It depends upon your viewpoint

I was reminded, by this story in the Mail about nude sunbathing in your own garden, of a time many years ago when I was living in South Africa. I was told, by a neighbour who was a member of the Traffic Police; that this elderly Afrikaans lady, living on the top floor of a posh, pricey block of flats in Cape Town, called the police and complained that she could distinctly see men bathing nude on the beach. As the beach in front of her apartment was occupied by the famous (or infamous, depending upon your viewpoint) Sir De Villiers Graaf nude swimming pool, the cops arrived and interviewed the lady after looking out at the pool area which was fully protected by a six-foot high concrete wall on three sides.

 

“I’m sorry, Madam but the bathers are hidden behind the wall; how are you disconcerted and worried?” asked the young policeman.

 

“Ah’, came the reply, “if you stand here on the table; and place one foot there on the windowsill……”

 

All in accord with the health declarations as listed….

So, your husband, Ballymena man Patrick Faith, who sometimes uses a wheelchair, , goes on holiday with you, his wife, on a trip to Bulgaria.

“I woke up that morning and he was dead,” she said, fighting back tears. “Callum and I had been at a restaurant the night before but Pat, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease five years ago, wasn’t feeling well so he stayed in the hotel.

“Our friend Leonard, who hadn’t gone out either, gave him his medicine at 10pm and when we got back later, Callum went up to the room and everything was fine.“Before I went to bed I heard him snoring. He was definitely alive.”

The Faiths, who set off on holiday on August 14, were due to return home on August 29, but Julie spent over £900 to get her and Callum home three days earlier so that they could be with her oldest son Patrick. But, as she revealed through tears, the anguish surrounding the former Michelin worker’s death, is continuing. Although a post-mortem was carried out on Pat last Friday, the family weren’t told the results – “he had a massive heart attack” – until Monday evening, two days after they returned.

But; No Worries; because the Travel Insurance, bought before commencing the holiday, would cover everything?

Ah…But…

“They’re saying we didn’t disclose Pat’s full medical condition, but that’s not true,” she said. “Pat was always looking for a bargain; he actually asked the salesperson to knock some money off the premium, but he was told that the only way to make it cheaper was not to disclose his ailments and I was horrified.”

It has now been one week since Julie lost “a brilliant man, father and husband” and one “who worked tirelessly to provide everything for our family”.

She still doesn’t know how long she has to wait before she can arrange his funeral but she hopes it will be within the next 10 days now that the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust has vowed to help her bring him home.

So, despite admitting that the family lied to get a cheaper quotation for the holiday, she is still ‘aggrieved’ about her dead husband’s treatment.

Julie added: “Before we went to Bulgaria, our son Callum warned him that he’d better not be sick while we were away because the medical treatment wouldn’t be up to Northern Ireland’s high standards. Little did we know what lay ahead.“

Well, if the Kevin Bell Trust is as good as its word, Mr. Faith’s remains will be transported in a seemly and respectful manner back to his family and friends.

Which wasn’t quite the case as with the remains of two murdered British Soldiers, killed by cold-blooded Irish Republican terrorists as they waited, unarmed, for delivery of a late-evening snack.

Are the Skies falling? Probably not….

President Trump condemns BOTH sides of rioting in demonstration….All Media and commentators climb in and attempt to paint him as Fascist / Hitler resurrected / whatever takes your fancy. He is pilloried for not ignoring the left-wing violence, which was nothing if not more vicious than that ladled out by the right-wing elements. He is further damned for not immediately agreeing that the man who hit and killed the woman protester deserves at least the death penalty.

He is further excoriated for making further statements which are even-handed; but has probably learnt by now that nothing but Immediate Resignation on the grounds of ‘He shouldn’t have won’ will satisfy the ever-baying mob.

 

Nancy Pelosi  issued a statement late Tuesday denouncing violent left-wing “Antifa” protesters, saying they deserve “unequivocal condemnation”, and even the Washington Post places an op-ed stating that ‘Antifa’ are the equivalent of their opponents in violence; stating,  ‘Totalitarian is precisely what they are’.

 

Are we seeing a rare vision of reality creeping into the MSM? It will never last!

Charity begins……

Interesting discussion in the pages of Time/Money regarding the ways and byways of some Charity organisations, with heavy emphasis on the American Red Cross, and their approach to disasters in the present, as well as the past.

One slightly tongue-in-cheek statement says that the donor is quite justified in tieing donations to specific activities, or earmarking your funds for specific causes (i.e. disaster relief) so you know they won’t go to the charity director’s half-million-dollar salary.

The piece also takes aim at the shambles which was the Red Cross response to Katrina, or in Haiti, where donations to the Red Cross totalled $500 million, but at least a third of this cash raised went toward administrative costs, “program costs incurred in managing” other charities in Haiti, and the other charities’ own administrative costs; and where the charity claimed it had built enough homes to provide shelter for 130,000 people—but it had actually only built six.

I accept that disasters occur, and charitable relief works are always welcome; but my big problem is that most of the ‘household name’ charities are, themselves, ‘big business’ with salaries, pension funds and ‘we have to pay the going rate for personnel’ attitude to justify the telephone number salaries.

 

STOP? HOLD OFF? CANCEL? YOU ARE JOKING!

At least eighty-odd people died in the Grenfell Inferno. A terrible tragedy which simultaneously brought out the best and the worst (according to publicised points of view) in our Country. The best? Thousands of pounds donated to help the survivors who have lost everything. The worst? The allegation that the new Leader of the Council is (shock, horror) the owner of a second home on the Isle of White Wight. (How the ownership of a second property by this wealthy, democratically-elected councillor is horrifying was never explained, but, take it from me; it was taken as ‘offending’ the entire ‘Commoonitty’!)

