We don't live in a democracy in the UK

Let's end the pretence.

The sheer futility of opposing the government on serious issues is clear. I can do no better than insert this Danish cartoon ~ only it's not funny. when the next "terror" hit takes place in the West and you're all "oh why?" This is why. It's wrong to kill people, who ever you are, what ever the justification.

Why do some Arabs hate us ?

1. Syria and Iran are alleged to supply rifles, explosives, and rockets to Hizbollah, so they must be aiding terrorists. The USA does supply far more potent weapons like F-15’s, F-16’s, Apache helicopters, NUKES ! (come on the Israelis didn’r develop it themselves) and that’s okay

2. Hizbollah fire rockets at civilian targets, making them terrorists, The Israelis fire artillery at civilian targets, but that’s okay as they are just defending themselves

3. Hizbollah take Israelis against their will into illegal captivity making them kidnappers. The Americans take others into illegal captivity against their will (i.e. special rendition) but they are not kidnappers

4. Hizbollah are “cowards” because they fight the Israelis from civilian areas (ie their own land). The Israelis aren’t cowards when they fire artillery from complete safety at sea, or fly their jet bombers unopposed through Lebanese airspace

5. When Jews are killed, it’s an act of terror. When Lebanese are killed by Israel it’s Hizbollah’s fault.

6. We call for an immediate end to Hizbollah’s bombardment of Israel. We tolerate Israel’s ten fold more lethal bombardment of Lebanon and can’t bring ourselves to call for a ceasefire.

7. We give Lebanon $30M in reconstruction aid. We tolerate $1B worth of damage

8. We condemn Hizbollah for Geneva convetion breaches, even though they are not signatories. We ignore Israeli breaches

Truly, we are hypocrites, and the lying Western politicians who practice this deceit are contemptible. The stupid brainless masses who just think the Israelis are fighting terror, just go back to watching “Pop Idol”

Now ask again, why some Arabs hate us.

I can’t blame them, (though again, not a justification for killing).

The UN

Not everyone’s favourite organisation, but not deserving of death, like the four who were killed by the Israelis as part of their “defence” against Hizbollah.

Now the facts of the case are:

- they notified the Israelis of their position prior to operations starting and it was static
- they made contact ten times again saying where they were, and that they were under threat from Israeli fire
- there were no Hizbollah positions within 500 metres

(Not my words incidentally, those of the secretary general of the UN)

So does that stack with an accidental killing as the Israelis claim? Let’s consider the possibility

1. They didn’t know the base was there ~ unlikely as it was highly visible and they had been previously informed
2. The artillery fire was off target ~ again unlikely, there wasn’t a Hizbollah position within 500 metres and computer controlled artillery these days is pretty good
3. They were taken out by an air strike ~ two possibilities, it was a targeted mission, and again, Israeli intelligence shouldn’t get the facts that wrong or it was a target of opportunity, which for a fixed position is unlikely, as they tend to go after mobile rocket launchers

Okay, then, it’s hard to see how a modern army, with prior notice and GPS systems could accidentally hit something like that, but fog of war and all (though given that the IDF are unopposed in the sky, how foggy could it really be?), but why would they deliberately do something like this ? After all, it’s bound to attract condemnation.

Well maybe because they want a few more weeks of killing before the international force is in place. This is truly sinister. Take out a few low level UN guys to delay an international deployment (because who would send troops in now? Even if you are sure that Hizbollah won’t attack you, you couldn’t rule out another Israeli “mistake) and extend the window of slaughter a little longer.

PS Well done to the sincere and truthful Bush administration for calling for peace and giving $30M for reconstruction, whilst at the same time sending the Israelis yet more weapons through Prestwick airport today, whilst alleging Syria is giving Hizbollah much smaller and less effective weapons, and condemning them for it.

Think long and hard about an idea before advocating it

I don’t know if you’ve seen these idiot e-mails going around calling on us to boycott the largest oil company petrol stations to “force down” the price of petrol.

This idea is utter bollocks for loads of reasons: UK petrol is mostly tax anyway, forecourt price is a function of world crude prices, buyers do not “control” markets etc the concept is full of holes.

