Michelle Kirby, from Whitley, was stranded in Whitley Wood Lane when her Peugeot 206 ran out of petrol on Easter Sunday.
But our Batman and Robin appeared out of nowhere to save the day and push her car to the nearest petrol station.
“They just appeared. I saw them running down the road in Batman and Robin outfits – I was laughing so much,” she said. “It was like a scene out of Only Fools and Horses and they stayed in character the whole time.
“They said, ‘I’m Batman, I’m Robin’ and I said, ‘No, you’re not’ and asked them if they were going to a fancy dress party but they said they were going back to Gotham City.”
After seeing Miss Kirby to safety, the pair disappeared along Basingstoke Road.
And Whitley Wood man Ray Cox, 61, spotted the caped crusaders at about 11.30am after doing his morning shopping.
“I said to my wife, ‘It would make it a better and safer place with these men’,” he said.
“There are so many muggings in Whitley and these two running down the road really looked great – get these chaps back.
“Batman was quite a broad chap. They would scare a few muggers off and I’d feel safer in Whitley.”
What is it about England and costumed superheroes jumping from the comic book page into, well, newspaper articles if not real life?
I have previously written about Angle-Grinder Man, the friend of illegally parked cars in London, not to mention Spa Man aka the Caped Crusader of Tunbridge Wells.
Stay tuned for more about Gotham's Whitley's Caped Crusader and his sidekick the Boy Wonder!
A Norwegian businessman managed to get himself a NOK 50,000.- (~$7,200) bill from an exclusive strip club in Germany. Now he claims to not remember much from the night, and demands that his bank picks up the Visa bill.
According to several newspapers, as reported by Tim Blair, the new secret Hamas leader is Dr Mahmoud Zahar, a physician. Given the short life expectancy of terrorist leaders lately, Hamas has decided not to announce the new leader.
However, it is noted that the Hamas leadership has been so reduced in the Palestinian territories that there are few possible candidates. The other person mentioned as a potential leader is Ismail Haniyeh.
Hamas has yet to decide on Rantisi's successor. In principle, Dr. Mahmoud a-Zahar, who was considered Rantisi's deputy, is supposed to head the organization. However, Israeli intelligence officials have learned that a-Zahar has sent signals to fellow Hamas leaders both in Gaza and overseas, particularly Khaled Mashal, that he does not want the top post, and certainly does not want it to be made public.
Mashal has said that the identity of the new Hamas leader will not be revealed, but who is in charge of a group with hundreds of operatives and tens of thousands of followers can hardly be kept secret.
As the Hamas leadership in Palestine is reduced, Israel is obviously turning its attention towards the leaders who reside in Damascus, Syria, including Mashal. If evidence should surface that they have a hand in operations planning and are part of the militant's chain of command, it is unlikely Israel will hesitate just because they live in another country. Especially when that country is Syria.
GM says Hello From the land of the Pharaohs Egypt and we can welcome Egypt into the blogosphere. GM is hardly representative of Egyptian opinion, but may not be as alone as he thinks. He has a lot of opinions about hos own country and Iraq, and people keep asking him about the Palestinian problem of course.
Especially thought provoking were his thoughts on "ballot box democracy" vs "social democracy."
Kerry supports Rantissi assassination, Bush policy changes
Nothing indicates that John Kerry will be less Israel-friendly in his policies than George Bush, quite the opposite in fact: Kerry actually expressed direct support of Israel's assassination of Rantissi, and also fully supports the recent shift in US foreign policy regarding right of return and settlements:
MR. RUSSERT: Israel assassinated Hamas leader Rantisi. Do you support that assassination?
SEN. KERRY: I believe Israel has every right in the world to respond to any act of terror against it. Hamas is a terrorist, brutal organization. It has had years to make up its mind to take part in a peaceful process. They refuse to. Arafat refuses to. And I support Israel's efforts to try to separate itself and to try to be secure. The moment Hamas says, "We've given up violence, we're prepared to negotiate," I am absolutely confident they will find an Israel that is thirsty to have that negotiation.
MR. RUSSERT: On Thursday, President Bush broke with the tradition and policy of six predecessors when he said that Israel can keep part of the land seized in the 1967 Middle East War and asserted the Palestinian refugees cannot go back to their particular homes. Do you support President Bush?
SEN. KERRY: Yes.
MR. RUSSERT: Completely?
SEN. KERRY: Yes.
Europeans have often failed to understand that on essential issues that divide the US from Europe, the US policy is firmly bipartisan, and that is in particular true about its Israel-policy. However, since style is so much more important than substance, Europeans are likely to be much more forgiving towards Kerry.
Moral indignation over the deaths of Yassin and Rantissi remains impossible to fathom. One would be relieved if the Independent or Robin Cook were shedding crocodile tears but their weeping seems perfectly sincere. The existence of monsters such as Yassin and Rantissi only forces more civilised people into measures that spill blood on decent hands. That is a tragedy indeed, but that is about all one can mourn. Trying to serve a judicial warrant on Hamas leaders, deliberately living among the civilian population, would cause scores more innocent deaths than targeting them from a helicopter. None of us likes "extra-judicial" measures, but it is hypocrisy laid on with a trowel to suggest that psychotic beings such as Yassin and Rantissi are anything other than murderers in cold blood.
