they’ve got ideas, policies, experience, money, expertise, brains and energy. Even Hillary Billary Clinton comes to the game with experience, expertise and brains. She may be as corrupt as a cesspit, but she’s been around long enough to know how to turn on the lights and get a good team around her to run the country. 

But none of that counts because America has stopped thinking. David Frum makes a great case here about why that might be… 

"The angriest and most pessimistic people in America aren’t the hipster protesters who flitted in and out of Occupy Wall Street. They aren’t the hashtavists of #BlackLivesMatter. They aren’t the remnants of the American labor movement or the savvy young dreamers who confront politicians with their American accents and un-American legal status. 

"The angriest and most pessimistic people in America are the people we used to call Middle Americans. Middle-class and middle-aged; not rich and not poor; people who are irked when asked to press 1 for English, and who wonder how white male became an accusation rather than a description. 

"You can measure their pessimism in polls that ask about their expectations for their lives—and for those of their children. On both counts, whites without a college degree express the bleakest view. You can see the effects of their despair in the new statistics describing horrifying rates of suicide and substance-abuse fatality among this same group, in middle age. 

Why do conservative, Evangelical Christians think a thrice married, bankrupt Trump is great? Why are liberal young people (who are supposed to be suspicious of old white guys) flocking to Bernie Saunders? Because they’re not thinking, and they’ve turned they’re brains off not because they’re dumb. They’re not thinking because they’re mad. 

They’re mad at the corruption. They’re frustrated by the establishment same old same old. They’re fed up with the feds, angry with the immigrants, worried about war, tired of political correctness on the one hand and stupid bigotry on the other. 

They’re so mad that they’ll fall for anybody who offers them a quick fix. They believed the “hope and change” mantra of Obama and now they’ll believe the “I’ll Make America Great Again” bromide of Trump. 

This is true enough, but there is another sickness at the heart of America. 

Everything seems like chaos. We’re living through enormous cultural, technological and societal change and most Americans don’t have the roots to keep stable or a star to steer by. 

What I mean is that we do not have a shared creed and belief system. We do not have a shared ambition and aim, and without a vision the people perish. 

So what are the angry Americans really looking for? Let’s be honest. They’re looking for a savior. They’re looking for someone who will solve the problems and make things good for them again. 

They want someone who will make them happy. 

If I’m right, then the situation is even worse than the most pessimistic of the prophets, because when a people stop thinking and cry out emotionally and irrationally for a savior the society is ripe for a dictatorship. 

To put it bluntly, when people are ready to sell their soul for a savior…. 

….that’s exactly what they will do.

Angela Merkel is Utterly Deranged or a Liar or Both

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"I'm not sorry I was wrong. I'm sorry I was caught."

Yesterday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said this about the perhaps 1.5 million Muslim "migrants" admitted into Germany in 2015 (equivalent to close to 2% of the existing population of Germany and perhaps 10-20% of the population of twenty-something German males):

We need ... to say to people that this is a temporary residential status and we expect that, once there is peace in Syria again, once IS has been defeated in Iraq, that you go back to your home country with the knowledge that you have gained.

So that's what it was all about? Temporary shelter from ISIS? As far as I know this is the first time she has ever said this. As I understood it before, it was all about assimilation and so forth. But they're actually going back soon?

Are the Muslim North Africans and Afghanis going back to their own countries once ISIS is defeated in Syria?

With the knowledge that you have gained?

Does the knowledge that you have gained include how to lynch Christians in refugee camps without getting caught? How to sexually abuse women and boys in those camps? How to molest women at train stations? How to rape 72-year-old women?

Maybe those Muslims should have been studying the moral example set by 20th century German politicians.

Okay, maybe not.

Or perhaps the knowledge that you have gained pertains to studying at close range the death throes of decadent, suicidal, post-Christian cultures.

In that case I think they've probably learned something.    

Merkel is desperately trying to defend a horrific set of decisions that has and will cost countless thousands of lives--German lives and non-German Muslim lives. She thinks she can cling to power with this? I don't know. I think getting Mark Zuckerberg to collaborate with the current German police state is probably a better bet.

