PARALLELS TO THE PAST IN CAPITAL LETTERS

Back to the Future with Russian Diplomacy

2008-08-13T19:56:00.004+01:00

It was a long time coming but we should have then had time to see it coming - Russia flexing it's military muscle.

For the past 4 years Russia has had to stand by and be largely ignored by the West in terms of global politics. Still psychologically scarred from the loss of the Soviet Union and the communist Empire of the Eastern Bloc countries, Russia has been adrift.

We are talking of course about the war between Russia and Georgia for South Ossetia. Russia acted like a 19th Century British Viceroy employing gun boat diplomacy to suppress the attacks of Georgia who in turn acted the part of an African warlord.

No longer perceived as a super power - Vladimir Putin has gone some way to bolstering Russian arms and rhetoric.

The excessive use of force on Georgia is understandable from a Russian perspective - this was a great chance for Russia to take out it's frustrations on a small country that it sees as an upstart hiding behind the skirt of the USA.

Of course Georgia is important for the Gas pipeline that supplies the West and exerting pressure on Georgia or regime change would help monopolize energy supplies to Europe further.

There is no argument that Georgia miscalculated in invading South Ossetia - a sovereign country in its own right and home to both Georgians and Russians - and I can understand Russia moving to prevent attacks on their own people... but it was obvious that the disproportionate use of force by Russia was aimed as a timely warning to the world not to mess with Russia.

No doubt Russia felt annoyed at Kosovo's bid for sovereignty but could do nothing to help it's little Slavic cousins Serbia to stop it happening.

For me it comes as little surprise that Russia decided to invade on the opening of the Olympics - no doubt feeling left out of the reckoning by commentators focusing on the new Super Power China who had always been second to the USSR, and the USA, now taking the lime light.

It was a way of saying "Remember me...!?" The irony is that Georgia's most notorious son is Stalin and it was he who industrialized the USSR and turned it into a force to take on the Nazis and it was he as a Georgian who set the Russian people on the road to greatness in the guise of the USSR.

And now the country he made strong - Russia, stripped of it's socialist republics -like Georgia, is now taking it's fury out on that same country.

Who will be next?

The Dark Knight - Who's Better?

2008-07-31T13:03:00.007+01:00

Heath Ledger or Jack Nicholson's Joker in the newest Batman Movie? Hmmm - well i saw batman last night. Enjoyable but about half hour too long , they flogged the introspective side a little too often.

As for Heath (RIP) I thought he put in a fairly good performance - drew pretty heavily on the characterisation of Michael Keaton's Beetlejuice character but most folks wouldn't click on that score - he also borrowed the scary heavy transsexual vocal from the sicko in Silence of the lambs who keeps the poor girl down the pit - he'd use it occasionally to emphasize some of the Joker's points.

Bale was very good - believable but really can't fathom how they cast the heroine who looked incredibly tired and lacked energy.

The guy that played Harvey Dent was very good but the effects when he became the villain "Two-Face" was too-comic-book and looked like the retro alien from "Mars Attacks!". My score: 7/10.

And how does it compare with the "original" in 1989? Well I reckon that movie was 8/10. Heath was scarier than Nicholson as the Joker but Nicholson's played it with more charm which is what you'd need in charisma in order to recruit henchmen.

Nicholson benefitted in that the arc of the character meant you could see the Joker become madder and revealed some humanity behind the socio-path in a way that Heath did not present.

I guess it gave Nicholson somewhere to go with the character, whereas Heath was all on one level - albeit done well but i never emphasized with him which then loses the impact when he maintains that he and Batman are "the same - freaks".

Who could fault Kim Basinger as the love-interest either? But Bale takes the prize for Bruce Wayne - although he could have done with a little more of Keaton's self-examination as to how "sane" it is to dress as a Bat.

In the new movie(s) this is often supplied by Caine playing Alfred - an excellent choice and spot on with the poshed up cockney accent as Butlers tend to be working class - not posh snobs.

