Two faces, one smile, one smirk

As a corporate member of the Grandfather club, I can state that the items I treasure the highest are the sights of the smiles on the faces of my two grandsons. Some of Grandson#1’s smiles come by digital photos, some from real life with Grandson#2, in my home or in his, but by either package, they show an innocent delight in life, they are the very definition of love both given and received. The wearers of those smiles are the very definition of Family, of what life is all about; and they are and should be defended against harm, against evil and against neglect.

Consider the smile, and the short, tortured life of tiny Baby Peter Connelly. Consider the abbreviated list of his injuries, which included:

Eight broken ribs
Snapped spine
Missing fingertips
Missing finger nails and toe nails
Bite marks
Ulcerated infected wounds to his scalp (probably from infected bites)
Bruises all over his body
Injuries to the inside of his mouth
His left earlobe had been torn,

and then consider that his life span was over after seventeen months. It is small wonder that so few photos of little Peter exist, and only one which shows that small defenceless child smiling!

 

And then consider, if you will, the smirk on the face of Sharon Shoesmith. Whilst not guilty of the torture and murder of that tiny child, she is deeply complicit in his death, because the post she held was specifically created to help counter and remove any possibility of a repeat of the circumstances leading to the death of Victoria Climbiè. In one of the very, very few actions of the Labour Government and its Cabinet Officers of which I approved; Ed Balls, Schools Secretary fired Sharon Shoesmith after the publication of a report into Haringey Social Services actions regarding Peter Connelly’s death. And after a High Court battle which she lost, an Appeal Court action has stated that she was unlawfully dismissed. So if the Government and Haringey lose an appeal to the Supreme Court, she walks free, still smirking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a great pity that little Peter never got the chance to smile properly, but there again, he probably wouldn’t know about clever people like Q.C.s, and lawyers, and Judges who frequently smile all the way to the bank!

 

Snake-oil Salesman wins lottery!

The words were spoken…………. and the sonorous tones once more were heard………………… and the regulation pauses in the speech were made to enhance the delivery….. …………………..but although the auto-cue worked perfectly, and everyone got a mention, and even the Court Jester looked suitably star-struck……………………………….the Speech somehow failed to take off.

Obama’s first, and possibly only attempt at humour, mentioning the Pope, Mandela and Her Majesty as his predecessors got the regulation laugh, and applause; but the rest of his performance, if he could have been transported to the Late-night Comedy circuit, would have ensured that he got paid for his evening’s work, but doubt if the management would have invited him back for a repeat performance.

Wnen Obama’s speechwriter was hired, he talked of how he simply shaped the thoughts and theories of the President into speech, and how to bring his thoughts into words and actions. It is a great pity that Obama’s mentors weren’t mentioned in any of his speeches. Mentors such as the rabble-rousing Reverend Jeremiah White, he of the ‘ blacks should not sing “God Bless America” but “God damn America.” ‘ and other White American-friendly observations. It should be noted that although President Obama stated the Reverend White was ‘like an old uncle who says things I don’t always agree with’, it is a fact that the Reverend married Michelle and Barack, baptised their two children, and is even credited with the title of Obama’s book, ‘The Audacity of Hope’. Mentors such as  Gregory Galluzzo – a former Jesuit priest, now married and Executive Director of the Gamaliel community organizing network, who was quoted “‘We are really cowards for not wanting power,’ because ‘power is good’ and ‘powerlessness is evil.’ Not included within the Westminster speech were any observations on how he came to be attending any church in the first place.

Yes, the obligatory references were made to our common heritage, but as English, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish we already know how important Runnymede was, but perhaps more might have been made of the only truly loud noise ever welcomed by British people.

But Obama’s greatest mistake within his speech was contained within the passage which discussed, or at least made reference to, Islamic terrorism. He claimed that the West was at war with al-Quaeda, but stated that the West will never be at war with Islam. Whether this belief, this statement comes from his upbringing, or his political conversion, or is simply a piece of rhetoric to cover his mistakes, he cannot be seriously expecting men and women of intelligence and gravitas not to accept that the core of Islam, the very ideal of Muslim thought, is the installation of a world-wide Caliphate, with everyone subservient to Islamic ideals, or dead!

X-posted from A Tangled Web

Injunctions R’ Us presents another ‘Exclusive’!

The heading usually means that no-one else could be bothered to print it; but this time it is different!