She must know what she has done. An honorable woman or politician would say: "I have done wrong. I apologize. This is how I propose to redress the harm that I have caused ." Or better, "I resign."

But not Angela Merkel.

I should say that it is the current governing class of Germany (CDU and SPD) who have behaved like pre-1989 Communists (see below). For them to accuse their opposition of this (who they harass and threaten at every opportunity) is grotesque.  

From Reuters:

NEUBRANDENBURG, Germany (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel tried on Saturday to placate the increasingly vocal critics of her open-door policy for refugees by insisting that most refugees from Syria and Iraq would go home once the conflicts there had ended. 

Despite appearing increasingly isolated, Merkel has resisted pressure from some conservatives to cap the influx of refugees, or to close Germany's borders. 

Support for her conservative bloc has slipped as concerns mount about how Germany will integrate the 1.1 million migrants who arrived last year, while crime and security are also in the spotlight after a wave of assaults on women in Cologne at New Year by men of north African and Arab appearance. 

The influx has played into the hands of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose support is now in the double digits, and whose leader was quoted on Saturday saying that migrants entering illegally should, if necessary, be shot.
Merkel said it was important to stress that most refugees had only been allowed to stay for a limited period. 

"We need ... to say to people that this is a temporary residential status and we expect that, once there is peace in Syria again, once IS has been defeated in Iraq, that you go back to your home country with the knowledge that you have gained," she told a regional meeting of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. 

Merkel said 70 percent of the refugees who fled to Germany from former Yugoslavia in the 1990s had returned. 

Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the CDU's Bavarian sister party, has threatened to take the government to court if the flow of asylum seekers is not cut. 

Merkel urged other European countries to offer more help "because the numbers need to be reduced even further and must not start to rise again, especially in spring". 

A MILLION MORE 

Fabrice Leggeri, the head of the European Union's border agency Frontex, said a U.N. estimate that up to a million migrants could try to come to Europe via the eastern Mediterranean and Western Balkans next year was realistic. 

"It would be a big achievement if we could keep the number ... stable," he told the magazine Der Spiegel. 

Merkel said all EU states should have an interest in protecting the bloc's external borders, and all would suffer if the internal passport-free Schengen zone collapsed and national borders were closed. 

AfD leader Frauke Petry told the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper that Germany needed to reduce the influx through agreements with neighboring Austria and a reinforcement of the EU's external borders. 

But she also said it should not be shy about turning people back and creating "border protection installations" - and that border guards should, if necessary, shoot at migrants trying to enter illegally. 

No police officer wanted to shoot at a migrant, Petry said, adding "I don't want that either but, ultimately, deterrence includes the use of armed force". 

Such comments evoke memories of Germany's Cold War division, when guards in the communist East, led by Erich Honecker, were under orders to shoot people attempting to cross the heavily fortified border into the West. 

"The last German politician who let refugees be shot at was Erich Honecker," said Thomas Oppermann, a senior member of the Social Democrats.

Probable Oldest Man in the World is Holocaust Survivor, Israeli Citizen

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Born in Poland in 1903, Yisrael Kristal survived World War One, World War Two, the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz and the deprivations of post-war Central Europe, immigrating to Israel in 1950. How's that for beating the odds?

On a tragic note, his first children died in the Ghetto and his wife was murdered at Auschwitz. He would remarry after the war.

There is some question as to whether Kristal's age can be officially verified, as he doesn't possess any documentation from the first 20 years of his life.

He remembers throwing candy at the Austrian Emperor. Perhaps it was Blessed Karl.