The Palestinian cause is an honourable one, but Hamas and similar groups, such as Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad or Arafat's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, have no interest in an honourable two-state solution. Apologists for these groups routinely condemn suicide bombers and then describe them as part of "the cycle of violence in the Middle East" which would stop if only Israel would address their grievances. No doubt. Their grievance is the existence of Israel.
It's not as if the extremists even pretend to have any goal but the total eradication of Israel. Still, these monsters receive practically worldwide acclaim and Israel a near-unanimous condemnation. What insantiy is this? Is there any organisation dedicated to the genocide of any nation other than the Jewish that has its leaders mourned like fallen statesmen?
Islamist cleric: "the life of an unbeliever has no value"
The radical Islamic cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad has warned that a terror attack on Britain is inevitable. In an interview with the Portugese magazine Publica, the cleric is reluctant to state that British muslims should attack their own country, but says that non-Muslims are worthless and can be killed at will:
Asked if a British Muslim was allowed to carry out a "terrorist attempt" in a foreign country, Muhammad said "That is another story."
He added: "We don't make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no sanctity."
It was important to see accusations of terrorism in their proper context, he said.
Muhammad is known for expressing a clear support for Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network and openly praised the 9/11 attacks on the US. Yet, the Syrian born cleric is still allowed to remain at large in Britain.
So should this make me feel better that Norway has not kicked out Mullah Krekar, or just sad for the whole of Europe, that keeps these extremist ticking bombs in our midsts and allows them to preach death and destruction?
It is important to remember that Sheikh Bakri Muhammad is vehemently opposed and condemned by the vast majority of Muslims in Britain.
— Norway should leave Iraq, use money to strengthen Arafat
Thorbjørn Jagland, former Norwegian Labour leader and current head of the Parliament's foreign relations committee, supports withdrawing our forces from Iraq and use the money saved to support the "moderates" among Palestinians, that is, Yasser Arafat.
I wish I was making this up.
Norway should withdraw its forces from Iraq and the money set aside to this arrangment should be used to strengthen the moderate forces on the Palestinian side, says the leader of the Storting's foreign relations committee Thorbjørn Jagland, to the NRK [state broadcasting]
No longer basis
Sunday it was clear that Spain's government gives order to withdraw its 1,300 soldiers from the country. Spain does not want to be a part of the occupation force when the UN is not getting a larger mandate in the country.
Jagland says that the basis for Norway sending forces to Iraq is no longer present.
- We have built our engagement in Iraq on Security Council decisions. [...]
Jagland means that what happens is that one supports the Palestinian fanatics, by the US reward 40 years of Israeli occupation and building illegal settlements.
- Therefor Norway can now do something concrete by using the funds to support the legally elected Palestinian leaders instead of keeping the forces in Iraq, Jagland says.
Listening to Norwegian politicians like Jagland talking about the Middle East one can wonder if they are really living on Mars.
In Jagland's world, Arafat needs more money to stuff away in French bank accounts, buy arms from Iran and pay his al-Aqsa soldiers, to strengthen to peace process (!). Arafat is a "moderate", mind you.
The "argument" is that when Israel is eradicating the Hamas' leadership while keeping Arafat and his government (and armed forces) alive, Israel is somehow strengthening the extremists.
And what exactly has changed about the "basis" for Norway sending forces to Iraq? Any UN RC mandate revoked? Not the last time I checked. No longer any need for humanitarian aid and rebuilding of Iraq? Obviously needed more than ever.
Jagland was the leader who took Labour, the former ruling party of Norway, from the 40s in the polls into the low 30s, the final fall of a once moderate, mostly US-friendly and pro-Israel institution that has slowly lost legitimacy, power and position. He was essentially kicked out of the leadership as a reward for the disastrous results, but his foreign politics has continued to dominate the party. It is rumoured that the current Labour leader, Jens Stoltenberg, an open admirer of Britain's Tony Blair, secretly sympathises with Blair also on foreign politics, but doesn't dare to voice his opinion.
And Stoltenberg is probably right to shut up, at least from a popularity point of view. The transformation of Norway from being mostly pro-Israel to a rabidly anti-Israeli country, a year-long process jumped along by the Vietnam war and the oil crisis, is now almost complete. Voicing support for Israeli politics in Norway is a form of secular blasphemy (see where I got the blog name?). You are mostly ignored, at best ridiculed, and your arguments will never even make it into a newspaper or to the TV screen. Drivel like Jagland's words above will remain unopposed in substance.
PS: Around 40-50 people demonstrated against Israel's targeted assassination of al-Rantisi in front of the Israeli embassy in Oslo today, pouring red paint on the sidewalk outside to argue that Israeli leaders have "blood on their hands." The irony of this is sickening, but I have not seen any Norwegian political leader that did not condemn the killing.
PS 2: A Norwegian "peace researcher" named Hilde Henriksen Waage fears a radicalisation of Hamas. This tells us what an echo bubble these people live in that they can say such things and not be laughed out of the room. "A radicalisation of Hamas". Try to say it yourself without giggling. What are they supposed to do? Use kids as suicide bombers? Oops, too late already.