Wallabies Glisten as All Black's Can't Field the Best Players in New Zealand

2008-07-28T00:25:00.004+01:00

Dingo Deans looked assured, as assured as the Wallabies. With a huge player exodus to Europe combined with a coaching trio that seem to have lost their way - maybe not enough time coaching the ELVs compared to deans with the crusaders this evening - well I'm sorry but I have never seen an All Black side lose by such a margin and seem to be played off their feet.

It is a travesty that the NZRFU will not allow ALL BLACK STARS like Hayman, Mauger, Holah to be picked from overseas in the way that the south Africans do.

Mark my words but soon if the Wallabies start performing like they did last Saturday - then they too will be offered huge European money to leave Australia - and what would the Aussies have to do?

Pick from overseas - don't have enough talent to cover an exodus. In NZ we have the players but you cant throw provincial players into a test match - half the team looked like a bunch of young no bodies.

Traditionally you need to wean in new players with the old heads and stars! Australia rugby's John O'Neill must be one happy guy - I wonder how deans is feeling though as an ex-All Black?

One thing is for sure - that All Black side should have had Holah at openside, Mauger at 12, Collins at 6, Hayman as prop, Gear on the wing or Howlett and especially either Marshall or the other half back who is now in France...

Now Graham Henry has called up some provincials whom I have never heard of and is sending them All Black jerseys - yet admitted it's just for cover and they will no doubt just get used in training only!

Why can we not pick our best team and field it consistently?

South Africa Must Speak Out Against Mugabe

2008-07-05T13:39:00.003+01:00

So President Mbeki of South Africa feels that the Republic should not condemn the sham election of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe?
What appalling double standards.
Imagine if Britain or the USA had adopted such a stance during the years of Apartheid in South Africa on the grounds that it was up to the citizens of that country to make their own decision?
The similarities are obvious in terms of the intimidation of political opponents and the isolation that such a continuation of Mugabe’s evil reign must make on the political scene for Zimbabwe whose citizens overwhelmingly voted for change.
The fact that Mugabe then held onto power through violence is disgusting. In fact the West ought to get involved and at least the African Union or UN should be sending in troops to get him out and establish the will of ordinary Zimbabwe citizens. It appears that he has “soundly beaten” his opposition in the most recent kangaroo election – unsurprising given the man sports a Hitleresque pencil-moustache… it’s clear to see then the intimidation of their citizens similar to the SA who cracked down on the Nazi’s opponents.Come on South Africa – stop playing double standards and use your influence on this despot. I look forward to hearing Nelson Mandela condemning Mugabe soon!

Happy Anniversary Iraq from Gun Slinging George Dubya Bush

2008-03-20T00:38:00.006Z

He confuses Pakistan with Afghanistan.

He stumbles over long words and concepts more complicated than ABC.

He continued reading a children's story to a nursery school class even when he realised the second World Trade Center Tower had been attacked.

He announced the Iraq war was over in 2003 - its now more dangerous than ever.

And today President George W. Bush wished Iraq would have a nice day on the anniversary of the 2003 invasion. He said that Iraq was safer, that at least Saddam Hussein was dead and no longer would invade his neighbour (wasn't that back in 1991....? Duh).

And in case you should forget, in his words back in 2003 - "after all this is a guy who tried to kill my Dad.."... wow - what a reason to send the United States off to war and threaten the delicate balance of power in the middle east, particularly between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

Saddam should have been contained. Al-Qaeda dealt with by Interpol and CIA - not conventional military operations. Removing the Taliban was the only logical move.

But as for the Grudge Match v Saddam....

No thought about the long term building of peace.

No thought as to Iran's increased influence in a power vacuum without Saddam.

No thought per se.

Its an absolute disgrace what the Bush Junior administration has done. And an abomination of ineptitude in the office of President.

Miopic. Moronic and oh so so so befuddled..... painfully so.

No big picture and no grasp of the tiny but crucial details of middle east geo-political dynamics and society.