So this dopey girl in accounts forwards this e-mail to a few of us, and I simply write back outlining the flaws in the logic. Anyway she totally goes into one, saying I’m trying to make her look stupid, plus some really pleasant personal abuse. But the truth is, if you forward an e-mail which espouses an idea that is nonsense without thinking, then really, you are making yourself look stupid.

There’s a lesson there about thinking for yourself, rather than just accepting what you are told. Sure it might sting a bit right now, but it’s a good lesson, is she cares to learn it.

My idea of a solution

Since the respective leaders seem to have no answer except to blame everyone else, and continue with total slaughter until everyone is dead, I thought I'd give it a try:

1. The three kidnapped soldiers are unconditionally released into British custody, where they are held securely, but not killed (unless they look Brazillian!) or otherwise harmed.

2. The Israelis in return agree to submit to binding international justice from three judges from say Iceland, Switzerland and Canada, for all Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners whose release is now demanded. If the judges conclude there is a case to answer, they stay in custody, if not, they are released.

3. After the first release of the first say 20 lebanese/palestinians, the IDF recruits are repatriated from UK to Israel

4. Both sides stop shooting at once and withdraw.

5. The international judicial panel completes its work in months and their recommendations for release are mandatory and the agreement irrevocable.

The Foreign Secretary

was on the radio this morning.

I am used to inept performances from labour minsters, and perhaps I was spoiled by the relative competence that Jack Straw displayed in the role, but even allowing for the fact Blair is clueless on the issue, she was poor. Indeed, a smart politician might decide it's time to show leadership on the issue.

Not our Margaret. She said, with Jim Hacker-like comedy, the situation was "serious" She couldn't bring herself to blame the Israelis for anything at all. "Have the Israelis over-reacted?" she was asked "I think Hizbollah have over-reacted" (true but not the question). Are the Israelis in breach of international law? Mrs B didn't think the question was relevant or helpful ! But it was clearly a "serious" situation she reiterated sounding funnier all the time.

Don't you think that Arabs might reasonably conclude that we are treating the two sides differently? Mrs B didn't think that was what Arabs might think!

Mightn't this be a recruiting point for Al Qaiada in Iraq? "Oh" she said indignantly, "I wondered how long it would be before you dragged that into it" in the manner of a woman whose birthday you had forgotten; she displayed anger and irritation, even petulence, but not leadership, much less a lucid grasp of the issues, or any idea how it might end.

It was an inept, clueless display of a person in way out of their depth. You could only conclude after listening to this, that this particular Margaret, might be better, spending a lot, lot more time with her caravan.

Though, Ehud Olmert is almost as bad, turning a minor crisis (the kidnap of one soldier) into a two front war, in just over a week, takes a special kind of stupidity. I think Hizbollah were just after attention, as Hamas were getting it all.

If you want to hear the often hard, unpalatable truth on the issue, listen to Wally (Walid) Jumblatt, leader of a Lebanese Druze faction ~ a real tough, intelligent, pragmatic guy. Now him as foreign secretary ??

Duke and Duchess of York

I saw the media coverage of one of the brats birthday or some such. Usual dross about conspicuous consumption, how much was spent and didn’t whatsername look pretty, and who was the dress designer, blah, blah, blah

Really, really boring trivial story. The stuff of tabloids and celeb magazines. There are richer people than this lot. Uglier people, and certainly more evil, grasping and sinister people, but for some reason, (don’t ask me why?) it put me in mind of Marie Antoinette.

Double standards update

Update: I did our prime minister a disservice. He has at last spoken out on the Middle East sitch, though with people dying daily, he took his sweet time.

With Israeli artillery blasting Lebanon, it’s all the fault, apparently, of Iran and Syria.

Funny thing is, I could swear the artillery is IDF ? And the people committing murder by firing the shells at civilian areas, look like IDF recruits, (I do not use the word soldiers to describe such people).

And if Iran or Syria are at fault for supplying arms to the region like AK-47’s or explosives, wouldn’t it follow, that if you supplied hundreds of F-15 and F-16 jets as well as attack helicopters you’d actually be the far, far bigger terrorist?

By complete and unrelated coincidence, Michael Levy raises millions of pounds for the Labour party. Any guesses what his religion could be ?

Double standards

Saddam might have (but actually didn’t have) WMD, so we invade

Iran, being denied technology to efficiently extract their oil and gas, develop nuclear power, and we threaten everything from sanctions, to air strikes, to nukes (!)