Before reprinting a recent article on Kristal, I want to review some interesting facts: 

• There are believed to be 300,000 to 400,000 centenarians currently alive, though that number has been increasing at a steep rate every year. It is estimated that by the year 2050 Japan alone will have almost that many.
• In both the United States and Japan, an average of 100-150 people turn one-hundred every day--too many for the President or the Japanese Prime Minister to call. In the United States, they do get a letter "signed" by the President.
• The Japanese have the highest per-capita incidence at 40 per 100,000--10 times greater than the world average.
• The top six countries (with a per-capita incidence of 30 or higher) are Japan, Thailand, Spain, France, Italy and South Africa.
• Spain's rate is 10 times higher than Portugal's.
• There are only 300 to 400 supercentenarians (people who have lived to be at least 110) and only 39 people in modern recorded history who have lived to be 115. Only four are alive today.
• The oldest person ever (whose age was officially verified) was Jeanne Calment of France who died in 1997 at the age of 122.
• The oldest person currently alive is Susannah Mushatt Jones, born in Alabama and currently living in Brooklyn.
• There are only two people currently alive who were born in the 19th century.
• There are probably no more than 200,000 Holocaust survivors alive today, with "survivor" defined broadly as anyone--Jewish or non-Jewish--who suffered persecution under the Nazis in camps, prisons, ghettos or were refugees or in hiding. The number of Jewish concentration camp survivors is undoubtedly much smaller.
• This number is shrinking at a rapid rate for obvious reasons. Museums, universities and other institutions are currently racing to document and interview as many survivors as possible.

From The Times of Israel:

A Holocaust survivor in Haifa is believed to be the oldest man in the world. 

Yisrael Kristal, 112, achieved that status this week after Yasutaro Koide of Japan, also 112, died, Haaretz reported Thursday. 

Kristal’s grandson, Oren, received an email this week from the Gerontology Research Group, an international organization that tracks the world’s over-110 set, alerting him that the Polish-born Auschwitz survivor was up for the honor. 

Upon hearing the news, Kristal said in Yiddish: “The joy of my old age.” 

To be officially certified as the oldest living man, Kristal must present documentation from the first 20 years of his life. However, Haaretz reported, the earliest official document Kristal possesses is from when he was 25. 

Born on September 15, 1903, in the town of Zarnow, Kristal moved to Lodz in 1920 to work in his family’s candy business. He continued operating the business after the Nazis forced the city’s Jews into a ghetto, where Kristal’s two children died. In 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz, where his wife, whom he had married at age 25, was killed. 

In 1950, he moved to Haifa with his second wife and their son, working again as a confectioner. 

Kristal’s daughter Shula Kuperstoch told The Jerusalem Post that he has been religiously observant his whole life and continues to lay tefillin each morning. 

“The Holocaust did not affect his beliefs,” Kuperstoch said. “He believes he was saved because that’s what God wanted. He is not an angry person, he is not someone who seeks to an accounting, he believes everything has a reason in the world.” 

“His attitude to life is everything in moderation,” she added. “He eats and sleeps moderately, and says that a person should always be in control of their own life and not have their life control them, as far as this is possible.” 

Interviewed by Haaretz in 2012, at the comparatively youthful age of 109, Kristal declined to offer a theory for his longevity, instead saying, “It’s no great bargain. Everyone has their own good fortune. It’s from heaven. There are no secrets.” 

Asked if his diet was responsible for his long life, he said, “In the camps there wasn’t always anything to eat. What they gave me, I ate. I eat to live; I don’t live to eat. I don’t need too much. Anything that’s too much is no good.”

An Open Letter to Pope Francis from a Jewish Convert: I Want my Money Back!

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The following is a full online reprint of a recent blog post by the writer and historian Michael Hoffman. It's not a real letter, of course, but a dramatization or parody. I'm running it below because I think it's quite good--perhaps the sharpest piece that I've yet read on the subject. In a sense, all it does is declare the obvious. But too often these days that is the least obvious thing to do.

Hoffman has unpopular views on a number of subjects. Some of his views are strange. A few are diametrically opposed to the views that I have put forward on this blog. For example, Hoffman doesn't seem to like Israel very much.

For the purposes of this post, I don't care. Sue me, Chris Ross. 

If you are a faithful Catholic or traditional Christian, read the following and tell me where or how Hoffman gets it wrong. How can his argument (in parody/dream form) be answered? Why should, given the most recent Vatican pronouncements on the subject, Jews convert to Catholicism or Christianity? Or worse, from the point of view of Catholic teachings, why shouldn't Catholics convert to Judaism? After all, according to Church teachings, my Christian baptism and Catholic conformation do not guarantee that I will be saved. So, wouldn't I have a better chance by, as it were, just pulling a Sammy Davis?

