Crewedly Crews

Astrium have unveiled their idea for a "crewed" spacecraft based on the Jules Verne class cargo carrier.

We have a similar type of craft in the Anglophone world, only we follow proper grammar and call them "manned".

Update: I particularly like the way they refer to "non-human items".

Translation: Cargo.

Europong

Europe farts in Britain's general direction.

Deer In The Headlamps

Europe is beginning to recognise that the Jihadis are a real threat, but haven't the slightest clue as to what to do about it. This is demonstrated no more obviously in the remarks of Britain's new security minister Admiral Sir Alan West, who admits that Britain is in for a fight against the Islamists that might last fifteen years, but whose only plan is less than impressive.

Is he calling the war a war? Is he advocating taking the fight to the enemy on his own ground? Going after the tyrants financing and harbouring the Jiahdis? Is he talking about securing the borders and getting control of immigration? Damning multiculturalism? Demanding that Muslims assimilate and that whether or not they're treated with suspicion is up to them and not their neighbours, who have every right to be wary until assured otherwise?

Sorry. Sir Alan's remedy is... "snitching."

What They Don't Know Will Hurt Them

Over in Euroland, its business as usual as Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's premier and leader of the bloc of 13 single currency members, says that the new European Union Treaty (the rejected constitution being fobbed off again under another name) should be the subject of public debate. That is, unless you're British, in which case you should be left in the dark until it's too late.

I am astonished at those who are afraid of the people: one can always explain that what is in the interest of Europe is in the interests of our countries. Britain is different. Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?

The EU: Protecting the people from democracy for half a century.

PC Translation Service

BBC Newspeak: Europe mulls human launch system.

Translation: Europe mulls manned spacecraft.

I Don't Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

From the BBC:

The EU's foreign policy chief has described as "constructive" talks with Iran's top nuclear negotiator.

That's "constructive" as in "we've given Iran all the time it needs to build a bomb and haven't made them pay any price for such insanity whatsoever."

Mars Plan Marred

Looks like there aren't any takers for ESA's simulated Mars mission.

Can't imagine why. Seventeen months locked up in a tin can with no booze, no fags, no showers, nothing but freeze-dried meals and sharing a berth with some nit who listens to the Moody Blues at two in the morning; what's not to love?

Sim Mars

The European Space Agency is calling for volunteers to be sealed inside a "spaceship" for 17 months to simulate a trip to Mars. According to the BBC,

With the exception of weightlessness and radiation, the crew will experience most other aspects of long-haul space travel, such as cramped conditions, a high workload, lack of privacy, and limited supplies.

I'm confused. Are they simulating space travel or working as a code writer at Microsoft?

Swings & Roundabouts

An Airbus A380 Superjumbo has been purchased for use as a private jet by an individual "not from Europe or the US" (*Cough* Saudi Arabia *Cough*).

The idea of a flying barn like the A380 being converted into a jumped-up Gulfstream strikes me as gauche, vulgar, and stinks to high heaven of the nouveau riche. On the other hand, it's managed to send unnamed "environmental groups" (*Cough* The BBC *Cough*) into a hissy fit.

And so balance is restored.

Conundrum

From The Times:

Tony Blair is preparing to cave in to pressure to sign up Britain to a sweeping new human rights charter.

The prime minister is ready to do a deal over the European charter of fundamental rights this week amid fears that plans for a treaty to replace the failed European Union constitution will collapse if he refuses to compromise.

So, Mr. Blair is going to do something that nobody wants in order to prevent the failure of something that nobody wants.

Next up: I'm going to Brillo pad that gash in my arm to prevent it from not getting infected.

Social Space Justice

The European aerospace consortium EADS Astrium is set to enter the space tourism race with its own four-passenger suborbital craft, but this is not sitting well with the European Commission Vice President Guenter Verheugen.

It's only for the super rich, which is against my social convictions.

Especially if it means that the proles will be able to afford a go one day. It should be reserved for the exclusive use of Inner Party members Eurocrats and the self-selected progressive elite, which is the natural order of things.

A Blow for Liberty

From the Telegraph:

Campaigners fighting EU plans to abolish imperial measures have claimed victory after the European Commission backed down over plans to ban imperial measurements.

Giles Chichester, the Tory MEP with responsibility for industry, said last night that compulsory metric measurements were "off the agenda".

I have only one reaction:

RESULT!

Now if we can just get the EU to naff off entirely and take their metric scales with them.

The Point That Isn't a Point

From the BBC:

University heads in the UK have rejected warnings that the European Commission is trying to wrest control of higher education from member states.

Universities UK said there was "no sign of a conspiracy" to take over the process of making degrees more comparable across Europe.

Quite right. There's no conspiracy; they're being blatantly obvious about it.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Bang Your Head On The Wall

From the Register:

The European Space Agency (ESA) is recruiting volunteers for a simulated trip to Mars. Wannabe astronauts will have to be made of sturdy stuff: the mission will involve being locked, with five other people, in a metal tank somewhere in Moscow for 500 days.

So basically, it'll feel like most package tours I've been on.

Dutch Riot Update

The Brussels Journal looks further into the Dutch nativist riots and shows that the attitude behind it is not an isolated case. Similar complaints about the lack of government action against Muslim attacks on non-Muslims have occurred in Belgium, France, and Sweden, where the latter's situation is particularly chilling (emphasis added):

The wave of robberies the increasingly Muslim-dominated city of Malmö is witnessing is part of a "war against Swedes," this according to statements from the immigrant youths themselves. "When we are in the city and robbing, we are waging a war, waging a war against the Swedes." This argument was repeated several times. "Power for me means that Swedes shall look at me, lie down on the ground and kiss my feet."

Jonathan Friedman, an American living in Sweden, mentions that the so-called Integration Act of 1997 proclaimed that "Sweden is a Multicultural society." The Act implicitly states that Sweden doesn't have a history, only the various ethnic groups that live there. Native Swedes have been reduced to just another ethnic group in Sweden, with no more claim to the country than the Somalis who arrived there last Thursday. As Friedman puts it: "In Sweden, it's almost as if the state has sided with the immigrants against the Swedish working class."

Whether this is true or not, if the governments of Europe are fostering the belief in the people that it is true, then the Continent is lurching that much closer to the abyss.