But what can one expect from a man who once choked whilst catching peanuts in his mouth like a seal with fish at San Diego Zoo?

Jesus Christ - America is that really all you've got? This big kid? The worst President in the history of the USA?

The Presidential race is wrong if it can only throw up this pig-ignorant chump who has the barefaced audacity to keep repeating his mantra of "we won in Iraq, the world is safer, America is safer" whilst shoving his fingers in his ears...

He may as well have been shouting " LAlalalalalalala - I can't hear you!"

Is there no one in the USA who would have had the correct credentials? Or does it all come down to buying influence through oil money so long as your father was a President before you?

I wish I had shares in American military manufacturing companies and oil before George Dubya and his Dad decided to set the world on a course for Armageddon.

It all smells very fishy... and a fish rots from the head down.

KEN LIVING STONE AND BORIS JOHNSON - IS THAT THE BEST LONDON CAN OFFER?

2008-03-15T13:43:00.009Z

London elects it's Mayor soon but for most people it appears to be the usual two horse race. On the one hand we have the incumbant Red Ken Livingston with his thinly disguised socialist - communist hidden agenda.

On the other, we have the privileged toff Boris Johnson; Eton educated and never having wanted for anything it appears - the fact that this bumbling chap is even in public life after his gaffes and insults to working class people is evidence enough that the English class system is both insiduous and alive.

Surely we can do better than career politicians, who seem to have done nothing other than run for office... where is the achievemnet in that? I'd rather have Sir Alan Sugar for Mayor - at least he would bring experience and success to the role.

So what about you and I? Ordinary Joe citizen.

Well there is a choice.

Go to www.londonelectsyou.co.uk and either elct your self or a friend for Mayor. Its a kind of X-factor show down and will result in a winner who'll recieve £50,000 in campaign support to run against the two big guns.

What a refreshing idea! This is what democracy is about. YOU and ME!

It's Athens - It's the Forum of Rome - Carpe Diem! Sieze the Day!

No political parties, but real people with no axe to grind and no special interests.

Now step forward the Cicero, the Pericles. Surely in a population of 10 million London can offer more than a guy from a Eton OXBRIDGE upper class background with no synpathy for everyday folk.

Like wise why re-elect a power hungry sinister mayor with soviet tendencies who spends public money like he is unawserable to you and I.

Let's embrace our Classical Democratic heritage and take it all the way.

Let's find out who is corrupt in city hall and treat them as the Roman's treated corrupt officials - by cutting their ears off and sewing them in a sack with a rabid dog and throwing them in our River Tiber - The Thames.

Up the People! VIVA LONDRES!

Homosexual Afghanistan - Yeah You Read Right!

2008-03-14T20:13:00.009Z

Well my friends are nearly home - just a few more days and they are free of the dust and the death.

It's been a hell of a time in Helmand.

They've tried to do their best to help the people there, but the big problem seems to be the production of poppies which accounts for 95% of Europe's Heroin stocks.

If they burn the crops then they push the ordinary Afghan farmers into the arms of the Taliban.

The irony is that one aspect of the Taliban's hideous rule before they were forced from power by the US and UK in 2001, was they cracked down on poppy farming. It was not a crop they were allowed to produce.

Of course now the Taliban probably like the idea that poppies grown there, end up causing drug fueled street crime in the the UK.

The boys are looking forward to a cold beer, because Afghanistan is dry. And I'll wager a look at a Western woman as well! Full marks for them acting as Romans in Rome while on duty and off duty in Helmand.

Although I am relieved they did not partake of the Afghan "man-love" Thursday's!

Apparently over there the saying is "women are for babies, men are for fun"... it seems a cultural norm for men to take teen-male lovers for sodomy, whereas sleeping with your wife is something of a chore!

Even a village elder will have a couple of boys for his hobby alongside his wives.

Where did this phenomenon come from as it's clearly not part of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition...

In my opinion, it may stem from the influence of Alexander the Great when he lived there and married Roxanne.

