Three Sides Of A Two-Sided Coin

Listening to an interview on the Today Programme this morning with John Ging, the UNWRA director. This interview was preceded by a (fairly) straightforward news item which dealt with the same topic as discussed with Mr. Ging. The item in discussion was the destruction by ‘armed and masked men’ of equipment in a UNWRA ‘summer camp’ which gives children in Gaza access to sports, swimming, theatre and arts.

The BBC report gave a comparatively straightforward view of an event where some twenty men, masked and armed, immobilised the guards and then torched the entire complex. The BBC reporter also stated that while no one had claimed responsibility for this wanton destruction, the fact was that the HAMAS terror group which holds Gaza in its grip must have at least known and given tacit approval for the attack, mainly because nothing happened in Gaza without their knowledge.

Mr. Ging from UNWRA, on the opposing side as it were, also denounced the destruction, but pointedly did not even name HAMAS as the group which runs Gaza, and would consequently have either approved or planned the raid; but instead harped on about the (Israeli) blockade. That blockade which has, in his words, ‘traumatised’ many thousands of children, and placed UNRWA in a position where they had to supply these ‘camps’, run of course by thousands of ‘teachers’ which formed the basis of a holiday from the brutal realities of their lives under the blockade.

No mention about the release from a similar ‘trauma’ for the many thousands of ordinary Israeli kids by the same blockade, as the source for the rocket fuel and explosives has been sliced right back by that same ‘traumatising’ blockade!

No mention either of the fact that, while the HAMAS movement was elected in Gaza, and then murdered all its opposition; thus bringing the hard face of militant Islam home to the fools who believed the garbage spouted by the political wing of HAMAS, their brethren in the West bank are continuing, quietly and slowly, to normalise their lives and relations with Israel. This normalisation process itself was achieved with the Wall, which chopped off access by the suicide bombers who think the same as the terrorists of Hamas.

Train Ticket… 100 Rand

World Cup Transport (slightly unfinished), bit late, but better late than never!

Gone to flowers, everyone.

The list of names shown below is one answer to the call by politicians, such as Blair, Brown and Cameron who state that the lives of British Service personnel are ‘on the line’ in Afghanistan so that we don’t have home-grown terror murderers loose on the streets and cities of Great Britain. If these young men and women have died for a cause named ‘democracy’, I believe that the cause is a sham, there can not be democratic rule in a dung-heap shambles such as Afghanistan, where corruption is endemic up to and inclusive of the Presidency. If the very ‘flower’ of our forces are doomed to die in pursuit of their ‘orders’, then the orders should have a purpose.

It could be said that many of those who died did so because of ‘targets’ and ‘cost-cutting’. This again is true, especially in the cases of personnel forced to utilise mobile coffins provided by a far-seeing Ministry of Defence procurement division, or in the case of the Nimrod which exploded in mid-air, despite it being stated by the then Defence Secretary as being ‘safe to fly’. It exploded because of cost-cutting and budget slicing by senior MOD and Royal Air Force staff, most of whom are still ‘working’ if that is the correct terminology, in Whitehall. Their approach to the safety of the Nimrod fleet was simple, ‘keep them flying, we have no alternative’. Well, they did have an alternative; they could have bought a reliable, safe and proven aircraft fleet from the Americans, but that was not politically correct, so our men died because of their actions. I presume they all sleep well at night; unlike their victims, who are in the longest sleep of all!

It is when you read headlines such as ‘U.S. officials say Karzai aides are derailing corruption cases involving elite’ from a newspaper which, on the whole, supports the Allied War effort, that one begins to realise that American and British lives are being spent at an appalling rate so that top aides and family cronies of the so-called Presidency get richer by the day, siphon off their cash from the heroin trade, (carried on in conjunction with the Taliban) along with the bribes and kick-backs from the billions soaking through the Afghan desert, and allow them to leave and live the high life in the fleshpits of Dubai.

If we vowed to carry out a purge of the Jihadi scum which are in our own streets and cities, and kicked them out, without need or reference to their so-called ‘human rights’ we would not need to spend the true ‘Capital’ which is listed in its heartbreaking details, just below. The list is of British forces casualties, but does not include the American dead, which number some 1,122 and counting.