Someone or other bombs trains in India and we condemn them, dehumanise them and stick anyone we suspect of being ~ “enemies” ~ in foreign secret prison camps where they are tortured

Israel in addition to clearly breaching its obligation under article 33 of the fourth Geneva convention, actually kills civilians with artillery fire in Gaza and Lebanon, and Tony Blair? We don’t hear a fucking peep from the cunt. All the Yanks can bring themselves to do is to call for “restraint” which they know will be ignored, so just let the murder go on.

Bullshit ~ who is the terrorist

Premature babies

The news this morning picked up a story about a woman who had very premature twins. Anyway, they were given very intense treatment, drugs and nursing over a period of weeks and survived to become more or less healthy individuals.

So you’d figure a good news kind of story, along the lines of “Thank you everyone for spending about £10K a day on my kids (source: my former g/f, a hospital manager), I may never pay the £300K or so in tax, their treatment cost, but thank you from the bottom of my heart for my children’s lives, I owe you a financial, moral and emotional debt”

Not a bit of it. This slack jawed yokel was moaning about the fact that she had to travel about 100 miles to get the best possible care, and whilst she was given free accommodation to be near the kid, she had to make other child care arrangements for her other kids. (I’m thinking “what about the father?” but get serious I suppose).

I was seriously looking for my gun. I’m thinking “Miserable ungrateful bitch, you get free treatment and you are moaning ‘cos you have to drive a couple of hours to get there? Come on, there are many, many, many people in the world, including yanks who would love the “free” health care your kids got for nothing, and you have the audacity to bleat about it? Okay, I’ll refund your travel costs and you refund the healthcare costs, okay ?

Read Sun-Tzu or Clausewitz, then comment

I saw a soldier on TV this morning talking about Afghanistan

I’ve no doubt he’s a decent military tactician, but strategically I think he was dead wrong. He was asked about why we are deploying in Helmand and trotted out the usual stuff about fighting terror and suppressing drugs. Much as I respect the British Army, I think this is superficial thinking.

There is little point engaging Taliban forces in Afghanistan, if they can just decamp to Pakistan. The Americans discovered this to their cost when fighting Viet Cong in Vietnam, when they could just go into Cambodia, out of US reach. The USA with all their resources never suppressed the Viet Cong. I fear we face a similarly impossible task against the Taliban, especially in light of out miniscule forces in theatre.

In addition, far from fighting terrorists, it just gives “grist to the mill” of Al Qaida’s recruiting sergeants in the UK. The July 7 bombers weren’t trained in Afghanistan, but there maybe many who are motivated, at least in part, by our presence there.

Then there’s the old “suppressing drugs” chestnut. Despite public utterances, I cannot believe, that if a local warlord says to the Paras “Look, I’m not Taliban, but I need the money from the poppy to fight them” I cannot believe we’d burn his crop. (If we did, wouldn’t we alienate him?) It’s a dangerous confusion.

Sure, as a headline grabber “Brits fight drugs and terror” it’s great, but it doesn’t stand up to rationale thought.

And we need some more of that, before more Brits needlessly die. Does anyone honestly think that when we decamp in a couple of years, the Taliban will have been finished ? Or maybe Afghanistan won’t grow heroin anymore ?

Then of course there is the fate of at least three major armies who have gone into Afghanistan in recent times. The second Afghan war resulted in two and a half thousand British deaths, the first war deployed the 44th East Essex regiment, which resulted in a Cannae style wipe out for us, (indeed it was worse, the Romans got out with c.20,000 men from Cannae, we got out with (sic) 1). And the modern Red Army, wholly unconstrained by the rules of warfare, deploying on average 100,000 men for a decade was again defeated, with a loss of approximately 15,000 men.

I cannot see what we expect to achieve, except to send brave men to their futile deaths. And we need to stop. Now.

Spoon-feeding

This is an oft used metaphor in politics describing a nanny state that is giving its citizens/chattels various pieces of “wisdom”

Anyway, I saw this news story on the BBC about some government scheme to give kids Omega-3 oils because they maybe good for the brain or some such. Now the libertarian in me says, it is surely up to the parents of children to look after their diet. If they choose to give their kids Omega oil supplements fine, if not, also fine. This is freedom.