The Greeks and Macedonians often took younger male lovers and Alexander (or Sekhander as he is known in Afghanistan) was bi-sexual.

Seems logical that if his Hellenistic influences could spread to the sophisticated peoples of Persia and Egypt, then how much more would more primitive and tribal people be influenced?

So if you are on your way to Afghanistan, watch out for men dancing on a Thursday wearing eye liner, they want to arm wrestle with you and might just let you win!

Jonny Wilkinson - Dropped

2008-03-13T20:06:00.006Z

The news that England rugby star Jonny Wilkinson's been dropped while the other 14 England players have avoided the chop is incredible.

The poor display was a team problem in the defeat to the Scots. Coach Brian Ashton has no where to go; he should have introduced Danny Cipriani before the Wales game.

Ashton's not been true to his word at all; he's been unprepared to walk the walk in his selection policy.

Now he expects Cipriani to walz in as a spark replacing Wilkinson, a week after he was dropped. It feels like Ashton makes decisions infulenced by media opinion. I see no vision there at all.

Anyone knows that Wilkinson is not the most tactical of players and nor is he a great footballer; no one would accuse him of playing running rugby.

His box of tricks consists of the chip kick to the far wing within the oppositions 22 and of course his goal kicking - whether by penalty, conversion or drop kick.

He is a player who can only draw upon the experience of being the baby in the team, the young kid, surrounded by the old heads of the 2003 World Cup Winning Team.

Even then he struggled under pressure against Wales in the 2003 Quarters when he very nearly lost the game for England. Wales were running England off their feet.

England looked their usual leaden hoofed selves. The Welsh Dragons were like lightning all over the field - flashes of inspiration, deft hands, vision and daring.

Wilkinson and his three quarter line were bereft of ideas.

It was only when the old head of Mike Catt and his tactical kicking was brought on, that the pressure on Wilkinson was relieved.

So why people expect any more from Wilkinson now is beyond me.

The English forwards not superior in physicality to any pack, other than the Australian Wallabies.

The only time that Wilkinson was playing his best? During the 2002-2003 seasons. Why?

Because England's forwards were the best in terms of bashing and thumping - they won the ball and when they didn't- they usually forced opposing sides into giving away penalties within kicking distance of Wilkinson.

Now in 2008, 5 years later - England's pack sit behind the All Blacks, The Springboks, The French, The Irish, The Argentines and possibly the Italians!

So with 50% of Wilkinson's game plan negated by that fact - it means he struggles which eats away at his confidence.

No old Lawrence Dallaglio, No martin Johnson, Catt, Dawson, Greenwood or Tindall - just young kids offering no decision making for Wilkinson and a pack lacking bite, lacking punch and unable to go the rounds.

It leaves Wilkinson alone, isolated and playing in a team he just does not recognise.

A one trick pony they said back in 2003 - now it seems that really is all Jonny has got.

Boozing Broken Britain

2008-02-22T20:27:00.007Z

The latest damnable indictment on the state of the British people came this week with Doctors saying that women are now the biggest binge drinkers.

It's a sight we are all too familiar with in towns across England especially - young women, teens many of them between the ages of 17 - 25 throwing up due to excessive alcohol use, staggering from lamppost to gutter and urinating within sight of clusters of drunken young men downing alco-pops and cans of cheap supermarket lager. Some beers are as cheap as 25 pence or US 50 cents a can...

What a terrible situation. Who would want to bring up a child in such an environment?

Are we morally bankrupt?

There are groups of yobs - teenage hoodies - who hang around causing trouble and intimidating law abiding citzens and the children's commisioner suggests that their human rights are being breached when they are dispersed by the authorities!

Church attendance in the Anglican community is down (with the exception of the armed forces). Evangelical and Roman Catholic Churches are strong, but the reality is that the Anglican church serves the majority and maybe that explains why so many young people are devoid of hope and direction aside from a shallow search for fame on Big Brother and Pop Idol and why many vulnerable young women wind up as sex workers on the Adult "phone-in TV channels" or dream of bagging a sleazy footballer. What would the Suffragettes say?