I can reveal that the paranoid Russian idiot Romantic Wozzabrimovich is the proud possessor of his very own Super-Injunction, which tries to stop everyone from confirming that he is a paranoid, football-crazed idiot with delusions of grandeur.

After splashing out humoungous amounts of cash, and getting himself a warning letter from his bank-manager that he has to be careful, as he is down to only four super-yachts and a very, very, very expensive replacement wife; with only a few hundreds of millions of the money left which he previously stole from the old USSR; he watched in raw anger as his football team, recently-renamed ‘NotShellsea United’ so as to distinguish them from all the other foreign-owned Premier league football clubs, lost any chance of winning anything this year at all.

His week-end was further ruined with the arrival of an e-mail from one of his team’s former managers, whose name rhymes with ‘Sardinho’, with the message asking, “Miss me lots already?”

The senior Judge complied with the request from the team of six-hundred and ninety-two lawyers, and issued the Hyper-Super-Extra Injunction, which ensures that no-one will be allowed to know it exists, even Romantic himself and especially his very, very, very expensive wife, as she was planning to go shopping on Sunday and buy New Bond Street!

A reminder of what truly is ‘important’

…and what we should be remembering!

Er, well, h.m.mm.m.m, yes, but……

It is almost impossible to establish exactly how much damage the Blair-Brown Labour Cabal has inflicted upon this once-lightly regulated and controlled Society of ours.  From the avalanche in Immigration to the explosion in Regulatory activities, much imported, it is true, from Brussels but just as eagerly embraced by ‘New Labour’, the rise in ‘red tape’, in form-filling, box-ticking and insistence on the ‘fairness’ of things, we see every day the result. We see the Judges doing their own thing, because, as they quite rightly point out, ‘the politicians brought these Laws into existence, and we are only doing our job by interpreting them as we see fit’.

I am reminded of only one basic law when I see the changes wrought by the dead hand of ‘New Labour’; and that is the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Take, if you will, the subject of Waste, and how it is controlled, marshalled, treated, dispersed and managed. Now when I talk of Waste matter, I am writing about household rubbish, human waste in Sewers, industrial and commercial refuse, Waste dumps, waste treatment works, incinerators. I am talking about large amounts of money paid to contractors to handle ‘recyclable material’ to aid our ‘Carbon Footprint’ (whatever illusory idea that might be), I am talking about huge investments, ammounting to millions of pounds, in Sewage Treatment processes which can handle the waste products of a modern industrial city and rural areas, along with all its varied inhabitants. I am also talking about processes so dangerous that access to certain areas of work that multiple permits are needed to control access, because of the sheer dangers within those areas. I am talking of people working in areas where full rubber-suit plus breathing apparatus is essential, because the effluent resultant upon the mixing of certain materials is so toxic that to even breathe the vapours produced would be to ensure Death within five seconds; and I do not exaggerate!

So when I talk of the Law of Unintended Consequences, can somebody explain how the collection, treatment and disposal of the tons and huge containers full of various types of Waste material would be better arranged by the conclusions of an Equality Impact Assessment, as listed at 1.11, which of course possibly determines that all people are treated Equally when it comes to shoving their rubbish in a wheelie-bin?

As Enoch said; ‘We must be mad!’

I have many reasons to be annoyed with the Tory Party, as well as their cohorts the Lib-Dems, and the heaviest reason is that they still cling to the foreign ideals, the totally objectionable ideals brought into Britain by the Labour party when in power. I am writing, of course, about the totally-illiberal actions which have been brought about as a direct result of the importation of Human Rights legislation, the short-cuts to access to the European Court of Human Rights, and the glazed fascination given that repulsive legislation by out own Judges and Law Lords.

We see armed hi-jackers from Afghanistan not only welcomed into Britain, but allowed to stay, along with their festering families. We read of a ‘totally bogus Asylum seeker’ who killed a girl by literally driving over her being allowed to stay in Britain because he has ‘family ties’ with some slapper who he probably pushed up against the back of a toilet wall to procreate his ‘family’.

And now we read of a terrorist, extradited from Britain after a long and drawn-out trial, and sent to Italy. There he receives a slap on the wrist for posession of a ‘bogus’ document, and is allowed to walk free. He goes to Switzerland, but the Swiss, being shrewd, kick him out to where? Where else but Britain. The Home Office tries to send him back to the Swiss, but the bloody judges say he can stay. The Home Office, having identified and deported him once before, is now not allowed to kick the murderous son-of-a-sow back to Tunisia, because he might be tortured.