April 9 2002 Private Darren George, 23
August 17 Sergeant Robert Busuttil, 30

January 28 2004 Private Jonathan Kitulagoda, 23

October 29 2005 Lance Corporal Steven Sherwood, 23

March 22 2006 Corporal Mark Cridge, 25
March 27 Corporal Peter Craddock, 31
June 11 Captain Jim Philippson, 29
June 27Captain David Patten, 38, and Sergeant Paul Bartlett, 35
July 1 Corporal Peter Thorpe, 27, Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi, 24,
July 5 Private Damien Jackson, 19,
August 1 Captain Alex Eida, 29, 2nd Lieutenant Ralph Johnson, 24, Lance Corporal Ross Nicholls, 27
August 6 Private Andrew Cutts, 19
August 9 Private Leigh Reeves, 25
August 12 Lance Corporal Sean Tansey, 26
August 20 Corporal Bryan Budd, 29
August 27 Lance Corporal Jonathan Hetherington, 22
September 1 Ranger Anare Draiva, 27, Lance Corporal Paul Muirhead, 29
September 2 14 soldiers killed in Nimrod crash: Flight Lieutenant Steven Johnson, 38, Flt Lt Leigh Mitchelmore, 28, Flt Lt Gareth Nicholas, 40, Flt Lt Allan Squires, 39, Flt Lt Steven Swarbrick, 28, Flight Sergeant Gary Andrews, 48, Flt Sgt Stephen Beattie, 42, Flt Sgt Gerard Bell, 48, Flt Sgt Adrian Davies, 49, Sgt Benjamin Knight, 25, Sgt John Langton, 29, Sgt Gary Quilliam, 42, Lance Corporal Oliver Dicketts, 27, Marine Joseph Windall, 22
September 4 Private Craig O’Donnell, 24
September 6 Corporal Mark Wright, 27, Lance Corporal Luke McCulloch, 21
October 19 Marine Gary Wright, 22
December 5 Marine Jonathan Wigley, 21
December 12 Richard Watson, 23
December 27 Lance Bombardier James Dwyer, 22

January 13 2007 Marine Tom Curry, 21
January 15 Lance Corporal Mathew Ford, 30
February 21 2007 Marine Jonathan Holland, 23, Marine Scott Summers, 23
March 3 Lance Bombardier Ross Clark, 25, Lance Bombardier Liam ‘Paddy’ McLaughlin, 21
March 6 Royal Marine Ben Reddy, 22
March 8 Warrant Officer Class 2 Mick Smith, 39
April 13 Private Chris Gray, 19
May 3 Guardsman Simon Davison, 22
May 20 Lance Corporal George Russell Davey, 23
May 26 Guardsman Daniel Probyn, 22
May 28 Corporal Darren Bonner, 31
May 30 Corporal Mike Gilyeat, 28,
June 6 Lance Corporal Paul Sandford, 23
June 9 Guardsman Neil Downes, 20
June 24 Drummer Thomas Wright, 26
June 30 Captain Sean Dolan, 40
July 1 Sergeant Dave Wilkinson, 33
July 12 Guardsman Daryl Hickey, 27
July 25 Lance Corporal Alex Hawkins, 22
July 26 Guardsman David Atherton, 25
July 27 Sergeant Barry Keen, 34
July 29 Lance Corporal Michael Jones, 26
August 10 Private Tony Rawson, 27
August 11 Captain David Hicks, 26
August 23 Private Aaron McClure, 19, Private Robert Foster, 19, Private John Thrumble, 21
August 30 Senior Aircraftman Christopher Bridge, 20
September 5 Private Ben Ford, 18, and Private Damian Wright, 23
September 8 Sergeant Craig Brelsford, 25, and Private Johan Botha, 25
September 17 Lance Corporal Ivano Violino, 29
September 20 Colour Sergeant Phillip Newman, 36, Private Brian Tunnicliffe, 33
October 4 Major Alexis Roberts, 32
November 9 Lance Corporal Jake Alderton, 22, Captain John McDermid, 43
December 4 Trooper Jack Sadler, 21
December 8 Sergeant Lee Johnson, 33

January 20 2008 Corporal Darryl Gardiner, 25
January 17 Corporal Damian Lawrence, 25
February 20 Corporal Damian Mulvihill, 32
March 30 Lieutenant John Thornton, 22, Marine David Marsh, 23
April 13 Senior Aircraftman Graham Livingstone, 23, Senior Aircraftman Gary Thompson, 51
April 21 Trooper Robert Pearson, 22
May 2 Trooper Ratu Babakobau, 29
May 19 James Thompson, 27
May 25 Marine Dale Gostick, 22
June 8 Private Nathan Cuthbertson, 19, Private Daniel Gamble, 22, Private Charles David Murray, 19
June 12 Lance Corporal James Bateman, 29, Private Jeff Doherty, 20
June 17 Corporal Sarah Bryant, 26, Corporal Sean Robert Reeve, 28, Lance Corporal Richard Larkin, 39, Private Paul Stout, 31
June 24 Sergeant Major Michael Williams, 40, Private Joe Whittaker, 20
June 27 Warrant Officer Dan Shirley, 32
June 28 Lance Corporal James Johnson, 31
July 22 Corporal Jason Barnes, 25
July 24 Army dog handler Lance Corporal Kenneth Michael Rowe, 24
July 28 Sergeant Jonathan Mathews, 35
July 29 Private Peter Cowton, 25
August 11 Signaller Wayne Bland, 21
August 18 2008 Corporal Barry Dempsey, 29
September 4 Ranger Justin James Cupples, 29
September 10 Warrant Officer Class 2 Gary O’Donnell, 40
September 12 Private Jason Lee Rawstron, 23
September 13 Lance Corporal Nicky Mason, 26
October 15 Trooper James Munday, 21
November 4 Rifleman Yubraj Rai,28
November 12 Marine Robert McKibben, 32, Marine Neil Dunstan, 32
November 15 Colour Sergeant Krishnabahadur Dura, 36
November 24 Marine Alexander Lucas, 24
November 27 Marine Tony Evans, 20, Marine Georgie Sparks, 19
December 12 Lance Corporal Steven ‘Jamie’ Fellows, 26, Sergeant John Manuel, 38, Corporal Marc Birch, 26, Marine Damian Davies, 27
December 15 Lieutenant Aaron Lewis, 26
December 17 Rifleman Stuart Nash, 21
December 21 Corporal Robert Christopher Deering, 33
December 24 Lance Corporal Ben Whatley, 20
December 31 Corporal Liam Elms, 26

