As many of my blog entries start; I read on the BBC News website about French president Nicolas Sarkozy proposing to ban Muslin women wearing a traditional burka in public. France has already banned the Islamic headscarf and other religious symbols from public schools. Sarkozy has gone on record as saying “The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience. It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic.” Muslim women do not wear it because they have to especially outside of Muslim countries, they wear it because it’s religious and/or part of their Muslim identity. Basically what Sarkozy is doing is marginalising the Muslim community denying them the right to wear religious or faith based clothing while out in public places. What next? is he going to imprison people that defy a ban if it does become law? It’s not offensive to others; it doesn’t bother anyone. That’s no better than Hitler killing all the Jews to create the master race. He is stripping Muslims of the identity by removing anything that signifies their faith. But in the same address to parliament Sarkozy went onto say “the Muslim religion must be respected as much as other religions.” – In that case let the people of Muslim faith wear what they feel is appropriate for them instead of forcing them to wear non faith based clothing! My wife gets on my back for my dislike of the French but when the French government makes comments like this; is it any surprise that I dislike the French attitude?
In the ongoing saga of FOTA versus the FIA; it seems that certain people within FOTA want to get out the FIA world champion at any cost. That person is Renault team principle Flavio Briatore who over the Silverstone weekend has indicated that a breakaway championship is the only way forward and he doesn’t want compromise saying the time for a deal has passed. Previously over the weekend FIA president Max Mosley talked about Briatore wanting to become the next Bernie Ecclestone and calling the Italian a “loony”. The name calling is frankly childish but both sides have resorted to throwing petty insults at each other through the press. No wonder Richard Branson wants to distance his Virgin Group from Brawn GP and Formula One with all this bullshit damaging Formula 1 and companies associated with it. I wish that Max would just announce the final entrants list and leave the FOTA teams out in the cold and give all the potential new teams the go ahead to start developing instead of delaying the announcement indefinitely. The new teams will lose interest if he delays too long and F1 could end up with only five teams and 10 cars on the grid for 2010. Lola have already pulled their name off the standby list; why take the risk of other teams taking their name off the list as well. Time is short for the new teams to get everything in place for the first race in Melbourne in March 2010; the teams need to start development of their cars now; not at the end of July, August.or even later!
I’m disappointed with Michael Owen’s decision to leave Newcastle United when his contract expires this month. Owen signed for £16m back in 2005 and a reputed wage of £100,000 per week. Personally I don’t believe that Owen has been good value for money for the Magpies; he has been a constant sick note being injured for much of his time at St James Park. The ex Liverpool player said he would prefer to remain a premier league player with his management company harping on about his past glories. If he is so great then why did Newcastle get relegated? he isn’t the player that he was while at Anfield. The decent thing to do would be to take a pay cut (it’s not like he needs the money) and remain at St James Park to help Newcastle return to the Premiership. I hope that no Premiership club will touch him to teach him a lesson but I doubt that will happen but I doubt he’ll get £100k per week at any Premiership club at this time.