Or is the Covenant a purely racial thing (as Hoffman suggests)? I'm sure I have a Jewish ancestor somewhere.

More to the point, why did God come to Earth (in Israel), preach (primarily to Jews) and suffer and die at all?

(Shut up. Because mercy.)

(Shut up yourself. Go to hell.)

See, dialogue is a beautiful thing.

An Open Letter to Pope Francis by Michael Hoffman:

His Holiness, Pope Francis
Vatican City
January, 2016

Dear Holy Father

I am a Jew. I have the assurance, as did Menachem Mendel Schneerson of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, of direct descent from King David on my father’s side (my mother, I was assured was descended of Hillel).

I am 74-years-old. I converted to the Roman Catholic Church at the age of 17 in the last year of the pontificate of Pope Pius XII. I did so because I was under the conviction that I had to accept and have faith that Jesus Christ was my savior, and I believed it. And I believed that I had to be a baptized member of his Church to have a chance of salvation. So I converted and was baptized in the Catholic Church, and then I was confirmed.

Over the years I have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to both Peters’ Pence (the pope’s own treasury about which you of course must be very familiar), and my local parish and diocese.

During that time I attended thousands of Masses, hundreds of holy hours and novenas, said thousands of rosaries, and made hundreds of trips to the Confessional.

Now in 2015 and 2016 I have read your words and those of your “Pontifical Commission.” You now teach that because I am a racial Jew, God’s covenant with me was never broken, and cannot be broken. You don’t qualify that teaching by specifying anything I might do that would threaten the Covenant, which you say God has with me because I am a Jew. You teach that it’s an unbreakable Covenant. You don’t even say that it depends on me being a good person. Logically speaking, if God’s Covenant with me is unbreakable, then a racial Jew such as I am can do anything he wants and God will still maintain a Covenant with me and I will go to heaven.

Your Pontifical Commission wrote last December, “The Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews…it does not in any way follow that the Jews are excluded from God’s salvation because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Israel and the Son of God.”

You are the Pontiff. I believe what your Commission teaches under your banner and in your name, and what you declared during your visit to the synagogue in January. As a result, I no longer see any point in getting up every Sunday morning to go to Mass, say rosaries, or attend the Rite of Reconciliation on Saturday afternoon. All of those acts are superfluous for me. Predicated on your teaching, I now know that due to my special racial superiority in God’s eyes, I don’t need any of it.

I don’t see any reason now as to why I was baptized in 1958. There was no need for me to be baptized. I no longer see why there was a need for Jesus to come to earth either, or preach to the Jewish children of Abraham of his day. As you state, they were already saved as a result of their racial descent from the Biblical patriarchs. What would they need him for?

In light of what you and your Pontifical Commission have taught me, it appears that the New Testament is a fraud, at least as it applies to Jews. All of those preachings and disputations to the Jews were for no purpose. Jesus had to know this, yet he persisted in causing a lot of trouble for the Jews by insisting they had to be born again, they had to believe he was their Messiah, they had to stop following their traditions of men, and that they couldn’t get to heaven unless they believed that he was the Son of God.

Your holiness, you and your Commission have instructed me in the true path to my salvation: my race. It’s all I need and all I have ever needed. God has a covenant with my genes. It’s my genes that save me. My eyes are open now.

Consequently, you will be hearing from my lawyer. I am filing suit against the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church. I want my money back, with interest, and I am seeking compensatory and punitive damages for the psychological harm your Church caused me, by making me think I needed something besides my own exalted racial identity, in order to go to heaven after I die.

I am litigating as well over the time that I wasted that I could have spent working in my business, instead of squandering it worshipping a Jesus that your Church now says I don’t need to believe in for my salvation. Your prelates and clerics told me something very different in 1958. I’ve been robbed!