January 1 2009 Serjeant Chris Reed, 25
January 11Marine Travis Mackin, 22
January 14 Captain Tom Sawyer, 26, Corporal Danny Winter, 28
January 17 Acting Corporal Richard Robinson, 21
January 30 Corporal Daniel Nield, 31
February 14 Marine Darren Smith, 28
February 16 Lance Corporal Stephen Kingscott, 22
February 25 Acting Lance Corporal Paul Upton, 31, Corporal Tom Gaden, 24, Rifleman Jamie Gunn, 21
February 25 Marine Michael Laski, 21,
March 14 Lance Corporal Christopher Harkett, 22

March 15 Corporal Graeme Stiff, 24, Corporal Dean John, 25
April 28 Lance Sergeant Tobie Fasfous, 29
May 7 Corporal Sean Binnie, 22
May 7 Rifleman Adrian Sheldon, 25
May 7Sergeant Ben Ross, 34, Corporal Kumar Pun, 31
May 12 Lieutenant Mark Evison, 26
May 14 Marine Jason Mackie, 21
May 22 Fusilier Petero ‘Pat’ Suesue, 28
May 23 Sapper Jordan Rossi, 22,
May 27 Lance Corporal Martin Richards, 24
May 28 Lance Corporal Kieron Hill, 20
May 30 Lance Corporal Nigel Moffett, 28, Corporal Stephen Bolger
June 2 Rifleman Cyrus Thatcher, 19
June 11 Private Robert McLaren, 20
June 12 Lieutenant Paul Mervis, 27
June 19 Major Sean Birchall, 33
July 1 Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, 39, Trooper Joshua Hammond, 18
July 4 Lance Corporal David Dennis, 29, Private Robert Laws, 18
July 5 Lance Corporal Dane Elson, 22
July 6 Captain Ben Babington-Browne, 27
July 7 Trooper Christopher Whiteside, 20
July 9 Rifleman Daniel Hume, 22, Private John Brackpool, 27
July 10 Corporal Lee Scott, 26, Corporal Jonathan Horne, 28, Rifleman James Backhouse, 18, Rifleman Joseph Murphy, 18, Rifleman Daniel Simpson, 20, Rifleman William Aldridge, 28
July 16 Rifleman Aminiasi Toge, 26
July 19 Corporal Joseph Etchells, 22
July 20 Captain Daniel Shepherd, 28
July 22 Guardsman Christopher King, 20
July 25 Bombardier Craig Hopson, 24
July 27 Warrant Officer Class 2 Sean Upton, 35
July 27 Trooper Phillip Lawrence, 22
August 4 Craftsman Anthony Lombardi, 21
August 6 Corporal Kevin Mulligan, 26, Lance Corporal Dale Hopkins, 23, and Private Kyle Adams, 21
August 8 Private Jason Williams, 23
August 13 Captain Mark Hale, 42, Rifleman Daniel Wild, 19, Lance Bombardier Matthew Hatton, 23
August 15 Private Richard Hunt, 21, Sergeant Simon Valentine, 29
August 16 Fusilier Simon Annis, 22, Fusilier Louis Carter, 18, Lance Corporal James Fullarton, 24
August 20 Serjeant Paul McAleese, 29, Private Johnathon Young, 18,
August 25 Fusilier Shaun Bush, 24
August 29 Sergeant Lee Houltram,
August 31Sergeant Stuart Millar, 40, Private Kevin Elliott, 24
September 2 Lance Corporal Richard Brandon, 24
September 3 Private Gavin Elliott, 19
September 9 Corporal John Harrison, 29
September 13 Kingsman Jason Dunn-Bridgeman, 20
September 16 Trooper Brett Hall, 21,
September  16 Acting Serjeant Stuart McGrath, 28
September 21 Acting Sergeant Michael Lockett, 29
September 27 Private James Prosser, 21
October 1 Senior Aircraftsman Marcin Wojtak, 24
October 5 Guardsman Jamie Janes, 20
October 8 Lance Corporal James Hill, 23
October 22 Corporal James Oakland, 26
October 25 Corporal Thomas Mason, 27
October 31 Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, 30
November 3 Warrant Officer Class 1 Darren Chant, 40, Sergeant Matthew Telford, 37, Guardsman Jimmy Major, 18, Corporal Steven Boote, 22, Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith, 24
November 5 Serjeant Phillip Scott, 30
November 7 Rifleman Philip Allen, 20
November 8 Rifleman Samuel Bassett, 20
November 15 Rifleman Andrew Fentiman, 23, Corporal Loren Marlton-Thomas, 28
November 18 Sergeant Robert Loughran-Dickson, 33
November 30 Acting Sergeant John Amer, 30
December 7 Lance Corporal Adam Drane, 23
December 15 Lance Corporal David Kirkness, 24, Rifleman James Brown, 18
December 19 Corporal Simon Hornby, 29,
December 20 Lance Corporal Michael Pritchard, 22
December 21 Lance Corporal Christopher Roney, 23
December 22 Lance Corporal Tommy Brown
December 28 Rifleman Aidan Howell, 19,
December 31 Sapper David Michael Watson, 23