So, in the weeks before the famous (or should that rather be ‘infamous’) Notting Hill Carnival, a dreadful fire killed people, and it never, ever crossed the minds of the organisers of this strange, totally un-English occasion where thousands of people ‘enjoy’ themselves by prancing around in ‘colourful’ costumes, whilst drinking copious amounts of booze, daubing each other with handfuls of paint, and also whilst having their ears assaulted by very, very loud music: that it just might be wiser, and certainly more ‘respectful’ of the dead to cancel the whole jamboree.

Cancel? The idea is simply outrageous; was the considered opinion of the ‘Commooonity’, those opinion movers and shakers whose statements of support had meant so much to the survivors of Grenfell. ‘No, we must show solidarity with #Grenfell by parading, prancing, smoking lots of weed and getting as drunk as possible’. Solidarity; Man! That is what this ‘Commooonity’ is all about!’ I mean to say, we organised a whole ‘Minute’s Silence’ for those who died. Surely you understand that we couldn’t expand that ‘Minute’ to Two Whole Days?

So self-appointed marshals were running up to people as they walked towards the tower’s remains, and telling them not to take photos because it was ghoulish, and nasty, and uncivilised to take a photo of the place where so many had died: totally ignoring the lunacy which was taking place about a half-mile up the road! Thats what I like about the self-anointed censors amongst us, they just ‘know’ what is right, and of course what is not!

 

 

Nothing up my sleeves but my arms….

As observers, limited to the evidence presented to our eyes and ears as we regard ongoing stories, we have to take a lot for granted. I can testify, as I wrote, that life can change; instantly, in between two heartbeats! We must accept, categorically, that apart from things which happen in front of our eyes, we have to take someone’s word for what happened. 99.9999 (recurring) percent of the world’s sentient population, even those connected in the most tenuous of ways saw video recordings or read the reports of one of those two jets literally swerving, aligning themselves with their targets, the Twin Towers. There is no finer proof besides that of something which was covered by independent people, whose quick reflexes filmed a very silent moment as the tragedy unfurled. I myself sat stunned as the smoke, flames and more smoke billowed ever higher into that superb cloudless sky: and I watched on live t.v. as the slow, remorseless calamity unfolded as first one, and then the other tower, shorn of the physical integrity which had been provided by the steel cored structure, as it literally bent and fractured under the heat of the jet fuel-powered fires: finally groaned, failed, and majestically accelerated straight down towards Ground Zero.

 

I wrote on my own site, in memoriam of one person who died; and I learnt of the simple life of that woman, in the time before a fanatic stated that she, along with 2,995 others should die. I took whatever information I could from records, from recorded family details, and I posted that small insignificant story as part of a blogger’s project, to prove that they were remembered, that they did not die in vain. Those who read it, and those who read the follow-up piece about one of the six sections of the girders, supposed to form the London remembrance to that awful day, lay for weeks in a scrapyard, before the powers-that-be were finally shamed into the provision of a tiny scrap of land, tucked away behind the London Aquatic Centre in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Instead of being slap-bang in the middle of all those swanky buildings which were supposed to ‘bring us all together, in celebration of the Olympic ideals’ or some other diarrhoea-laden garbage; the visitor, the searcher after knowledge and of how the Capital City of these Nations treats its indelible memories; has to wend their way over a car-park, around the sides of a busy road, in order to find this tiny scrap of land, to find the Girders placed almost grudgingly, as an afterthought. This monument, which should have been centre-stage and floodlit from the moment it was erected, is treated almost the same as some would treat a distant family relative, slightly dodgy, ill-tempered and of a dubious reputation; remembered but shuttled out of sight; almost as though the City and Capital itself knew, but was ashamed to admit that that had actually happened.

 

But of course, as usual; I digress. I wished to explore the difference between what we could verify with our own eyes and ears; and what we inhale into our minds from sources often so slanted, biased and opposed to the truth as has actually been seen and verified by truly independent observers. I followed a straightforward commentary piece by James Delingpole, and found myself entranced and ensconced in the blog-based story of the Timeline of the Hamas Gaza beach operation by a writer named Thomas Wictor. Read it, and make up your own mind if he has managed to separate truth from fiction, make your mind up if he has convinced YOU that the death of those four youngsters was the result of Israeli bombardment, or the cynical manipulation of a compliant and complaisant Western News Media by the terrorist Hamas, the enemy of everything Israel stands for, including its very existence.

 

And the important questions in life are…..

Why would anyone need, or wish to specify, a Female Chimney Sweep?

Man has gunbelt, complete with, wait for it: gun!

The Guardian delivers its usual hatchet piece about Donald Trump’s Phoenix visit and speech, but once more shows that it just doesn’t understand his devotees, the people he is speaking to and for, and his presence in the White House. The Guardian rambles on, but read the piece, and see if you agree with me that they still just don’t get The Donald; don’t get his appeal for the common voter, and refuse to even admit that they, along with the long list of MSM tv and news publications, might be biased when it comes to the President.

Intriguing photo two-thirds of the way down the article. It pictures a working man’s torso, working man because he is shown wearing a hard-hat, but the emphasis, as far as the Guardian is concerned, is the gun-belt strapped around the man’s waist, belt loops are full of bullets, and the man’s hand is on the butt of his weapon. The printed message below the photos states: ‘A pro-Trump supporter holds a firearm in Phoenix’; but the hidden message of course is ‘rabid gun-carrying red-neck Trump supporter pictured fully armed on street’.