And look at Housing - 95% of first time house buyers can't afford a home and mortgages are two or three times the average salary.

There is also a huge housing shortage and we need more than two hundred thousand new homes, but the Government proposes building thousands more on flood plains like on Thames gateway.

In Health care the National Health Service is beset with super bugs like MRSA and waiting lists for seriously ill patients in one of the richest nations in the world; some British people even have to go for health care in France or India to get treated.

And don't get tooth ache because it's going to cost you £100 or US$200 for a filling going private because it took me 5 years to get a dentist on the National Health Service.

And many foreign women are coming here to have their baby in UK hospitals to take advantage of our free health care, which leaves the NHS is debt because these mothers have not contributed to the NHS throughout their working life, leaving British women and men to foot the bill.

In terms of heating a home, the elderly face having to choose between heating their houses or buying food. Energy prices are rising again with British Gas profits this year up 500%.

Fuel of course has risen as well, with Shell posting appallingly high profits of over £27 billion... which has left the Unions imploring the Government to challenge this obscenity.

The nations borders are unguarded and our immigration system ponderous and ineffective. We have no idea how many illegal immigrants have come here over the past 7 years.

Add to that the high pregnancy rate and large families of legitimate immigrants from the eastern bloc and the entire demographic of the UK is changing. Just as many immigrants to the UK since the 1950s suffered because of a clear assimilation policy if the kind practiced in Australia and the USA, so we are bound to see history repeat itself with the new eastern European immigrants whose offspring will grow up as British but whose parents are not sure about whether they want to be British.

Then there's the fact that everything costs more in the UK than in the rest of Europe.

What is it that makes British people put up with things instead of striking and picketing or even just complaining - maybe even boycotting services?

The police have been compromised in their jobs by not being able to stop and search and have been sidetracked by untold red tape and targets.

Recently most people polled said they felt distinctly unsafe on UK streets, especially at night.

Now Firemen and Ambulance workers are being attacked by youths when attending an emergency such as a car accident or a fire.

In fact some yobs even start fires to lure the fire crews in order to attack them in an ambush.

Britain is just about cheap beer and football.

Sound familiar? In ancient Rome the people were kept docile through cheap bread and gladiatorial combat in the circus maximus.

In schools our GCSE and A levels are dumbed down so that any numb skull can feel like Einstein and they want to eradicate winning and losing from sports in case it makes kids feel like an underachiever... can you imagine the Russians or Chinese putting up with such drivel?

It reminds me of the cold war when criticism was levelled at American youth for spending so much time playing computer games and messing around skate boarding and doing drugs while Russian kids were learning to box.

British TV used to be praised for its factual programmes and drama. Now its dumbed down to reality shows and little else. They even took away the BBC's investigative journalism show called The World in Action from its prime time 8pm slot.

And the sad thing is that no one seems to have any revolutionary answers to change this narcissistic mentality of hedonism and moral anarchy.

I think that New labour has a lot to answer for in terms of the morass of muddled thinking and pandering that they have indulged with every one and any one with a soap box and an issue.

What needs to be done?

I say bring back national service for 18 year olds - in return for either University study or Engineering college (not all kids should be at University). In Germany their strength is they attach no snob factor to University and value their engineers which is why they still have heavy industries and car manufacturing.
In addition there ought to be prayer at all state schools - even if that is multi faith, although I would prefer if it were christian and non-denominational.
Ensure that all students are made to play at least one team sport a year and if it is football (soccer) they must also play either Cricket or touch-rugby as well in summer.
There must be 3 hours of sport /gym a week in addition to sports practices and the games themselves.
Sex education and nutrition should also be taught from age 11.
Bring back severe penalties and sentences for criminals and bad parents.
Invest in swimming pools - its shocking that Sydney Australia has more Olympic sized pools than all of the UK and the Republic of Ireland combined.
Give people things to do. Likewise, sports courts for tennis, basket ball, skate pits, BMX pits etc. Give people an alternative than just boozing at a pub on every corner and help kids get engaged and enthusiastic.
Teach British history accentuating the positives and lessons learned.