January 3 2010 Private Robert Hayes, 19
January 11 Captain Daniel Read, 31
January 15 Corporal Lee Brownson, 30, Rifleman Luke Farmer, 19
January 22 Rifleman Peter Aldridge, 19
January 24 Lance Corporal Daniel Cooper, 22
February 1 Corporal Liam Riley, 21, Lance Corporal Graham Shaw, 27
February 7 Corporal John Moore, 22, Private Sean McDonald, 26
February 8 Warrant Officer Class 2 David Markland, 36
February 11 Lance Corporal Darren Hicks, 29
February 13 Lance Sergeant Dave Greenhalgh, 25
February 14 Rifleman Mark Marshall, 29, Kingsman Sean Dawson, 19
February 15 Sapper Guy Mellors, 20,
February 18 Lieutenant Douglas Dalzell, 27, Lance Sergeant David Walker, 36
February 24 Senior Aircraftman Luke Southgate, 20,
February 25 Rifleman Martin Kinggett, 19
February 26 Sergeant Paul Fox, 34
March 1 Rifleman Carlo Apolis, 28
March 2 Corporal Richard Green, 23
March 5 Rifleman Jonathon Allott, 19
March 6 Rifleman Liam Maughan, 18
March 7 Corporal Stephen Thompson, 31, Lance Corporal Tom Keogh, 24
March 15 Captain Martin Driver, 31
March 16 Lance Corporal Scott Hardy, 26, Private James Grigg, 21
March 22 Serjeant Steven Campbell, 30
March 26 Lance Corporal of Horse Jonathan Woodgate, 27
March 27 Rifleman Daniel Holkham, 19
April 1 Guardsman Michael Sweeney, 19
April 4 Rifleman Mark Turner, 21
April 7 Fusilier Jonathan Burgess, 20
May 2 Corporal Harvey Alex Holmes, 22
May 3 Sapper Daryn Roy, 28, Lance Corporal Barry Buxton, 27
May 9 Corporal Christopher Lewis Harrison, 26
May 21 Corporal Stephen Walker, 42
May 26 Gunner Zack Cusack, 20, Corporal Stephen Curley, 26
May 30 Marine Scott Gregory Taylor, 21
June 1 Marine Anthony Hotine, 21
June 4 Corporal Terry Webster, 24, Lance Corporal Alan Cochran, 23
June 8 Lance Bombardier Mark Chandler, 32
June 9 Private Jonathan Monk, 25
June 12 Lance Corporal Andrew Breeze, 31
June 14 Marine Steven Birdsall, 20
June 15 Corporal Taniela Tolevu Rogoiruwai, 32, Kingsman Ponipate Tagitaginimoce, 29
June 18  Trooper Ashley Smith, 21
June 20 Royal Marine from 40 Commando

One law, or was that Two?

Two young men.

Two different skin colours

Two different manners of death

Two very different outcomes.

Stephen Lawrence, a tall, slim black youth with aspirations to be an architect, lived in Eltham, and was attacked and stabbed by four young white men. He was stabbed to a depth of about five inches on both sides of the front of his body, in the chest and arm. the stab wounds severed several arteries. Although he tried to escape, he collapsed and bled to death. He died near the scene of his attack. No one has yet been successfully prosecuted for his death, plenty have pointed fingers, there have been unsuccessful prosecutions, but so far, no one has paid a legal price for this racist attack.

However, we have so far seen, regarding this young black man:-

• A multi-million pound inquiry into his death, and the police investigation of that death.
• Some half-million pound paid in ‘compensation’ to his parents.
• A £3 million pound memorial centre
• The establishment of a yearly Stephen Lawrence Lecture
• The generation and awarding of an annual Architectural Prize in his memory
• His name as a feature on a memorial website, as well as the website of the memorial trust.
• Many politicians visiting, commenting upon, or otherwise remembering young Stephen.
• Television specials, comment programmes, all exclusively devoted to that death and memory of that death.

Kriss Donald, a slightly built, 15-year-old White schoolboy was abducted from the streets of Pollockshields, Glasgow, on March 14, 2004. His kidnappers were five British Muslims of Pakistani descent, intent on exacting retribution on a white male in revenge for a previous fight, although Kriss was believed to be a stranger to his five attackers. He was taken to an area of waste ground where he was finished off after being tortured. Before he died, it is alleged that he was castrated, burned with cigarettes; his eyes were gouged out and he was stabbed repeatedly. Once on the waste ground he was doused with gasoline and set alight whilst still alive. He crawled a few metres and then, mercifully, died. A walker who discovered his body the following morning was unaware that it was even human, remarking, that at first, he thought it was the carcass of an animal.

The results of the investigation was that three Muslim Asian men, all born in Scotland, are serving minimum sentences of twenty-three years or more for the unprovoked death of this defenceless young man.

We see:-

• No Memorial
• No Building in his memory.
• No politicians, no Prime Minister standing weeping crocodile tears over his grave.
• Hardly any press coverage, and no ‘horrified’ commentaries by the ‘liberal elite’ and Guardian readers.
• No further inquiry into the circumstances of his death.
• No £500,000.00 compensation offered to his grieving parents.