 

No word about how the guy is, if properly documented, able to carry, openly, according to Arizona gun laws; a weapon. No word about how he is perfectly legally entitled, in every sense of the term to carry his weapon, complete with full load of bullets in belt-loops. Not a sentence explaining that, in America, the sight of this armed man, in certain States, would no more cause alarm or controversy than an evangelist speaking a sermon, or a family barbecue.

God bless you, Robert Lee

Seems as though ESPN, this massive sports broadcasting conglomerate, has really got its collective knickers in a twist over, well Robert Lee, the football announcer. His job is probably a little bit different to a football commentator in England, I presume. As I don’t know a great deal about any sporting activity, and as American football seems to be full of heavily padded musclemen who slam into each other with seemingly no ill effects, I would really hesitate to comment. But it is a fact that Robert Lee has been pulled from the Cavaliers Sept. 2 game in Charlottesville against William and Mary.

 

ESPN stated “We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name. In that moment it felt right to all parties”

 

Here is a recent photograph of Robert Lee

 

 

He was the first Slave Trader (allegedly)

I note that clowns have vandalised the obelisk commemorating Christopher Columbus because, in the words spoken by one of the attackers:-

“Christopher Columbus symbolizes the initial invasion of European capitalism into the Western Hemisphere. Columbus initiated a centuries-old wave of terrorism, murder, genocide, rape, slavery, ecological degradation and capitalist exploitation of labor in the Americas. That Columbian wave of destruction continues on the backs of Indigenous, African-American and brown people.

I await the attacks on the statue which commemorates the birthplace of General George Custer in Ohio. Why Custer? He was after all a Union Army hero; but he was really nasty to the Indigenous Native Americans during his offensives and campaigns against the Sioux and the Cheyenne. He made what was to be a fatal mistake by dividing his forces into three columns, and was himself cut down at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

Some have also added the 9/11 memorial in New York as a target for direct action, stating that the attack was actually against the capitalist system which carries on the degradation of black people, and the big square holes should be just filled in, preferably with the bodies of white people. This last remark was discounted as just bravado from disaffected members of the radical Left.

What goes up, usually comes down.

When a company designs, manufactures and installs an elevator, or what is known in Great Britain as a lift, the interlocks, safety features, set switches and power controls are so secure that they are foolproof. If any switch or safety feature is not working or acting correctly, the whole system is designed to fail-to-safety. The interlocks on the doors are designed so that, if the folding leading edges of the doors touch, impact or foul anything at all, they are designed to return to open status. A second feature, in most modern lifts is either an infra-red or photo-optical switch shining across the door opening, such that if the signal is blocked after the doors begin to close, but before the leading edges touch and lock together, the system is again disabled, the doors return to ‘fully-open’ status. The speed of the lift is carefully monitored and controlled, and the reigning safety speed features are controlled both by mechanical governors, and electronic detection devices.

Lift companies charge a great deal of cash for their systems, whether it is a high speed elevator in a skyscraper, or a humble lift in a private residence, and they engineer out every possible defect. 

So if the printed story is factual, and this unfortunate woman was virtually beheaded when the lift commenced moving while the doors were still open, someone has shorted out the interlock and safety systems; and the charge should be manslaughter, or the Spanish equivalent.

Its tough at t’top

Seems as though the Guardian, as well as some charities, are getting all hot under t’collar because the Home Office has made inroads into a database showing where EU citizens are supposed to have been sleeping rough, getting their mobile ‘heavy mobs’ into action, and arresting and deporting these characters who shouldn’t be here anyway.

But the best part is the charities are stating that the Home Office’s behaviour demonstrated a “crisis of compassion” within the UK’s political system. It is making an official complaint to the European commission.

This is because the Home Office is following the Law, and moving these people back to whence they came from.

Martha Spurrier, director of Liberty, said: “Vulnerable foreigners have been systematically targeted by a government obsessed with deportation, whatever the human cost. Children have been kept away from schools. Pregnant women and others in need of medical help are avoiding seeking it.

“Now even people forced to sleep on the streets will be frightened to seek support. Who knows where else the Home Office’s poisonous tentacles have reached? There is a crisis of compassion in our political system and it needs to be exposed and undone. The government must come clean and end these secret deals – or we will look to challenge them in court.”

Well, its not all bad news these days.

We may well have some more funerals to watch, but the sad truth is that until all of Europe gets their collective heads together, and gets really tough on the Salafi mosques, along with the Wahabbi preachers and general Muslim fanatic bands; most of which are funded by Saudi cash; we shall not progress very far. Because of the lunacy and general stupidity in our collective political leaders, spread across Europe are the many thousands of ordinary Muslims; and of course in the British Isles because of the lunacy of the Commonwealth Immigration policies. Within that cohort are the soldiers of the Islamic Revolution, the bombers, the true authors of the ‘Hate’ crimes which have taken over one hundred lives and counting.

But what do we, not only as a Nation, but also as a Continent; do in reply? Why we light ***@*∑ß candles, and go to solemn masses in cathedrals, and send out stupid signals on Twitter saying ‘#wearenotafraid’. Well, friends, you bloody well should be afraid; because if a bunch of Arab fanatics can hire a car and drive down a pedestrianised plaza in Barcelona; they can do exactly the same, whether in Birmingham, Bruges, Baltimore or Berlin. The only thing these fanatics regret is that they don’t kill more of us when they slice down a dozen tourists; what they want is a truck laden down with gas cylinders, as seemingly planned for Barcelona; then they can really go to town on the Kuffar.