It seems ironic that after a decade of Labour, our homelessness is the worst it has been and we have such social problems and a gap between the rich and poor that brings Victorian London to mind.

It seems that in trying to pander to everyone, Labour ended up with a directionless mash of society, divided and lacking those salient elements that distinguished the UK as proud to be British and proud of the heritage and accomplishments of these isles.

And it would do Britain well to recall the words of President John F. Kennedy; "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country".

England Rugby - Mercenaries for Hire

2008-02-13T20:01:00.013Z

How is it that the richest rugby nation on earth, with the greatest number of players, has to rely on foreign imports? What a pathetic disgrace to the game and nationhood.

I cannot fathom the mentality that allows England's Rugby Football Union the expediency to just fast track players into the national team.

Lesley Vainikolo (of Tongan blood and a Rugby League International for New Zealand), is as English, as a Welshman is a Scot. Come on!

Just because the man lived in England for some 3-4 years does not make him English.

It's just mercenary. No doubt it is a huge honour for Vainikolo, but he explained his decision to accept Englands invitation to don the Red Rose as economics - "England puts the food on my table".

It's defence akin to those of the Scottish clans who betrayed Scotland's William Wallace.

Don't get me wrong - I happen to think Lesley Vainikolo is a stand-up guy - after all he's very like-able. But he is not English - I wonder what the likes of England heroes Martin Johnson, Jason Robinson or Will Carling make of the RFU's decision?

The fact is that Vainikolo has already represented New Zealand at an international sporting level in Rugby league!

Does that mean that sports men will soon be swapping national allegiences to the highest bidder?

Vainikolo was raised in New Zealand as a Tongan Kiwi - just like you can have Scots Kiwis, Chinese Kiwis. Once you represent your country I don't believe it is morally right to then swap for another country even if it is to play tiddly-winks.

The fact is that the IRB have not been on the ball - they ought to have rules in place to forbid this malpractice - especially with so many players being lured to Europe from down under by high exchange rates.

Otherwise we'll soon see an English team selection with as many Samoan, Tongan and Maori names as the All Blacks! Execept that wheras all the All Black players will have been born or bred in NZ, these other players will have only just arrived in England.

Now the bottom line is that I could handle Vainikolo playing for England IF he had NO previous international sporting background for another country.

Which is why I am fine with Brent Cockbain playing for Wales even though he is an Aussie. He married a Welsh girl and got naturalized in Wales. He never played for the Wallabies or the Kangaroos - Australian Rugby Union and Rugby League respectively.

But buying mercenaries is actually a very English strategy for success. Look at the Battle of Agincourt during the Medieval 100 years war.

History discusses the role that King Henry V's archers played in mowing down the waves of French Knights.

In fact Henry V had brought over hundreds of top WELSH longbowmen and it was THEY who unleashed a hellish barrage of meter long armour piercing arrows that handed England her most famous victory - outnumbered and against all odds.

It was also the WELSH archers that drove stakes into the ground to repel the French horses and it was the WELSH archers who gave us the two-fingered salute as a gesture of defiance.

The French used to cut their bow fingers off when they captured any archers so the Welsh archers used to wave both fingers at them from the other side of the battlefield.

Likewise the English crown relied on Scottish Highlanders for much of it's armed forces up to the present day; due to the impoverishment of the Scots after hundreds of years of oppression from the English kings.

And also the fact that Highlanders were tough ferocious warriors - perfect for sending overseas to carve out an Empire after first defeating Napoleon at Waterloo.

At the end of the day, England has had the money to buy success in many areas - none more so than on the field of battle - be that on the medieval fields of France or the Rugby paddock.

Sharia Law UK Rules!

2008-02-11T22:45:00.002Z

What a travesty. The Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the rapidly disintegrating Anglican Church tried to court controversay and instead brought his office into disrepute.