Sincerely,
Pinchus Feinstein
2617646 Ocean View Ave.
Miami Beach, Florida 33239

P.S. I'm transmitting this letter to Hoffman, an ex-AP reporter from New York, in the expectation that he will bring it to the attention of those who should know about it. I am transmitting it to him in the form of a dream, but nevertheless, it represents the feelings of many victims of your robber Church.—Pinch

Muslim Refugees Reject Finland Because It's Too Cold and Boring

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Welcome to Finland

Let's hear it for mixed blessings.

From AFP:

"You can tell the world I hate Finland. It's too cold, there's no tea, no restaurants, no bars, nobody on the streets, only cars," 22-year-old Muhammed told AFP in Tornio, as the mercury struggled to inch above 10 degrees Celsius (50 Fahrenheit) on a recent blustery grey day.

There was a flurry (so to speak) of articles on this a few months ago but it has just been picked up again by the Express.

It's fun to joke about "boring" countries and cold places (I'm allowed to--I live in a cold city), but one wonders about other factors.

Anne Kauranen of AFP highlighted the alleged greater public presence of anti-immigrant feeling in Finland, illustrating the claim with a picture of a Finn dressed in a Ku Klux Klan outfit. (This was in September, before the Paris attacks and mass groping incidents, etc.)

Don't worry. It''s probably just Lutz Bachmann joking around 

The proportion of Muslims in Finland is still much lower than that of the surrounding Scandinavian countries--perhaps only 1%--so there might be less of a familiar support structure in place for new arrivals.

Or maybe the government benefits--on paper or in practice--aren't as good.

But finally, note the actual temperature from the quote--50 degrees. That's cold? Well, one thing is for sure: Underneath his tough--grope the Fraulein, spit on the Jew, stone the transvestite--exterior, Muhammad is a girly man.

From yesterday's Express:

'It's too cold' Refugees would rather return home than face European winter  

REFUGEES are abandoning their bids for asylum to return home after claiming Europe is too cold. 

Almost 70 per cent of Iraqi asylum seekers have given up applications in Finland to go back to their war-torn country. 

One Iraqi who decided to return said Finland did not live up to the expectations.
He said: "I don't know what happens to me in Iraq, but here I will die mentally." 

Figures from the Nordic country's immigration service revealed Finland processed 3,700 Iraqi asylum seeker decisions in 2015. 

Almost 2,600 of the decisions have now "expired", meaning the applicants have either cancelled the process or disappeared. 

Juha Simila, head of asylum department at the Finnish Immigration Service, said applicants were disillusioned by the processing time. 

The nearest bar is 30,000 trees away

He continued: "They have told us that family issues in their home country force them to go back. 

"Some have found the Finnish atmosphere hostile and some have not stayed because of the dark autumn and cold winter." 

Finland has seen a massive influx of refugees which has increased the immigration service's processing time. 

The number of asylum seekers jumped from 3,650 in 2014, to 32,500 in 2015. 

Nearly 20,500 Iraqis applied for an asylum, but authorities were only able to give decisions to 3,700. 

In October, Finland tightened its criteria for granting asylum to Iraqi migrants, after deciding the security situation had eased in certain regions.

Joyful Muslims Storm Calais Ferry; It Doesn't Go Anywhere; Port Closes

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"Just keep running. We can grope her later."

Nice try.

The "refugees" were led and cheered on by leftist agitators from Britain and France.

Well done, leftist agitators. That did a lot of good. Now you can go back and sleep in your warm beds.

One source described it as a "migrant invasion". That source was the ferry company.

So is "migrant invasion" now a natural phenomenon sort of like "severe weather conditions"?

Just don't let them use the pool.

From the Daily Mail:

Calais in shutdown: Hundreds of migrants storm port and force their way onto Spirit of Britain ferry in desperate bid to reach UK

• Port of Calais in France closed after migrants storm the harbour and make it on to The Spirit of Britain ferry
• Around 500 migrants broke through police lines with 50 thought to have boarded P&O vessel
• It comes after 2,000-strong protest against living conditions in Calais turned chaotic after group broke police lines
• Fears are growing over travel chaos with the Eurotunnel set for planned closures from 9pm
• Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn visited the region earlier in the day to talk to migrants about their living conditions

The Port of Calais has been closed this evening after a storm of migrants broke into the harbour. 