But the ‘less bad’ news I mentioned? It seems as though the ranks of the NHS Chaplains, those religious nut-cases who visit patients in hospitals , have been swelled by a bunch of people who don’t believe in a God, and they want to visit patients in hospitals who don’t believe in a God either. A case of ‘sauce for goose’… or summat like that.

..and then if the answer is yes …. Understand now?

Returning, as we should occasionally do, to more mundane times and things, I would like to tell readers of just one example of how we are ruled, bullied and pushed around in our everyday lives.

Imagine, if you would, that you are a woman, married to a man who has been inflicted by Down’s Syndrome. Despite the obvious drawbacks of his state, you have fallen in love with him and married him. You are happy together, but, over the years, you have been unable to become pregnant; so you apply to the Council for fertility treatment.  

A council psychologist ruled that the husband did not have the mental capacity to consent to sex, and a social worker warned you that if you had sex with your  husband you would be committing an offence that can be punished with a 14-year-jail sentence.

The case was described as ‘unique’ by Court of Protection judge Sir Mark Hedley, who ordered the council which employed the social workers to pay compensation.

The award was made not because of the social workers’ threat or the suppression of their sex life, but because the local authority delayed in providing the husband with sex education. The psychologist had said a sex education course would give him the capacity to consent to sex.

Sir Mark did not name the couple and, in keeping with the habitual secrecy of the Court of Protection, the metropolitan council has also remained unnamed and will be shielded from public criticism.

The judge said in his ruling, delivered at the High Court in Leeds and published yesterday, that the couples’ sex life came to an end for almost two years on 27 March 2015. The wife, he said, ‘was advised that she must abstain from sexual intercourse with her husband as that would, given his lack of capacity to consent, comprise a serious criminal offence.’

Under the Sexual Offences Act of 2003, clauses designed to protect vulnerable people from abuse make it an offence to engage in ‘sexual activity with a person with a mental disorder impeding choice.’ Conviction can bring a maximum sentence of 14 years in jail.

The wife was told that if she continued to have sex with her husband, social workers would take ‘safeguarding measures’ to remove either her husband or herself from the home they shared with his parents.

Sir Mark said the wife moved into a separate bedroom, a snub her husband could not understand. The judge said: ‘In order not to lead him on she significantly reduced any physical expressions of affection. The impact of all this on the husband is not difficult to imagine.’

And all, this because some ‘effing Social Worker did not do her job correctly, did not understand the Law under which she worked, and the consequent vicious overreaction of the two-year enforced physical separation of this loving couple!

Possibly THE most despicable BBC comment EVER!

There was a comment stream on the BBC Today describing the tragedy in Barcelona. The contributor was talking about the van which was driven at high speed up the Las Ramblas shopping boulevard. The BBC scumbag commentator then said, to the best of my memory, ‘We have seen cars and trucks used as weapons in these attacks in Nice, twice in Paris, in London, Berlin, Stockholm, CHARLOTTESVILLE; and now Barcelona!”

This mouthy bastard conflates the death of one woman in a savage left wing-right wing brawl, hit by a car driven probably in an attempt to escape the rioters: with the deadly Muslim Islamic terror attacks all over Europe. The mealy-mouthed, twisted, politically-motivated pillock!

At last, a journalist who ‘gets it’

The standard attitude, for most centre-right wingers certainly in Great Britain, is to find out what the Guardian deplores; and then adopt or do the exact opposite. It has long been the Standard-bearer for the revolutionary Left, from Chavez in Venezuela, through the bloody decades of the Castro regime in Cuba, and of course for anyone associated with the Hard Left of British Politics. That newspaper is famed for its championing of liberal causes, and it has been said that all a political group has to do is state it opposes anyone, anything, or indeed everything, to the right of Tony Benn; and it gains the automatic support of the Guardian.

 

And then they go and spoil it all by publishing the words of Simon Jenkins, saying what many of us here on the right have been saying for at least a year: which is that Trump supporters aren’t interested in the sermons from the East Coast Democrat Mafia/Media; nor from the billionaires of Silicon Valley; they have found their hero, and his name is ‘Donald’.

 

As Jenkins writes:-

In New York recently I read in the New York Times each day pages of columns competing with each other not just in criticising but in jeering at their president, to the point where I could understand his paranoia. Articles in the New Yorker discussed his mental health, his impeachment or his dismissal for incapacity under the constitution’s 25th amendment. It was all preaching to the converted.

Meanwhile a deafening wall descended somewhere beyond the Hudson river, where there lay a frightened, puzzled, increasingly poor America, one that had put its faith in a man who seemed to speak its language and address its fears. No one was reaching out to them, calmly explaining that others than Trump felt their pain. Trump does not appeal to the Republican wealth nexus, as did Ronald Reagan. He appeals to those whom the left thought were its own, and whom it has long neglected. Hence perhaps the fury that lies behind the insults.

 

Donald Trump is, perhaps, an example of the first truly non-aligned President of the United States. He owes no favours to big donors, hells gates, he funded some 20%  of his own campaign, he has argued with, and taken stances opposite, to his own Party probably equal to the Democrats. He shoots from the hip, he probably doesn’t know how to polish his words, and he should perhaps limit his thumb time on Twitter, but his supporters get him, and Simon Jenkins ‘gets’ him too!

But its all the fashion; so be cool!

I was doing some essential shoe shopping for my wife in the MetroCentre mall, just next to the banks of the Tyne in Gateshead.