I don’t know if the name of the ‘asylum seeker’ is Habib Ignaoua, Mohamed Khemiri  or Ali Chehidi, who were all previously deported to Italy but if you live in Manchester, this scum is now once again free to spread his filth around your area, because British Judges aren’t concerned with your rights, they are concerned with a terrorist’s rights.

The Watchmen are riding out!

A few days ago, if I was asked if I had heard of a man named Ryan Giggs, my answer would probably have been, “Erm, he’s something to do with sports, probably football,” and that would have been it. My total lack of interest in sport, sporting ‘personalities’ and anything to do with the whole business of ‘gossip’ has insulated me from such people for a long time, and I feel the better for it.

But suddenly, because this creature of low morals has tried to keep his sordid sexual life out of the public gaze, we are all reading about him, his marriage and his alleged seven-month affair with some slapper from Big Brother.  The fact that he denies these events is fair enough, but when he gets a high-powered law firm to shower injunctions against the very mention of his name shows how stupid is the track he has chosen.

Has he or his lawyers never heard of the Streisand Effect? Barbara wanted a photo of her beachfront mansion removed from a database, on the grounds that her privacy was being invaded. As a direct result of her legal action, which she lost; 420,000 people visited the low-profile site to view the photo! It is a good thing to remember Denis Healey’s First Law of Holes; if you find yourself in one, stop digging!

If Americans can read about the allegations regarding Ryan Giggs, but we are to be ‘protected’ from such stories, the last thing in the world I feel is being protected. What I feel is a great sense of injustice, and as I wrote before, the last time we were denied knowledge of those who are deemed ‘more important’ than others, we eventually saw the Abdication of Edward the Eighth.

Frankly, I couldn’t care less if Ryan Giggs has, or has not, been breaking his marital vows with some slapper or other, but I do care passionately about the right of everyone to write or comment on, these events. If he hasn’t been doing these things, and it can be proven in court that I maliciously wrote so, fair enough; but if I am denied that right to write in the first place, that is wrong on so many levels.  I do care very much about my right as an Englishman to write what I like, when I like, and about whom I choose to write about.

The noble or rather the slightly-less-than-noble Lords have gone one step too far, in my own opinion, by uttering warnings that newspapers or any other publisher should be restrained from publishing or commenting upon matters which are discussed in Parliament, especially if those matters are also the subject of ‘injunctions’ issued by their Lordships. They have no right to censor Parliament, and it is indeed a chilling spectacle when they attempt to do so!

If I write that Lakshi Mittal has done something, or is covering something up, which he either disputes or does not want known about, he has, besides all the money in the world the legal right to take me to court and have me found guilty of libel; but I do not believe he should be protected against the very publication of the fact that he has gained an injunction. That way lies only one thing, Fascism, the Rule of a Dictator, and the abolition of our right to Free Speech, and it should be argued against on every blog, newspaper, pub and street corner around this Nation.

Abide with me.

Reading the story of the dead new-born baby found at a waste dump in Yorkshire raised one of the saddest memories ever in my consciousness.

I was overseeing a project at a Sewage Treatment plant in a South African town named Springs. The works served a typical South African layout, with the main town centre drains collecting, as they ran down the very low gradient, effluent flows from all the dormitory suburbs occupied by the white population, as well as the far larger township areas where the Black population lived.

In order to treat all the human waste in the sewer networks at the entrance to the works without having all the machinery regularly clogged up, a screen which trapped and removed all large solid and water-logged mass works day and night. As the sewage runs over the moving bars, anything which cannot pass between the steel is removed, lifted up and scraped away to a central tipping point.

One morning I was checking work near the Intake screens, and noticed a small grassed area set apart from the main works area by a small fence, about nine inches in height. The area was about five yards by two, and inside there sat fourteen small crosses, all carved from a dark wood. Each cross had a tiny wreath set before it. I asked the works manager what the crosses represented, and he sent me across to the Black works sub-foreman.

He told me that each cross commemorated the last resting place of a foetus which had arrived via the sewage network, and had been picked up by the rotating screens. The manager had contacted a vicar from an Afrikaans church, and he had travelled down and consecrated the tiny graveyard.

One can only imagine the differing thoughts, dreams hopes and fears which were ended as those tiny souls were left to find their own path through a watery network of pipes and canals to end in the only place where they could find rest and welcome.