Strange, that disparity in the aftermath of these two deaths; very strange! Wonder why the difference?

Mastermind Blatter happy with final preparations for Operation ‘Rob The Darkies’

‘Fingers’ Blatter, the shadowy head of an international money-making syndicate known as ‘Feefa’, says he is pleased with the final preparations ahead of the start of his latest caper, codenamed Operation “Rob The Gullible Darkies Blind While Convincing Them This Was Their Idea”, also known as the World Cup. “

Forensic investigators suggest that once the month-long heist is complete, Blatter and his international gang will have made off with around $2-billion in profit, while its victims – the South African taxpayer – will be around $1-billion poorer.

“It’s a brilliant scheme,” explained lead investigator Papertrail Nyanda.

“South Africa spends about $4-billion, of which it will recoup about $2.7-billion. Either way, Fingers and his gang walk away with their two billion.

“In other words, the South African government is suckered into burning $1.3 billion it doesn’t have to create a massive smokescreen behind which Fingers and the lads make their getaway.

“It’s money for nothing and the chicks for free.”

Meanwhile Blatter confirmed that Operation “Rob The Gullible Darkies Blind While Convincing Them This Was Their Idea” was on track for a smooth execution later this week.

“The amazing thing is that they still don’t suspect anything,” he chortled, tossing chocolate raisins to his iguana, Danny Jordaan.

“They think it’s about football, the poor bumpkins!”

He said none of the expected hitches had occurred.

“We weren’t sure how we were going to get the loot out of the country undetected,” he said. “But then they changed the laws of the Republic and made my guys exempt from tax laws and exchange controls.

“Short of actually being accomplices they couldn’t have been nicer.”

Meanwhile the government is adamant that hosting the World Cup was the right thing to do, despite half the country being unemployed and a third living in abject poverty.

“Yes, we could have used that R40-billion to build 700,000 RDP houses,” said spokesman Circus Maximus Magubane.

“But if we had done that then Wayne Rooney would never have come here and actually touched us.

“I am never washing my hand again, ever.”

Meanwhile five million South Africans have also confirmed that they will not be washing their hands again, ever, largely because they do not have access to clean running water.

All the best

The usual run of newspaper stories present few instances of journalistic humour, but I thought that the Daily Mail story about Cabinet Minister Chris Huhne, his bisexual lover and his rejected wife hit the nail..

The story, mainly about the hugely exorbitant expenses claimed by M.P.s,  ran:-

“In the week Chris Huhne left his wife for a younger woman, his expenses reveal he claimed money for servicing an old boiler.

The bill for £1,500 was for general household maintenance and was dated 7 April 2009.

That was a year after he started an affair with his 44-year-old bisexual press officer Carina Trimingham and  just over a year before this week’s announcement that the Energy Secretary was leaving his 57-year-old wife Vicky Pryce.”

I don’t think a woman aged 47 qualifies for the term ‘old’!

The camera never lies!

This Telegraph Magazine photo is multi-faceted.

It shows the sacrifice of an ordinary British squaddie as his comrades prepare to send his remains home for burial.

It also shows the blank denial of the British and American Governments to accept that they are fighting the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

It shows that we, as nations led by politicians with their own hidden passages and scenarios, have not learned one lesson from history both recent and past.

Our Service personnel, as well as Americans and those from many other nations, have become embroiled in the affairs of Afghanistan for the one right reason, and many wrong ones. We, under the N.A.T.O.  umbrella, attacked the Taliban-controlled Government after it was determined that they had sheltered the 9/11 terror squads, but forgot that Afghanistan has always been a place where wise men never stayed, because they would be gripped as though by quicksands.

We should get out, as quickly as possible, and the only monument to our disastrous stay should be a massive painting, similar to that pictured below; sited in the Millenium Dome where it would be seen by all the pleasure-seekers, as a reminder that the Dome was only a financial disaster, but Afghanistan has been much, much more!

I Was Afraid For My Life, Guv’nor.

As is so often the case, the crude and unlawful antics of their own are covered over and whisked under the carpet by the very people who are supposed to protect the public against police brutality.

Sergeant Delroy Smellie bashed a five-foot four inch tall young woman who was shouting at him during the G20 demonstrations in London. The six-foot four-inch tall policeman then hit her twice across the leg with an expanding club, leaving her bruised and bleeding.

The confrontation was filmed and posted on YouTube. If the video is studied, it can clearly be seen that this huge man, who dwarfs his tiny opponent, backhanded her across the face, then stepped back, deliberately drew his baton and really clobbered this small woman across the leg twice.

He has been cleared of all charges by the Independent Police Complaints Commission after being cleared of common assault in March.

I just wonder what actions would need to be taken by this monstrous clown before he is arrested and convicted of any sort of assault.

And Peace Reigned Over Jerusalem!