 

Now I was just ambling along, not taking much notice of anyone or anything, when I saw this vision of up-to-the-minute-fashionably-dressed female, along with a gaggle of friends.

 

I was later advised by a shoe shop attendant nearby that the ‘fashionista’ was wearing a low-cut cropped top, very low-cut ‘super-skinny’ jeans or leggings which left lots of bare midriff, offset of course by mid-riff pierced ‘jewelry’, high-heeled strappy sandals, heavy make-up, approximately ½” long false eyelashes plus lots of, I think it is called eye-liner, but, not being any sort of an expert, it may have been something else; set off by what seemed to my admittedly untrained eye as an expensive hair-do.

 

The reason for the pause in my perambulation?

 

This example of parental surrender was, I estimate, eight years old!

 

 

Too late the day

As one commentator wrote in 2014:-

Out of curiosity, I drove up to Regent and then down and along the new peninsular road, which is under rehabilitation. Leicester Peak is now rid of all forest cover and vegetation, and has been left naked for developers to continue their havoc. On the peninsular road, my heart bled as I looked up at Mount SugarLoaf and the chain of mountains of the Western area Peninsular, overlooking Freetown and the Atlantic Ocean.

I came to the conclusion that the concerned ministers were attempting to lock the stable gates after the horses have already bolted. The mountains have been completely rid of every forest cover and vegetation, leaving them bare and ugly. This unfortunate and sad condition has been caused by human activity, including deliberate clearing for the expansion of human settlements. Everywhere, buildings are being erected further up towards the top of the mountain range.

And

The government through both the ministry of agriculture, forestry, food security and the environment; and the environmental protection agency (EPA), must now make a determined effort to take strong action. They must halt any further extension of human settlements up the mountain slopes. Also, they must seek funding and contract out the task of comprehensive tree planting on the mountain tops and the entire area. Unless and until there is a political will to do this – regardless, the battle to save the western area peninsular forests and mountains, would be futile and lost forever, with predictable dire consequences. 

When the trees are cut down, the roots no longer bind the soil together. When whole forests are logged out, providing space for ever-more developments close to the city, when the rains come, all the soil turns to silt, and washes ever more away. When Government does not listen to words of warning; when advisors are totally ignored and their common-sense advice is brushed aside: this is what you get in return!

Misdirection, or the tale of two Parks

I have both watched and enjoyed various shows which feature Penn and Teller, the magicians double act; and the one thing they are always straight up and down about is the fact that they are marketing ‘Illusions’. They are an extremely gifted pair of performers, made even more unusual with one of the pair never speaking. Whether he is in fact mute is immaterial, his facial expressions take the place of language, and the illusions work. Most of their tricks are very clever,, but the one I liked best is the sequence in ‘The West Wing’ where they burned the Flag; or did they?

At various times in the past, I also read Richard North’s EU Referendum blogs. Some people dislike his attitude of ‘I’m right, and everyone else is wrong’; when it comes to knowledge of Europe, but when the theme is of straight-forward journalism, there are few to beat him. I was reminded of a series he did about Qana, and the casualties after an Israeli raid. I think the page speaks volumes!

So when President Trump demurs from attacking only the ‘right-wing’ protestors, who were, in fact, the only ones with a valid permit to organise a demonstration, and instead condemns all violence, I reckon The Donald is on the right track. Breitbart gives an inkling of what actually occurred, but the slanted and edited filming, the active involvement of the police in sending the right-wingers down a path straight into Antifa. a readied-bunch of left-wingers, complete with baseball bats, I reckon it will take many days before all the truth will come out. One of the questions which must be answered is why did Obama’s Governor McCauliffe  order Unite the Right to leave the area as they were illegally there. No similar order was issued to Antifa. They had no choice but to leave, again running that gauntlet, with the police providing no separation. 

..and he died for……nothing (sob)

This bloke who writes in The Guardian (natch) is taking America to task for not changing. He is dead upset because, three years after Michael Brown’s death (unarmed; but shot down by a racist white cop) there hasn’t been the sea-change in American attitudes to black people, ‘racist’ white policemen not being charged with murder (as a minimum), and lots more besides. You should read the piece yourself; but I will just pick out the highlights.

Three years ago, Michael Brown was shot by officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. He was left in the street for hours to bleed. This not only allowed him to die in public without medical aid, but also traumatized his neighbours and sparked outrage across the world.

No, Steven, Brown was shot seven times in the head, and died almost instantaneously.  His blood pooled underneath him. The best medical aid in the world would not have helped him; he was probably dead before he hit the ground. The traumatizing was, at best, self-inflicted; the outrage was, simply, manufactured for political purposes. He lay for four hours where he died because the cops who had to process the corpse were busy elsewhere doing their jobs.

Disturbingly, things feel like they are getting worse. Donald Trump was pushed into office on a wave of what historian Carol Anderson has called “the politics of white resentment” (which post-election survey data also confirms) and a promise of “law and order”.

With the best will in the world, Trump’s election wasn’t achieved by ‘white resentment’, it was more likely to be a wave of resentment against the ‘established order’, where so-called senior politicians, used to getting their own way, were used to massaging the voters into seeing things their way, and their way alone.

In the battle of ideas, many of those protesters’ efforts worked. The Black Lives Matter movement exploded, paving the way for anti-racist thinking and demonstrations around the world, and laying the intellectual and activist groundwork for much of the anti-Trump resistance and the Women’s March.

The BLM movement’s ideas certainly exploded, what with the murder of five police officers in Dallas, the deaths of two cops and a sheriff’s deputy in Baton Rouge, as well as the two injured cops in Chicago, along with many more.