Around 500 migrants stormed the site and some have even made it on to ferries in a desperate attempt to reach Britain. 

It came after a protest organised by French leftists to support migrants living in squalid conditions in the northern city of Calais drew around 2,000 people, according to organizers. 

"Tea will be served at 3:00. Water cannon are available immediately."

The protest on Saturday came as British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn visited the region, which is temporary home to about 4,000 migrants camped out in hopes of finding a better life in Britain, across the Channel. 

French officials said a group of 500 people forced their way through police lines and headed to the port, and 150 people were able to get into the fenced-off area. 

Long lines of cars and lorries are now building up outside the port and the incident has led to fears of travel chaos ahead of planned closures to the Eurotunnel from 9pm tonight. 

The tunnel is shutting so an overnight safety exercise can take place and all services will be suspended, with the last UK departure at 9.20pm and the first departure leaving the UK at be 6.20am tomorrow and from France at 7.20am. 

The Mayor of Calais Natacha Bouchart closed the port and said around 50 migrants made their way on to the P&O-operated vessel. Police are at the scene and water canons have been used on board the ship to try to get the group to leave. 

Meanwhile, a statement tweeted by P&O said: 'The Port of Calais is resolving a security incident. As a result our vessels are subject to delay of between 90 and 120 minutes.' 

In a video filmed by a bystander, crowds can be heard cheering as migrants try to force their way through the fence. 

According to Reuters, port staff said some of the migrants have left the Spirit of Britain voluntarily and the rest will be removed by police if necessary.

 

Danish firm DFDS Seaways called the incident a 'migrant invasion', adding the port would be reopened once police had cleared them out. 

Numerous migrants have died trying to make the crossing illegally. 

Witness Ben Ferguson said: 'Demonstrators broke police lines & headed to the port. In spite of clouds of teargas a group prised open fence b4 (sic) crowd followed.' 

A statement from the Port of Dover said the French port was experiencing 'migrant activity' which had caused disruption to services. 

It read: 'The Port of Calais is currently experiencing migrant activity which has caused disruption to ferry services. Therefore services to and from Calais via the Port of Dover are affected, but DFDS Seaways services are still running to Dunkirk as normal. 

'The Port of Dover remains open for business, but the duration of this disruption to services remains unknown.'

NOT Quadrophenia

Some people from Britain were present at the demonstration while others carried banners saying 'refugees welcome here'. 

But France is under pressure from Britain to secure the region and the French premier said this week that Europe cannot welcome everyone. 

Mr Corbyn's visit comes amid a growing urgency over the migrant crisis, with French prime minister Manuel Valls warning the huge influx is putting the European Union's future in 'grave danger'. 

During his visit, Mr Corbyn was given a tour of the site meeting refugees and aid workers before speaking of the 'dreadful situation' faced by people camped in the swamp-like conditions. 

He said: 'What I'm trying to achieve here is to understand the nature of the refugee crisis that's facing the whole of Europe.

"It sure beats loitering."

'Ultimately we deal with the situation by dealing with the problem at its source, which are the wars and conflicts. 

'Also, there are the human needs of people. We have got people here who have been here for months, if not longer than that, with no proper education, no access to doctors, no access to dentists, limited access to food - in very cold, very wet conditions. 

'These conditions are a disgrace anywhere. We as human beings have to reach out to fellow human beings.' 

Mr Corbyn said Britain should be part of a pan-European effort to help the people affected by the crisis.

Pope Francis at Nuremberg: 10 Things to Know and Share*

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The Pope takes the "long walk" flanked by two German cardinals

In light of the controversy over the Pope's recent rally at Nuremberg, Mahound's Paradise is proud to host its first guest post by a well-known neo catholic author, blogger and journalist:

Pope Francis at Nuremberg: 10 Things to Know and Share

Pope Francis recently held a large rally at Nuremberg.

And some people are freaking out about it.

Here are 10 things to know and share . . .

1) Where can I watch a video of the rally?

Right here:

Also, you can use this link.

2) What did the Pope say at the rally?

He said:

The current Jubilee Year of Mercy is intended to inaugurate a Papal Reich that will endure for a thousand years.