French rumours…..

We learn through a series of leaks and very, very late accusations, that the former head of the I.M.F. was a serial sexual predator. The grime now leaking out of the  mouldy woodwork does not, however, come via the French media, it comes from the former victims of this man who should never have been let loose on civilised society, never mind a top post at an internation financial institution. We also learn that he was given a ‘reprimand’ after the discovery of an affair with a Hungarian IMF employee, and that he apologised to the IMF employees and his wife. A ‘Reprimand’, my word, how he must have worried!

The same type of person does well in France, such as ex-President Mitterand, with both financial and sexual scandals kept well hushed up. The fact that the present holder of the Presidency had a torrid affair with ex-President Chirac’s daughter has never been written about or discussed in France, despite its well-known veracity.  The lists of sexual shenanigans of the ‘Elite’ of the French Republic would fill a fair sized book, and still leave plenty for the magazines to gorge over, if they were ever allowed to publish; but you will never ever see the truth of the crimes and liaisons of that same Elite, because the French have a law which says ‘Private Life….No publication’. Flat and firm.

I wrote previously on ‘secrecy’ and other problems on ATW, and quoted from the Blogger Guido Fawkes, during his interview with Adam Bolton on Sky TV. Max Mosley, outed by the News of the World as a sado-masochist, tried to get the French version of their Privacy Law on to the British Statute books by the back door. but fortunately failed. But his ideals, of being able to do exactly what he liked, which was to be able to organise sado-masochistic orgies whilst appearing as an ‘Establishment man’, are steadily being imported by the European Union’s apparatchiks, our own Judges, who dole out ‘injunctions’ and ‘super-injunctions’ seemingly with the morning milk delivery.

We still have the ultimate protection of ‘Parliamentary Privilege’, whereby a brave MP can stand and say anything he wishes, and cannot suffer punishment, but even that protection is under threat by a complaisant Speaker, the poison-dwarf himself, John Bercow. Bercow, a Labour choice, was elevated by his fellow MPs despite the voices of the Opposition, which were conveniently ‘unheard’ by the House Leader, is nothing more than a Socialist lick-spittle, and the sooner the Tories find their long-lost courage and kick him off the Chair, the better it will be for British Democracy.

What I am waiting for is the likes of John Hemmings to stand up and, one by one, list all the injunctions of which he knows, and then we, the people, will decide whether they were important, or deserving of a court-induced secrecy for ‘family’ reasons, including the incredible ‘his children might be bullied at school if the story was repeated’. As Paul Staines said of the Max Mosley story, ‘If you don’t want to feature on the front page, don’t pay hookers to shove dildos up your bum!’

World Exclusive!!

British involvement in French plot to de-stabilise International Monetary Fund is unveiled! This writer can reveal, through extraordinary contacts based in Swindon and Hounslow, that the rape charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn are in fact part of an extraordinary plot by the One World Government for the ruin of the EuroZone project, and the collapse of Greece, Portugal and Ireland into ruined debtor nation-status.

Extraordinary make-up techniques, services of the voice coach who helped Kate Middleton speak so clearly and without hesitation when making her wedding vows, and laser-based technology were all pressed into the plot which transformed a burly, greying, one-eyed Scottish ex-politician into a diminutive Puerto Rican hotel employee who rushed into the bathroom of the IMF’s head man, screamed and rushed out after grabbing the Frenchman’s wig which was lying on the dresser while the man took a shower!

New York policemen were completely taken in by ‘Wee Gordon McBroon’ as she (he) stood, dressed in the fetching standard hotel uniform, tearfully complaining about the strange naked man who rushed after her (him) as she (he) had been going about her (his) job of straightening dirty sheets before re-making the bed as is standard practice in hotels all around the world. Upon receipt of the allegations, the financial leader was taken off the Airbus 380 he had boarded at a run, and arrested.

The actual leader of the plot, President Sarkozy, smiled broadly whilst denying any involvement whatsoever in the downfall of his chief rival for the forthcoming elections!

Solomon, are you nearby?

Two stories, victims galore, two very different viewpoints, a whole host of opinions!

The first concerns an Iranian woman who refused to marry a man who claimed to love her. Spurred by her refusals, he threw acid into her face and eyes; disfiguring, scarring and blinding her. Under Iranian Law, this lady has the ability to have her attacker blinded in exactly the same fashion as she was blinded. She has stated that she wishes to pour the acid in to his eyes, under the Retributive Justice law. Would you; or do you agree with the British Government that this barbaric practice should be stopped?