We, as an American society, owe a lot to Michael Brown. The protesters in Ferguson stood up to those behind his needless killing. The rest of us must now honor his short life more fully. We do that not only by keeping more young black people from being killed by police, but by challenging the kind of unequal, unjust society that leads to such lethal police violence in the first place.

Yep, America owes a great deal to chubby, loveable, good-hearted Michael Brown. We owe the deaths of many policemen, a series of riots, burnings, lootings and mindless vandalism disguised as protests, along with Ferguson’s black population exploding into riot, the Washington big-wigs swarm the city, the civil-rights talking heads gear up for the long haul, and a cop resigns despite being cleared of any crime.

As I ended my own view of the needless death of this huge bully; needless because all he had to do to stay alive was obey the legitimate warnings of a uniformed police officer: “Oh, and as a simple explanation, it is oft asked why I place quotation marks such as those adjacent to the word ‘family’? I do this because I disbelieve the statements entirely, believing them to be purely self-serving embellishments, generated by groups who detest the very idea of black people being in the wrong at all;  with absolutely no evidence of their being truthful at all!”

The other ‘Hunger Games’

There was some silly bloody woman preaching to the empty choir stalls on the BBC this a.m.. She was apparently upset that ‘school holidays’ time also means that the school buildings are closed and locked, the canteens are closed, all the staff are on holiday; and no-one gives a second thought to the hundreds of thousands of youngsters who absolutely depend on the free school meals, breakfasts, lunches, top-up snacks which keep them from near starvation as the parents’ benefits have all been culled, sliced and diverted, presumably to help buy Trident; and they cannot afford to feed their kids. The conclusion must be drawn is that the State is directly responsible for the terrible outbreak of ‘Holiday Hunger’.

S’funny, I haven’t noticed any of the kids I have seen as I walk along our streets collapse from hunger, or anything else. I visited the Metrocentre yesterday, place was thronged with thousands of kids and families. Not a single case of malnutrition amongst them. Then I realised, the ‘Hunger’ has kept all the ‘starving kids’ indoors, muting their anguished cries for help.

The one thing I did notice was this one female (presumably) religious agitator, complete with (presumably) large colour-matched barley sack placed firmly over her head, with a slot cut where her eyes are set. Without exception, those who passed her/him/it simply shook their heads in disbelief at the sight of some female cowed enough to wear this sack because her ‘husband’ or some other bloke tells her to do so!

Pertinent advice …..

…..to a Muslim travelling on a jet plane

“If in any doubt; keep your ***ing mouth shut!.’

‘Do not contemplate saying anything about ‘security’ or even mentioning the symbols 9/11, as this may cause alarm, chaos, a quick trip back to the Terminal; and being kicked off your flight: you smug, stupid, unthinking pillock!’

Portrait of a Patriot.

I had never read anything published by The Nation until this morning, but I will keep it on my reading list from now on, liberal and left-leaning though it may be. It has just published an article which might be THE most single important document, discussing THE most important letter, during the whole period from when Donald Trump first registered his intent to to run for the Presidency; to the empaneling of the Grand Jury which is supposed to investigate ‘Russiagate’.

 

I made specific reference to the publication of the Letter to the President within my post ‘Decisions, decisions’, and no one seems to have even digested that Letter. But now, prompted by Breitbart’s link, I went to The Nation, and there to read an explosive piece of journalism, from a writer named Patrick Lawrence, who writes and comments upon the whole saga of the alleged ‘hack’ of the DNC server; of the lies, assumptions, false briefings and downright skullduggery which has been brought to bear on the Trump Presidency, and the Trump Administration.

 

Mr. Lawrence states, quite categorically, that ALL the statements, all the assumptions, indeed all the allegations, stem from a statement that the data was ‘assessed’ by experts. That ‘assessment’ was never checked, and grew to ‘possibilities’ and so on; until President Trump was forced to sign a sanctions Bill which crippled his ability to negotiate with Russia.

Read Mr. Lawrence’s work, and then make your own minds up whether his words, and the work of many people who prefer to remain anonymous, are the proof that Russia never came near the DNC server, and all of the allegations; of corruption, indeed of treason, are baseless, groundless, and have been shown to be a pack of lies!

(edit)

when the wind wouldn’t blow ….Where’s Carter?

At last, a large manufacturing organisation is allowed to speak up on the subject of the need for continuous access to base-load electricity which is not susceptible to either sunshine shining on solar cells; or wind turbines which need wind to turn the blades!

From a heavy user which is absolutely dependent upon a stable steady-frequency electricity supply, read the words of an expert, and then figure out why the greenies /climate change experts /renewable pushers don’t ever mention straight-forward solutions such as coal, or gas, or nuclear as the only base load supplies worth talking about. Hydro-electric is fine when you have lots of water, dams to trap and hold it with, and then turbo-alternators to supply the electrons down to the grid.

The single paragraph, which, for me, caps the whole debate, is :-

I’ve heard people say that the Government should let the markets take care of it: let the market work it out. But the problem is: the Government is already intervening in the market by providing the very substantial subsidies and incentives for these renewable energy projects. Absent these incentives, the renewable projects would not stand up.

 

H/t Jo Nova

I blame the Isra.., no, I blame the Saud… no; cancel that!