And it came to pass that the Roman Authorities had placed statues and likenesses of their gods in and around the Temple. The priests and the pharisees, helped and aided by a Roman sympathiser named Publius Romanus Opaganda, had previously decided to protest against the imposition of excessive taxation on all the citizenry by the Romans. They claimed that the taxes all went to the building of the homes for the senior Romans in the city, and none was spent upon the public good, for they were all law-abiding, and paid their taxes dutifully if unwillingly. So when the priests and pharisees heard of the placing of the images around the Temple, they were justly infuriated, and spoke to their ‘community leaders’ and especially to two of those leaders, one bearded and stern of visage, the other smiling and grinning; and popular with his followers.

So the two leaders spoke together, and decided that they would call on the citizenry to march, in an entirely peaceful and lawful manner, to a field where they all might listen to the pharisees as their religious leaders would speak not only of their lawful duty to pay the taxes as required, but to look forward to a time when such taxes would be collected by their own people, for spending upon those same people in good public works, as well as proportionate tithes to the Temple. They decided that the placing of images around the Temple was indeed an insult to all the people of the city, and therefore the protests should be inclusive of both speeches against the taxes, and also the images.

Now some of the younger, more headstrong of the followers of the two leaders planned to hurl stones covered in dye at the Roman soldiers, but the smiling leader, himself a follower of peace and love, reproved them stating that this protest would indeed be peaceful, because of the advice of their Roman sympathiser P.R. Opaganda which said that if they broke no laws, all would be seen by the Romans as within the law, and no harm would come to any.

So the young, the old and the majority of the city dwellers commenced their march down towards the field where they planned to make their speeches. But lo, the Romans were active in the city before they had marched very far, and as the leaders of the march, who strangely had not seen the two ‘community leaders’ for some time, came up to a cross-road in the winding streets of the city, were stopped by a Roman centurion, complete with an armed cohort, who threatened them if they advanced, because their march was viewed by the Romans as illegal.

The protesters conferred amongst themselves, and indeed, because they were all both peace-loving as well as law-abiding citizenry, decided to tell their marchers, many carrying the palm fronds of peace, all of whom were singing and laughing because they knew that their cause was just, that the march should indeed be abandoned, and they should return in a quiet and law-abiding manner to their homes.

But then, onlookers state,  the Roman centurion drew his own ‘gladius’ or short sword for no apparent reason, and motioned to the cohort archers, who had remained at the rear of their column, to flex their bows and fire their arrows at deadly close range, into the crowd of protesters. Others state that the protesters themselves fired arrows from hidden positions, which caused the centurion to reeact as he di

Yea, the carnage was dreadful, with thirteen dying or dead in a short space of time, and with many more injured. One of the dying was indeed carried by his friends towards safety whilst a pharisee waved a white cloth in the hope that the Romans would spare all their lives, and the centurion saw what he had done, and stayed the archers from further destruction and killing.

When the mothers and families of those who had died came to remonstrate with the two ‘community leaders’ who had promised that there would be no violence if none was offered, they were rudely rebuffed by the two ‘leaders’. The smiling one said firmly. ‘Yea, though your foolish children and husbands are now dead because you trusted us, you will be remembered far into the future, and liberation will draw nearer because the Romans will tire of their rule over us, and once free, we shall choose the people who will speak to a Roman judge, and he shall indeed write a scroll which shall utterly condemn not only the foolish centurion and the archers, but also Pilate, the Romans and even Ceaesar himself, because we shall indeed overcome their truth with our own truth!

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it….” Attributed to Josef Goebbels.

The Saville Inquiry is published today.

X-posted from A Tangled Web

In This, The Best Of All Possible Worlds.

I note that the Scots are once more in the headlines, and as usual it is because the Scots ‘lifestyle’ has been placed under the spotlight. According to a study released, or rather squeezed out today, it has been found that 97.5% of the Scots are likely to be either cigarette smokers, heavy drinkers, fat, have a bad diet, and never do any exercise. The researchers on the study went on to warn that the problems could be even worse as the study was based on self-reported answers, which notoriously underestimate actual consumption.

So, in spite of the funding base for NHS Scotland, which allows a 16% higher than English staff ratio, and up to £267 per person spend north of the Border, we see a disparity in health standards which consistently show that the Scots are not taking a blind bit of notice of all the health warnings passed down by their favourite Political party.

But it is not all bad news, because as far as I am concerned we as British should be helping the shower North of the Border to continue with their excessively-heavy drinking habits, encouraging them to eat more deep-fried Mars bars with supersaturated fat-laden chips as a main course, after starters of at least five cans of ‘heavy’ and a couple of haggis. You may well ask why I am applauding them in their national suicidal tendencies?

Simples. As the English, who are the main generators of whatever wealth there remains in this Labour-plundered country of ours, have been forced to subsidise the Scots ‘lifestyle’ by the application of the Barnett formula which doles out totally ridiculous amounts of cash to the Scots in proportion to the actual numbers of Scots who inhabit the self-manufactured slums of Scotland, I feel that in due time, the Scots will actually die out on a totally natural if speedy basis, and we shall reap the benefits.

We will not have to listen to the whining tones of Alex Salmond as he tries to wheedle even more of our hard-earned cash for his favourite programmes, such as the ‘Scots language’ for all the two hundred and twenty-three people who actually converse in that dead language. We won’t have to subsidise the ‘free’ tuition for Scots University students, as there will not be any. We won’t have to listen as the screeching calls for ‘Scots wha’ hae and Independence’ ring through their hideously-expensive parliament building, as there will not be any need to open up the building, as they will all hopefully have died off!