And naturally enough, I find the idea of another state proscribed initiative, yet another disturbing chip, chip, chip into peoples daily lives. No great shock there.

But the footage that accompanies the report, showed kids lining up, to be, literally, spoon-fed, by an implement of the state, (in this case a teacher or health worker or some other state apparatchik drone) and it was like the metaphor was being acted out in living colour, and it was chilling. Really deeply chilling.

More formulaic media coverage

We need to be more thoughtful about how we accept news coverage. The outlets are what they are; the responsibility lies with us, to filter and not just to accept.

For example, I do not support bombing the innocent and therefore could not support the 7th July bombings. It does raise questions though, about our foreign policy towards Israel (i.e. why are they allowed to flagrantly breach the Geneva Convention – Convention 4, article 33) for example?

But this has been swept away in a wave of sentiment. In the immediate aftermath, I get that. But later on, if all we do is “condemn” these guys, we are stuck with them.

Today’s BBC internet coverage plummeted to new depths.

“London fell silent today, at exactly midday to mark the two minutes silence to remember victims of July 7” etc

Only problem was, this wasn’t news, it was made up, as they posted it before midday. I would expect this from Pravda.

So, the point is (aside from rubbish BBC journalism) unless we start to think some more, we will never find solutions.

Sis finally dumps looser ?

My sis has been hooked up with this total looser for a while now, and every time they break up, the abuse and whining and haranguing persistence gets worse.

She went cops today to complain about harassment, (trust me she could have gone previously to report him for much, much worse, indeed, when she told me, I had to promise I wouldn’t call my brother, and “literally” kill they guy and dispose of the body, but that’s another story and ultimately, her call).

I think the bloke is bi-polar or something, but certainly a looney-tune, so my question ladies is this.

When it is completely obvious to everyone else, that when a guy harasses you, phones you maybe 50 times a night, alternately loves you and hates you, loves you and threatens you, loves you and hurts you really badly, is emotionally all over the place, when you’ve caught him repeatedly lying, why would you go back out with them?

You see ‘em on Ricky Lake or Trisha and the whole audience can see a fuckwitt writ large, yet the girl is all “He’s promised not to do it again and I love him” Why do you possibly think the outcome would be different this time, when it clearly, clearly won’t ?

Anyway, looks like this looser is finally gone.

Government advice

is nearly always totally obvious, or sometimes just plain wrong or misguided.

Advice which fell into the former category this week concerned the current heat, (Shock: In mid-summer it's warm - declare a level 3 emergency!)

Now it's the usual moron obvious stuff like drink plenty, don't go out at the hotest part of the day if you can avoid it, wear sunscreen ~ dah type stuff. But for, the absolute, clear, 100% "everyone in the world knows this" so why are we paying someone to give us this advice? How's this.

A government spokesperson told me, when I was driving:

If I was hot, wind the windows down ~ she actually said this ~ I could not help but ponder if there were really thousands of people thinking "eureka" as she said it, what a great idea.

She went on "If you have air conditioning use it" This advice became actually dangerous because I was laughing so hard at the time, I could hardly control the car. Indeed, if you need a giggle, phone NHS direct, and ask them a series of mindlesly obvious questions about the heat and what you should do. when you've stopped laughing, remember, your taxes pay these people, and think to yourself, yes, we really should have some tax cuts.

At last, and end to the hype....

England have been eliminated (or "crashed out" to use tabloid speak) from the football world cup. This was a predictable outcome, see my post for December 10th, including, though I say so myself, an insightful hint into the sending off.

So no more stupid, endless, microscopic coverage of the team, no more pointless training montages, no more whatever the hell the wives are doing (you tell me?), no more proles aimlessly wandering around with St.Georges flags. Hopefully, it maybe the last time you ever see Victoria Beckham on TV ? No more commercialisation of the team (for a while anyway), was there anything more annoying than trying to buy food to the accompanyment of football songs over the tannoy in the supermarket?

When all is said and done, it's a game of football. No more.

I have to say, I found the site of grown men, supposedly hard men, weaping at a football result, strangely inappropriate. Especially since ot was the 90th anniversary of the battle of the Somme. That was a tragedy worthy of tears. Yesterday was mass hysteria, and people wailing, simply because others were doing so.

Learn to think for yourself. It leads to a better life.