Case Two is that of the decision announced by Downing Street that the kidnapping of Madeleine McCann would be given priority for a new approach and investigation by the Metropolitan Police. A Green Party member of the Metropolitan Police Authority has stated that money is tight, cash has been allocated for this year already in straightened times, and no politician should interfere with the operational decisions of the Met. Should the Prime Minister be able to get a high-profile criminal case, all of which happened in Portugal, reviewed and re-investigated by British police after a discussion with the media-savvy parents of the missing child?

Obviously, I have my own opinions, especially on the blinding of the Iranian as retribution, but I wondered if there were strong feelings either way within the wider ATW community?

Coming soon to a street near you…

Reading, as I do, blogs,  online newspapers, comment columns and opinion pieces from the world over; I really feel that this 24/7/365 world has hardly been explored, and sometimes I just wish that I hadn’t picked up that piece of information, but instead let it lie in the gutter from whence it came.

I recently had the wonderful  experience of re-visiting one of the all-time great television series, produced in America by the PBS; namely ‘I’ll Fly Away’, starring Regina Taylor and a youngish Sam Waterston. I acquired the full series, and have played it, and enjoyed every minute.

It was that very rare item, an American Story made with integrity about two families, one Black, one White, as America stumbled and struggled towards equal rights for all, especially in the Southern States of 1955-70.  If I could encapsulate the forty-odd episodes in a sentence, the best I could say would be that not once was I left mentally arguing how a scene came to pass, or how one of the main actors gave his or her part a depth which was less than full!

Sam Waterston played the District Attorney in a Southern town, and Regina Taylor took the part of the maid who looked after his home and his family, as his wife was confined to an asylum.

The final episode shows the leading lady, the black actress Regina Taylor, musing on how the struggle for simple acceptance had progressed, and wondering what could be achieved in the future.

And then I read of how a Black man was arrested in Memphis on a rape charge. He ran away when the police spotted him, but he was slowed down several times by the fact that his ‘saggy pants,’ worn so the belt was below his buttocks, kept falling below his knees and tripping him up. The ‘saggy pants’ has in fact become a ’cause celebre’, with young black men adopting the style as a fashion statement, and Town Councils pondering how to stop the influx of half-exposed men onto their streets without generating a conflict with the Constitution.

I also read on a blog which was discussing this strange manner of dress that ‘This is why such laws banning baggy pants must be overturned. Wearing baggy pants is a fine demarcation between the law-abiding and the law-breaking class. The only people who wear baggy pants are Black thugs, Black gang-bangers (or Hispanic) or wiggers.’ So the general population could indeed take comfort in the fact that there was advanced warning of criminals, because of an influx of ‘saggy-pants’ wearing African-Americans! It is indeed a strange, strange world!

One Law for Laws….

When the feeding frenzy was in full bloom about the Westminster Expenses saga, some (very few) determined to resign, having been found out. More were pursued by various sectors of the Media, and many of them resigned before the election, because they knew that they would never get re-elelected. Some stood for re-election and won, because they knew the calibre of British voters; which is a combination of jelly, stupidity, blind loyalty, unthinking admiration, steely devotion to lost causes and, once again, stupidity! Some M.P.s bit the bullet, paid back their ill-gotten gains, admitted their wrongdoing and won through! Some, a very few, were arrested, charged and found guilty, and are now in prison.

And then there is David Laws M.P., the shining economic star of the Lib-Dems, a multi-millionaire, and also a liar, a thief, a pervert, and a man who has been suspended for only seven days for bringing Parliament into disrepute!

All alone in the moonlight!

I have to admit that my memory fails me sometimes. From being unable to remember the titles of well-loved pieces of music when played on the radio, to being completely foggy when asked who played whom in a film, or t.v. series. I suppose that time is catching up on me, as it does for all of us. But I regret to state that the passing of one of the most momentous days in the last Century went by my memory without even a stir.

That day was of course May 8^th 1945,  V.E. Day, or Victory in Europe Day. The day after Grand Admiral Hans Georg von Friedburg, Dönitz successor as Chief of the Naval Staff, and General Hans Kinzel, Chief of Staff, North West Army Command, surrendered to Field Marshal Montgomery. The dreams of a Thousand-year Reich were smashed, the dreams of a madman who infected a Nation were toppled, the Courts of Nuremberg were in the near future, and I was less than five years old. Six million Jews had perished in the Death Camps, countless thousands had perished with Hitler’s march to ‘Lebensraum’ , and his vaunted Reich was dismembered.