We will of course have to import some qualified people to help make whisky, which is possibly the last item remaining in the once-proud Scots manufacturing base; we could probably get volunteers from Northern Ireland to wander back across, and pick up some of the pieces.

It will be lovely and quiet, north of the Border!

Latest Pix

The U.S.A.F. were extremely lucky to catch this photograph of President Obama’s latest promise on sealing the oil leak in the Gulf, as it left his lips.

Two Plus Three Minus Four = Ermmmm?

Economics is not the easiest of subjects to tackle, but with the help of published statistics, even a novice such as I can get to grips with some of the basics.

Mr. Micawber, or rather Charles Dickens, his creator, wasn’t daft.

As Mister Micawber stated “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

If you, or your country can balance the books, it means that you and your fellow citizens are living within their collective means. So when the new ConDom government states we should all prepare for austerity, I thought that I would lend a hand, in a simplistic way of course.

By trawling through the published statistics regarding the plethora of QUANGOs, or Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations, easily available on line, I was able, over the space of about half-an-hour to isolate some £42.9 billion pounds worth of expenditure, as listed in 2007, from these wholly-unaccountable bodies which could easily be saved by the abolition of the majority if not most of these ‘public service bodies’. I haven’t pinned the spreadsheet upon this post as I don’t know how to do that.

Most if not all of these bodies are staffed at the top by friends, fellow-travellers or buddies of the government in power at the time, with very few people who actually know what needs to be done in charge at any time.

Do we really need the so-called services of CapacityBuilders UK Ltd. which exists, at a cost of £34 million, allegedly to ‘invest in improving the quality of support and advice available to charities, voluntary and community groups and social enterprises’? Is it so vital to fund the Sianel Pedwar Cymra (S4C) – Welsh Fourth Channel Authority at a cost of £92 million in 2006? Would the Covent Gardening Marketing Authority be missed, especially at a cost of nearly £13 million in 2007 alone?

Some would state that the bodies which are funded so lavishly are there because they enrich our life, but the argument then arises as to what consists or comprises enrichment? Take the funding by the Big Lottery Fund for example. I applaud the use of £163,000 for Kidney Research, but would strongly query the allocation of £498,000 for the UK Coalition against Poverty. This outfit seems to be a lot of people who claim to know or want to know all about ‘Poverty’, and how to capitalise on that strange state. I question why one Pound should be spent by this bunch of free-loaders, especially as it is based in the ‘Poverty’ capital, Liverpool!

Saving the British from the fate of the Greeks won’t be simple, won’t be easy, but it should be done. Our tax money was hard-earned; and should not be squandered on socialistic clap-trap. Because, apart from throwing a mountain of cash at Northern Rock, along with the two or three other banks which thought they really ruled the world, that is where a great deal of our money is heading. If it isn’t being given to befriend Muslim fanatics, it’s been thrown away on thousands of other ‘really useful’ projects!

X-posted from A Tangled Web

Not Forgotten!

In War, Resolution: In Victory, Magnanimity; In Peace, Good Will

These word from Winston Churchill, spell out all that is honourable and right about the way that Western Democracies faced up to tyranny, injustice and terror.

It was on the morning of the 6^th of June that the greatest armada the world had ever conceived hit the beaches of Normandy; when General Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the Allied forces against the much-vaunted ‘Atlantic Wall’ erected by Nazi Germany. The British & Canadians swarmed ashore on Gold, Juno and Sword beaches, a concept dismissed by Adolf Hitler as ridiculous, as the Allies would be travelling nearly one hundred miles, when they could easily attempt to force landings at Calais, a much shorter distance. The American contingent hit Utah and Omaha beaches, in line with the British invaders, but sorely tried and nearly decimated at Omaha by a strong German defence network which was undamaged despite the bombing and shelling from the naval guns. The rescue from a near-defeat at Omaha was achieved with the arrival of American Rangers who broke through the defences which had bogged down the earlier forces who had slogged across nearly three hundred yards of open sand under accurate machine-gun fire and point-blank shelling.

Some 305 days later, the formal surrender of Germany was signed by Admiral Karl Doenitz as Reichsprasident, Hitler having earlier committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin.

My Uncle Pete, who died during the second day of the invasion, is remembered in a tiny cemetery in the village of Bonnebosq where his mortal remains lie alongside a German pilot, shot down around the same time as my uncle died.

I believe that his sacrifice, along with the thousands of other Servicemen, was in the service of a just cause, and those deaths have not been squandered.

No, Elizabeth, this is a massacre!

We are given an insight into the thought process of a staff reporter while she writes about the deaths in Cumbria.

Yes, twelve dead is twelve too many, twelve deaths is a terrible intrusion into the quiet rolling fields, streams and villages of this once peaceful corner of England, but massacre it is not!

Even the fifty-two dead of the 7th July bombings doesn’t really qualify for that emotive title, as the perpetrators hoped for a great many more, and had to settle for fifty-two, plus of course their own miserable lives.

Do the rifle and shotgun blasts which heralded the crazed methodical slaughter of twelve human beings, most of whom probably did not even know that Derrick Bird existed, never mind that he was angry enough to kill, signal a massacre?