I have a reluctant admiration for Al Jazeera, the Qatari t.v. station, which is present on both satellite channels, and online. The fact that it is totally funded and controlled by the Qatari Government, is of course never ever mentioned; but the one bias which is ever-present is that no Qatar policy, no Minister, and certainly no Qatari royal is ever, ever criticised, even in the mildest of manners. The English language broadcasts are slick, well-produced, inclusive of female presenters who all appear un-veiled or un-headscarfed. Their reach, in terms of broadcasting and of items and activities reported, is formidable; and they even attempt to place both sides of any argument up front:, well perhaps not all, but at least they give Israel the benefit of the doubt sometimes, even if their reporting is, shall we say, less than admirable than that given to, say the Palestinians who of course usually occupy the other side of most stories concerning Israel/Palestinian arguments.

Israel has tolerated Al Jazeera for a number of years; maybe it has been a thorn in their sides sometimes, but as long as Al Jazeera gave both sides of any story, the Israelis were content to let things slide.

But now we have the great debate; when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain turned the heat on Qatar for, amongst other things, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and related organisations, and they want Qatar to shut down the al Jazeera TV channel, close a Turkish military base in Doha and downgrade its ties with Iran. Various noises off ensued, inclusive of the rare event of the Saudis preventing Qatari pilgrims from entering the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

But, in a singular twist which no-one could have envisaged, Israel wants to close down Al Jazeera’s Israeli offices, because of, presumably, their support for terror causes.

So you then get headlines which must truly make the Saudis, Egyptians and all the followers flinch:-

Palestinian academic Ahmad Mosalam wrote, “There’s no greater embarrassment for the countries instituting the boycott (on Qatar) than the fact that Israel shares their demands.”

 

I love it when a plan blows up in the instigator’s face!

you aren’t pregnant: yes, you are HIV+

Two articles, both to do with NHS spending, but from very, very differing perspectives.

Thirteen areas of the NHS have so far agreed to limit access to IVF treatment, citing cost structures, limiting treatments to women between 30 and 35 years of age. One CCG reportedly suggested it could save hundreds of thousands of pounds by cutting any specialist fertility services other than in exceptional circumstances.

Couples in the selected areas, before being able to access three cycles of treatments, are now rationed to one. The research found that 65 per cent of those seeking help abroad cited the postcode lottery as their reason. Others cited long waiting lists on the NHS and a lack of egg donors.

Stated Reason….shortage of Funds.

NHS England announced that pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a pill taken before sex which reduces the risk of HIV infection by around 86 per cent, will now be provided for 10,000 people in a three year trial.

The purported reason for the use of this expensive drug is that ‘PrEP’, if targeted properly at those in need and at risk, offers the possibility of transforming the English HIV epidemic. From September, people at high risk of HIV will have access via this NHS-funded trial in England to an empowering new tool that is truly individually controlled and not subject to negotiation with a partner, leading to the improvement of many, many lives.

The unpublished reason for the use of this drug, and the reason why such illuminaries as the Terrence Higgins Trust are so pleased with the funding announcement;  is that it protects homosexuals, who prefer anal sex without a condom, from HIV, as this allegedly ‘enhances the pleasure’ without the valid risk of getting this virus into their systems.

My view on homosexuals, along with the other perverts and perversions now legalised, is that of Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who stated; ‘I don’t care what they do to each other, as long as they don’t do it in the streets, and frighten the horses’. But I do object to cash being taken from viable medical treatments, from couples whose chances of having a baby together are considerably enhanced by IVF treatment; taxpayers’ cash taken from legitimately funded NHS areas of treatment, and handed to fund the dispensing of drugs whose only real purpose is allowing perverts to ‘enhance their pleasure’.

If these perverts want to continue their unsafe practices, and at the same time prevent their infection, let them buy the drugs themselves. Its what is known as taking responsibility for your own actions. I accept that HIV is now prevalent amongst other than homosexuals, but the statistic that 55% of male homosexuals have HIV is a percentage which should give pause to those who wish to continue this activity without physical protection against a fatal virus.

A slice of Time Travel?

Interesting documentary on the box last night; came on it by chance as I was checking the recordings. It was ‘Secrets of Silicon Valley’, and  I watched it all the way through. (Don’t know if it will play in the States) Forget Google’s self-driving car trials, with a vast expenditure in producing, well, a car without the need for a steering wheel. Move into the slow lane, and fix your 18-wheeler truck with a custom set of automated brake and accelerator pedals set on a standard base, fit your truck with cctv cameras feeding into a computer which also controls the pedals; feed in the custom mapping and control application; then flick the red switch, and you have a driverless truck. True, right now the automated functions work best on the open road, with a lot more work needed in urban environments, and the founders of the system admit that, for city driving, there is no chance that it would be allowed: but just think, suddenly, in America at least, the drivers can relax for all those open miles, with concentration only needed at the start and the end of the trek.

The theme of the show was ‘Disruption’, and those whom the documentary maker was looking at was the NEXT generation of software developers. These are people who will be deciding how our grandkids work, live and go forwards.  For a balanced view of the prophetic words spoken in the ‘Silicon Valley’ documentary, and for a look back in time at what the BBC saw as the coming revolution, check out ‘The Chips are Down’, (over an hour long, but well worth the time )made in 1977. My brother watched it, and wrote to me in South Africa. He said, ‘Frightening!’ Most of the predictions have come true, and more so; obviously the Internet wasn’t even on the horizon, I wouldn’t have been able to type ‘bbc microchip documentary’, then tap a trackpad three times, and resurrect the video to review it, but a ‘Gamechanger’ it really was! So: Secrets? Will someone seated at a console in forty years time gaze at the ‘Secrets’ documentary, smile and watch as Jamie Bartlett’s prophetic words unfolded before his eyes? Would he smile as he reviewed the breakneck changes which went so much further that the ‘Silicon Soothsayers’ could even predict?  Check back in forty years time!