Victory belongs to us, the People of God.

I am proud to welcome many comrades-in-arms from the internal Catholic wars of the 60's and 70's.

In the past, we were among the persecuted and were often labeled "undesirable elements," liberals, heretics and so on. But now that we are in power, we ourselves must remove the undesirable elements that have proven to be bad. What is bad has no place among us.

Other than that, our greatest enemies are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the aged.

3) What else happened at the rally?

The Pope and two German cardinals purposely strode down a central thoroughfare, with 100,000 uniformed members of the Pope's new security detail arrayed in formation on either side.

A "Cathedral of Light" was created with 152 searchlights sponsored by the World Bank and Vulcan Productions.

Statues of various Norse gods were displayed throughout the stadium and nearby areas.

4) Is it somehow wrong for the Pope to announce that his enemies will be crushed?

There is nothing wrong with defending the Faith. The Pope is merely attempting to ensure that the deposit of Catholic doctrine is protected and transmitted accurately. Obviously those who oppose this should be resisted. The Church has a long tradition of this.

The Cathedral of Light

5) I didn't like the rally. It’s not to my taste. Frankly, there was a hint of authoritarianism about it. What do you think of that?

Fine. Not everything is to everyone’s taste. Not everything in it was to my taste.

The people who planned the rally were trying to make it inspiring and uplifting, but that involves subjective elements, and you know what they say: De gustibus non est disputandum.

Not liking or even criticizing the rally is one thing, but there is no cause here to freak out as if the Pope were doing something contrary to the faith.

6) What about that security detail? Is it true that it is made up almost exclusively of young Middle-Eastern males between the ages of 20-30?

The Vatican has confirmed that most of the uniformed soldiers were Syrian migrants, yes. That's nothing to get upset about. After all, the Vatican has been using the Swiss for hundreds of years. the Pope has argued that everything should be done to help the process of assimilation. Giving the refugees spiffy uniforms and a salary is part of that effort.

7) Speaking of those uniforms, isn't there something a bit inappropriate about the new mailed fist logo with the red "F" superimposed over it?

Most pontificates have seen the creation of original emblems, medals, seals and the like. As for the mailed fist, you have to understand that Francis hails from a political culture that has some points of commonality but also some points of difference with European social democracy. He is the leader of all the world's Catholics, but he, like any of us, is also to some extent a creature of his particular time and place. That's normal.  

Our guest author

8) The cost of the rally was 5 billion Euros. What about that? And why was it held in Nuremberg, anyway?

The German Church had money left over in its budget, so they invited the Pope to have a rally. The national churches may be religious institutions but they are also bureaucracies. And as everyone is aware, bureaucratic entities will strive to use all the monies in their budgets as the end of their fiscal year approaches. It would be naive to think otherwise. You have to admit, though, that the Cathedral of Light was stunning and should be a source of pride to Catholics everywhere.

9) Okay, but you're not going to defend the Norse god thing, are you?

The statues were simply erected out of respect for adherents of Ásatrú. No theological endorsement was made or implied. Christians have always engaged non-Christians. But Pope Francis does believe that Catholics and Pagans share common values and interests, such as for example, how to make an economy run efficiently and how to control and harness the enthusiasms and energies of the masses.

News flash: that's fine.

10) Can you back that up?

Sure. But I don't feel like it right now. Get your own damn blog.


What Now?

If you like the information I've presented here, you can send away for my Secret Pope News Decoder Ring. Once you have one, you'll have the same unfailingly chipper insight on all the latest Pope news. You'll feel better.

*This is obviously a parody. But it's not meant to parody the Pope (well, mostly it isn't). Rather, it's meant to parody a certain segment of "everything is awesome" Catholic journalism  I don't mean to suggest (obviously) that the Pope is a Nazi. Rather, the claim is that if the Pope were a Nazi, there would be some Catholic writers who would defend even that. Or perhaps they wouldn't. But given some of the notorious pieces defending the Pope's recent scandalous words and actions, one does wonder. Humor aside, this is not a good thing. These journalists are doing great damage to the Catholic faith.