The hyperbole which is routinely trotted out when random savagery explodes across our screen and pages does a great disservice to the journalistic code by which all are supposed to abide.

No, Elizabeth, the names of Whitehaven, Boot and Seascale should not be scribed within the annals of true massacres, because massacre means planning; massacre means cold calculation, massacre is spelled out in names such as Oradour-Sur-Glanes,

or Lidice;

not Egremont.

Bring out your Dead

Remember when it was foretold that all was lost, and thousands would die from a modern-day Plague? We were advised by the ‘Experts’ that the Swine Flu virus would decimate the young, the old, pregnant mothers and ‘the vulnerable’. If you translated the last category into its correct term, which of course is ‘gullible’, you might be on the track to learning why the vast waste of public money. All those adverts and fliers, all that radio and television time bought to spread the word, it was all a big scam. Needless to say, there were only a few statements put about by people such as myself, David and other ATW writer sceptics to fight the avalanche of doom which was foretold by the Court Jesters such as Liam Donaldson whose very position depended on him repeating the words “We are all doomed” several times during any interview.

Professor Fred Hayden wrote the definitive brief on Antivirals, and together with Dr Arnold Monto was the author of the WHO annex dealing with vaccine usage in pandemics, Professor Karl Nicholson, is credited with the WHO’s influential work on Pandemic Influenza. The three scientists who authored the World Health Organisation’s guidance on the possibility of Pandemic were all either paid or closely allied with various huge pharmaceutical companies. No-one bothered to check if there was any possibility of conflicts of interest between the scientists, and the possibility of their work influencing the huge profits made by Roche, Glaxo and others. No ‘conflict of Interest’ statements were filed at the time of the Guidance publication, despite all three scientists having either received money, or further research work, from the Pharmacy giants.

Responding to warnings that 350 people could die every day in Britain, it is understood that 33 million courses of Tamiflu were purchased. Most of those remain unused. At the same time, between 90 million and 120 million doses of the vaccine were stockpiled. (It was initially believed that two jabs would be needed to provide protection something that was subsequently disproved.)

In other words, the amount of Tamiflu doled out and the amount of vaccines administered is dwarfed by the amount that stands unused. As a result, the Government is now desperately trying to renegotiate orders with suppliers, or to sell it cheap to Third World countries, and so recoup some of the money spent.

That means that more than 800,000 of the one million-plus packets of Tamiflu which cost around £15 each were given out needlessly. This practice was made even worse by the recruitment of numbers of untrained jobless students to man call-centres, and give medical advice over the phone to worried callers responding to the stupid Government adverts.

Further, doubt has also been cast onto the effectiveness of the Tamiflu anti-virals in treating the H1N1 virus.

And some wonder why we have that huge Deficit!

And We Do Remember Them

The Beeb is running two sets of the same type of programmes on air these days, one is named ‘A History of the World in One Hundred Objects’, the other is called ‘Seven Ages of Britain’. Watched a piece of ‘Objects’, and decided it was not for me, but enjoyed ‘Ages‘. Possibly the presenter, possibly the direction; anyway, you, as always, takes your pick. I was turning the images from both programmes past my mind, and wondered which Web page or Site has influenced my thinking or stuck fast in my memory, of all the pages which I have scanned, since I first became computer literate. Obviously, I could discount the sites visited most frequently, the News sites, the newspapers and online publications, most of the blogs, save A.T.W. and my own small efforts, the business sites such as banking, insurance etc,, as all we want from those is efficiency, and so I fastened upon a page which has remained fastened in my memory, authored by an American named Wally Hoffman.

His story is at once both simple, and extremely complex. He was a tail-gunner in a Boeing B-17 bomber, based at Polebrook airbase, Northamptonshire. On October 14^th 1943, 340 of the big bombers, from bases all over the East of England, rose into the sky with the trademark hammering noise of the Wright Cyclone engines blasting at the ground as the waves of heavy aircraft swept across the fields and streams, gaining height towards an operational altitude of 30,000 feet. The formations headed towards Schweinfurt, a city in which was based over two-thirds of all the factories furnishing high-precision ball-bearings for the Nazi war machine. The formations, scarred, blood-soaked, many semi-crippled returned to their bases some ten hours later. Wally’s bomber landed, then as the tail-wheel contacted the runway, it, along with the whole tail structure, broke away from the main fuselage, as it was held on now only by cables and the skin of that legendarily-tough aircraft. I urge you to read the words which give some idea of the hell which those men and boys flew through while completing their missions.

Thirty-odd thousand of Wally’s compatriots died in those long-past years of my childhood, as they fought their aircraft through the flak, the fighters, the cannon-shells and bullets which came against them. Their heroism is acclaimed here in this strangely-touching memorial at Duxford, but no mere building, statue or plaque can give a true record of the debt which we owe to those brave boys who went forward, never to return.

After I read his page a few years back, I contacted Wally, and we exchanged files of our writings; I received a two-page piece of another flight, literally to hell and back, and Wally was kind enough to comment upon a short novel I had written based around the B-17, and war in the skies. I wrote again some months later, and found that Wally had died, time had come around for that warrior who had cheated death in the clouds of war!