 

Yet another viewpoint.

The strapline tells a story, but should we take notice?

 

The people behind this website seem to know a fair bit about their subject. Should notice be taken of both the website, and the story?

 

I wonder!

Dunkirk …….a Review.

Once the youngsters of today accept that Dunkirk actually happened,  that it was all real, with huge numbers of men dying, marching or fighting against the twin blows of a German war machine which was, possibly the best in the world at that particular moment; and the gross underestimation of that same German machine by senior British and French military figures after the demonstration of ‘Total War combined with Blitzkrieg’ as given in Poland, the Nolan film of the removal by sea of over 350,000 soldiers from the port and beaches of Dunkirk makes sense: but only as the director envisaged.

The film encompasses three figures, three stories, but this is the most important point, three timelines. Once you accept, in your mind’s eye, that the Spitfire is not flying continuously for about three days; but is snapshotted in an hour’s actual flying time, does not actually shoot down five Bf-109 fighters, plus two or three German bombers in the same sortie, and use up somewhere around four times the actual amount of ammunition that the Spitfire can actually carry in its magazines, the film commences making sense. As long as the viewer, who knows as I do that the Spitfire has the gliding characteristics of a large housebrick, is aware that the film is an allegory, then the sequences with the fighter swooping around the beaches after running out of fuel, speeding back and forwards, shooting down a menacing Heinkel bomber as it glides by, make sense.

The young infantryman, a part taken by a person named Harry Styles who is unknown to this observer; is not telling his story, he represents the thousands who stood, marched, fought, ducked, swam, flinched and sometimes died, so that we might speak, write and live in comparative freedom today. The sheer guts of the fighting men who made the real Dunkirk are not depicted in this ‘ersatz’ version; for who can imagine what went through the minds of those involved.

As a document, it makes little sense. As a film, as an entertainment, it would appeal to many who do not have anything else to relate to, as there has been no violence on such an industrial scale in all of Europe for decades; as long as one ignores the mini-Genocide in the Balkans. To the nit-pickers who claim the film does not represent real life because there weren’t any heroic Muslims depicted, or because there weren’t any black-, khaki- or yellow-skinned soldiers shown as queuing in deep water, or drowning after being bombed by an enemy aircraft; all I would retort in reply is ‘so bloody what’? The woolly-minded amongst us, the ones who claim that there were Indians abounding on those blood-splashed beaches in real life, or black soldiers amongst the long columns standing patiently as they were waiting for either rescue or death just miss the point. ‘Dunkirk’ is not a minute-tallied depiction of the near-miracle; it does not attempt to recreate the titanic task of rescuing 300,000-odd soldiers from the tentacles of the German war machine: it attempts to give an idea of the astounding bravery of the Royal Navy sailors who moved their vessels close in to the shores, of the equal bravery of the hundreds of ordinary civilians whose passion for owning and sailing small craft brought them literally under the guns and bombs of the enemy. It tells of the stoicism of the ordinary soldier, but does not attempt to go further. The actual statistics of the Royal Air Force’s attempts to aid the rescue effort were sufficient to make that vital difference.

I disliked, intensely, the immersive sound track, as the ticking clock; the hammering staccato reverberation blasted out through the cinema sound system as a Nazi bomber settles on course to attack a stationary British vessel, for example was unfortunate, to say the least; the scene as the film nears the end where themes based on Elgar’s Nimrod welled up was decent, but very short-lived.

I slipped away from my home late one evening, and travelled the few miles to attend the late show. Upon my return, I checked and located my own copy of the original ‘Dunkirk’ movie; black-and-white, and starring John Mills. I don’t regret the journey, or the inflated price of the ticket; I didn’t even regret having to admonish two of the local morons who were showing each other their stored pix of their latest piss-ups on their mobile phones at the start of the performance; but I do regret taking notice of the writings of critics which said it was a masterpiece; or even a very good movie!

..and its okay; if you are ‘cool’

So, you and your colleagues, all New York City Policemen, are advised a 911 call has been received from a man’s mother who stated he was ‘nonviolent’ but ‘emotionally disturbed’. Four officers answered the call and knocked on the door. The mother opens the door, and as the officers walk forwards, the son charges forwards holding a large, serrated carving knife. The first officer fires his Taser, but the guy is just not slowed down, but keeps moving forwards. The next cop in line aims and fires, killing the man.

Now, whatever your philosophies regarding using and firing a weapon, the simple truth is that, if you do not react instinctively, either you or your partner is going to be either severely injured, or dead. If you react, and kill this guy who is moving towards you aggressively, ‘emotionally disturbed’ or not; as far as I can tell by my own research into these complex matters: you are just doing your job.

But, as the reported comments of an obviously very experienced, and totally unbiased neighbour go:- Regina Blain, 22, said she lives in a neighbouring building and heard gun shots. She told Patch the man had “emotional problems” but never seemed threatening.

“He would stomp his feet a little, weird stuff like that,” Blain said. “I was shocked that it happened because he’s a cool person.“

“Police lives matter but our lives matter too,” Blain added. “It’s like absurd because this police crime going on, it’s not fair … They treat us here like we’re animals.”

 

Another unbiased statement from a fourteen year-old girl went:- “I couldn’t see the person, he was laying down,” Daly told Patch. “He was very cool, he wasn’t really a trouble maker.”

So, if you are either ‘cool’ or ‘very cool’; you should be given the benefit of the doubt when making aggressive movements, knife in hand; towards a group of FOUR policemen?