Dr Rowan Williams is meant to defend the Christian faith - not marginalize it in a perverse statement by declaring that Islamic "Sharia" law be introduced into the British legal system!

Its the equivalent of a cuckhold - a husband who likes to watch his wife have sex with a stranger - because he fears it may happen so much that he invites it into his life because he can't bear the indecision and anxiety of fearing it may happen.

In a way he has almost tried to stir up this debate as if to assure himself that people still do care about British Christian heritage, tradition and most of all faith in Jesus Christ.

I'm sure he must be secretly very relieved indeed.

The logic of his comments escape me; by his criteria then we need Jewish Law, Hindu law, Scientology law - just absurd.

This is a man that at Christmas aired his own theological reservations about the three wise men - surely he has not shown the leadership needed in his office and his remarks are irresponsible.

Most British citizens who happen to be Muslim, are happy enough under the laws of this land that provided them with the ability to live here in the first place.

This will cause moderate Anglicans to leave his church in droves for the solidity of the Roman Catholic Church or Protestant Evangelical congregations like Baptists, Presbytarians and Lutherans.

At a time when we are fighting against fundamentalist Islamic fascism - (whose adherents will not rest until the green cresent banner of Islam flies from Number 10 and Sharia replaces the Ancient Rule of British Law), he seems to advocate a nation within a nation with seperate laws and customs.

These Sharia customs are completely at odds with our own safeguards, our Rule of Law - for life liberty and property enshrined in our legislature, judiciary and executive - let alone the safety of minors and women surely?

The Islamic Fascists must be able to smell blood with this man's ill advised outburst!

It's like British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler and trying to explain to the British public that we should accomodate Hitler and the Nazis as they had their own tradition and way of doing things.

This appeasement came at a time when Nazi Germany had invaded former Czechoslovakia and taken over the country.

Chamberlain reckoned that we should mind our own business and not 'concern ourselves with what happens in a land far away of which we no little about'.

Not long after that Hitler invaded Poland and we were in WWII.

Williams has displayed a complete lack of guts and intelligence - get him out of his office before he opens his mouth once again. He speaks like a "bleeding heart soap box liberal" instead of a man whose feet are on a rock and whose convictions do not change with the winds and tides.

This country is in for such a terrible reckoning if the man who is meant to opitimize the moral compass of the nation is so spineless.

Maybe the integrity of the Anglican church itself is in question given that it was founded by a man (King Henry the 8th) who in a fit of rage at being denied a divorse by the Pope in Rome, decided to set up his own church and place himself at the head of it! At the time it was nearly as big a scandal as the introduction of Sharia law would be today.

Teddy Bear Teacher - 40 Lashes or Deportation...Lunacy!

2007-12-02T16:17:00.000Z

The case of Gillian Gibson, the British teacher who was arrested in Sudan for allowing her class to choose Mohammed as the name of the class Teddy bear is a farce, but a very dangerous farce.

Look at the speed by which armed mobs poured from the Sudanese Mosques demanding not the regular 6 months imprisonment nor 40 lashes of the whip - but the Death Penalty. What can we expect from a regime that is committing genocide against Black African Christians in the very south of Sudan in Dafur.

Have we not a duty to save them as we did the Muslim Bosnians?

At least many Sudanese bloggers have risen in support of Mrs Gibbons.

Braying mobs of one can only imagine illiterate Sudanese men (given they did not read the facts that it was the children who named the bear), demanded that this innocent 54 year old mother of two, a teacher who was in Sudan to help their children, be killed. One man was quoted as saying "If I find this buddhist (?!) British woman, I will behead her myself."

I'm unclear whether they use the Saudi dandruff treatment in the Sudan of beheading with a sword, or maybe they prefer the old style stoning by a mob?

Apparently Gillian Gibson got off lightly with a 15 day sentence. It was pleasing to hear the Muslim Council of Britain protested against the absurdity of her arrest and treatment by Sudan.