The sad truth of the deal between an ailing Roosevelt, a Churchill who was treated as very much the junior partner; and an exultant and triumphant Stalin at Yalta was becoming evident, with the crushing of any signs of Polish democracy, as well as the nations of Eastern Europe who had been surrendered to the evils of Communism by an American President who was only dead a month. It would be another forty-four years before the stain of Stalin’s shadow would finally be removed with the fall of Communism.

You will note that I used the term by which that Day was known, Victory in Europe Day. I believe that another monster has succeeded the terror of the Nazi plague, but this monster comes complete with politeness, rules, regulations, and strict attention to protocol at all times; but none whit less ruthless than the evil which preceeded it onto the stage. That is why I would never, ever, use the term ‘European Victory’, because that strikes too close to home!

The exception to the Rule!

Apart from the Today programme on BBC radio4, I have very little interest in BBC programmes, radio or television; apart from the occasional period drama which the Lefty-liberals cannot interfere with or harm too much, because they have to stick fairly closely to the book; so you can maybe understand when I ask you to follow this link, if that is you have not watched history as it is made already, to a Documentary which is all what the BBC used to be about, but is, unfortunately, in rather short supply these days. It is an hour long, but an hour watching British people do British things is never wasted!

Hat tip to Englishman’s Castle, which is where I spotted this small gem!

No comment needed!

Courtesy of my daughter Alice.

Sorry is the easiest word to say!

Its alright saying you are tortured by what may have happened to your daughter.

It might have been better to spend the money on a babysitter, instead of leaving little Madeleine and the twins alone; whilst going out with your husband to a restaurant which was a ‘mere hundred yards’ away!

Thawerapsaw, Gadda ge, Baie dankie, Ntyox teru’, Seé, Iyayraykere….

I reckon Joanne would have liked to say thank you to a few people.

Men such as the raiders of the United States SEAL team who found and killed Osama bin Laden. People such as the occupants of the CIA ‘safe house’ in that sleepy Pakistani town which was home to the Pakistani equivalent of West Point, or Sandhurst; the guys who actually helped determine whether the shadowy occupant of that well-protected building was the ‘most-wanted’ man in the whole world. Joanne would have liked to shake the hand of the head of the CIA Leon Panetta, and the secretive but steely people who work for that sometimes harshly-judged group, who organised the enhanced search teams upon a directive from  his boss, President Obama. Joanne would have spoken kindly to the people who built and flew the helicopters which helped keep the secret of the attack until the last moment.

She might have liked to congratulate the President herself, but would have liked to have also congratulated his predecessor President Bush, because he commenced the tiny, very personal war which ended in the death of bin Laden.

I keep saying ‘would have’, or ‘might’; when writing of Joanne’s thoughts or actions in these days when at least one of America’s enemies has been given the last rites of his religion before being given a burial at sea: but all I can do but surmise. You see, I really don’t know how Joanne would have reacted to the news, but I like to think I have guessed right, because even truly gentle people have a right to get annoyed some time!

Meanwhile, back in the ‘Real’ world…

Been driving recently? Been out for a long walk through  scenic hills or moorlands? Done any running to get a little fitter? Ever  wondered how the Channel Tunnel boys managed to meet in the middle less than  six inches off track? Read of an amazing rescue by helicopter miles out to sea,  with absolutely no land reference points to guide the pilot and navigator? Oil  spill tracking, to animal migration habits, it is all done at the click of a  mouse and the touch of a button; the mouse and buttons being of course  connected to a G.P.S. (Global Positioning Satellite) receiver. You can track  your exact location, within ten yards of course, at any place upon this Planet  Earth, and the greatest thing about the American G.P.S. system is that once you  have purchased your Tom-Tom, or Garmin or whichever of the dozens of systems  available, there are no charges whatsoever! Amazing that! absolutely free to  use. Fair enough, if you want more maps, or updated speed-camera lists, or  whatever else, you may have to pay extra, but you still do not pay one penny  towards the G.P.S. system itself. Free, like America is; free as the air we  breathe!

So you might be asking yourself why you, as a British taxpayer,  are paying into a huge money pot to launch thirty, that is twenty-seven plus  three spare satellites, to serve as an alternative G.P.S. system? Because you, along  with the other 350 million residents of the nations who make up the European  Union, are doing exactly that. You, or rather the European Space Agency, on  your behalf, are spending mind-boggling sums of money shovelling test-vehicles  into orbit, and preparing to spend even more mind-bending sums of your cash on  the launch rocketry, receiving stations and operating personnel; all so that  Europe can say “We have one as well!” The boast of the Europeans, by the way,  is that they will be making a profit; on an estimated total cost of £21 billion.

I bet you feel really proud right about now, don’t you?

So they were right all along!

Sipping his martini (never mind the rules against alcohol, he mused to himself; they are just boring) the elderly sheikh gazed out through the windows of his Islington townhouse. Glancing wryly at the banner headlines which announced his death, he recalled the very moment when he realised his time in Pakistan had to be ended, and he had to commence thinking about a place in which to end his days without the worry of discovery or pursuit. His body-double had been bought, and placed in the residence in that small town in Pakistan, and he had moved as instructed, in secrecy and at speed!

He remembered the series of traitorous soldiers and politicians who had been granted interviews whilst he was in control of the world’s best death machine, and he also recalled their words of friendship and encouragement; but they were all from Pakistan, and he had been warned that their friendship had both a price and a time limit. He had also searched back  in his memory to the other one who had be-friended him, the slimy very-senior European man whose hand-shake was as false as his beamimg smile. The same one that his envoys had declared to be the single worst enemy of the country which now sheltered him.

The bearded Sheikh saw his new passport lying alongside the documentation which gave him absolute permission to remain within the country which had sheltered so many of his kith and kind in previous years, and mused that at least the rulers of this strange Nation, whose people never knew what had been arranged in their name, kept their promises and their word.

He raised his glass to the sunny windows, and murmured, “Thanks be to Allah; and also to my good friend, who now is also a millionaire!”

Tears, and blood, in the sand!

Syria      Eight Armoured Divisions (each with three armoured,  one mechanized and one artillery brigade)

The Republican Guard Armoured Division  Three Mechanized Divisions (each with one armoured,  three mechanized and one artillery brigade)

One as-Saiqa Divisional Command with 3 Airborne Special Forces Regiments

Four independent Infantry Brigades

Ten independent Airborne Special Forces Regiments

Two independent Artillery Brigades

Two independent Anti-tank Brigades

Three SSM Brigades (each with three SSM battalions).

Three Coastal  Defence Missile Brigades (Syria  received C-802 systems and missiles from Iran.) One Border Guard Brigade

I started to compare the military forces of Syria (above partially listed) against the overwhelming military might of the United States of America, but just decided that it would be superfluous to even try. The massed squadrons of the U.S.A.F., together with their Marine Corps cousins alongside the brute force exerted by the aircraft of the Carrier Squadrons, could wipe the puny Syrians off the map in about three days, and two of those days would be taken up with counting the dead Syrians who had been foolish enough to fight back!

So I wonder why President Obama has held his hand? After all, he took little persuading to get involved in Libya, sent in his A-10 attack aircraft after the mobile artillery and the tanks of Ghadaffi for a few days, then decided that the military men of the Brits, French and the  six jets of the Qatar Air force could carry the load. Could it be that whilst Libya, an outcast amongst the Arab world was an easy target, and there was support from the Arab League, Syria is somehow different?

There can be no doubt at all that Syria is raining death and destruction on its citizens; none whatsoever. After all, Prez. Assad’s daddy did exactly the same when his army and security forces killed around twenty thousand in the attack on Hama which has been described as among “the single deadliest acts by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East”. They are doing to Deraa exactly what they did to Hama in 1992, and no-one is going to lift a finger to stop them; if the United States, with its overwhelming superiority in aircraft, ships, and weapons systems stands by.

Forget the UN, ignore the European Union, with Baroness Ashton wringing her hands and letting tears fall down her horse-face cheeks, sanctions will not work when an Army takes its orders from a set of people who stand to loose everything if their protection is seen to falter for a second!

Shed a tear for Syria, because in these days of American Realpolitik, if you are friends with Iran, if your buddies call themselves ‘Hizballah’, if you know that the Americans don’t wish to piss off the Muslim world: the Americans will stand by and let the sand absorb all the blood of those brave Syrians who dared to say ‘No’, in the faint hope that someone outside was listening!