But yet again there were no general voices of protest from ordinary Muslims in the UK perhaps for fear that the arrest of Mrs Gibbons was indeed the will of Allah? This would have been a brilliant opportunity for Muslim UK citizens to demonstrate that they do not support such a fundamentalist and petty not to mention vindictive interpretation of Islam. An opportunity has been missed.

Two Muslim Members of the House of Lords have travelled to Sudan in an attempt to use their Islamic influence on the Sudanese as presumably it is not sufficient for the Sudanese that Her Majesty's Britannic Government has said how appalling and stupid this case is.

Maybe if we pardoned Dr Hook Hamza we could send him on peace envoys to Islamic hostage situations as it seems that such regimes do not respect anyone who is not Muslim.

The whole event smacks of a severe kind of "Islamic Political Correctness".

Initial reports said that parents complained that the naming of a teddy bear Mohammed was an insult to the Prophet of Islam himself.

It begs the question that if the parents were so devout, how could their children have named the teddy bear a name that could be interpreted as blasphemy?

Following that line - it is now clear that the school secretary complained to the Police. Which is what you do I suppose to a colleague in Sudan when the teacher in question is an infidel.

The loss is Sudan's as their children had a caring teacher who had a wealth of experience.

The attitude that the Sudanese mob is characteristic of the desperate Islamic fascism raising its head all over the Muslim world and even in Western liberal societies that are only beginning to recognise the danger of this dynamite preaching and world view.

It says it all that a member of Al-Qaeda was brought in as a key witness to testify how insulting it was to name the teddy Mohammed. And Jesus wept!

The scenario is similar to the mob that wanted to stone the adulteress in the New Testament to which Christ said "Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone". This Islamic fascism is as far from compassion, mercy and forgiveness as the Nazi regime.

The Parallels are two fold. Islamic fascism holds that all non-Muslims are infidel, kaffirs - sub-humans in the same way that the Nazi's held that all non-Aryans were Untermench or subhumans to be treated with contempt.

And secondly the Islamic funfamentalists are working towards a global Caliphate underwhich all non-Muslims are second class citzens at best, unless they convert with the sword. Likewise the Nazi's aimed to rule the world as the master race with a Lebensraum stretching from the Atlantic to the Siberian Pacific Ocean.

Contempt is exactly what the Sudanese have shown Mrs Gibbons. Contempt for any reason. Contempt for any claim of innocence or naivety. Contempt for humanity. Contempt for a human being created in God's own image. Contempt for the concept of putting yourself in another persons shoes.

Thank God we are not like that. Thank God we send aid to Muslim countries like Bangladesh when they have been flooded or when we intervened to save Bosnian Muslims from genocide in Yugoslavia, or to liberate Muslim Afghanistanis from the despotic medieval rule of the foul Taliban regime.

These Islamic fundamentalists should read their history. They ought to look back to one of their greatest statesmen and warriors: Saladin.

His real name was Salah al-Din Yusuf. When his soldiers entered the city of Jerusalem which had been under Christian rule and was known as the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, they were not allowed to kill civilians, rob people or damage the city.

Likewise when his enemy, England's King Richard (known as "The Lionheart") was marching his army of Crusaders to fight Saladin in Palestine, Saladin sent him supplies of fresh fruit and frozen snow for drinking water at King Richard's request. That was because Saladin was a true Muslim who knew that Allah demanded compassion for those in need. The photo at the top is of Saladin visiting Richard the Lionheart (when he had a fever I understand.)

How very different from the jihadists of today. Saladin would not recognise their rhetoric nor their tactics.

I'm sure that not only Jesus would have wept at the current state of Islam, but that great man Saladin as well.

Free Speech vs The Thought Police

2007-11-26T23:58:00.000Z

The furore over the speeches planned this evening at Oxford Union between Holocaust Denying Historian David Irving and the BNP (a right wing UK party) underlines the balance between free speech and incitement to intolerance.

Protesters wanted them cancelled because the content is at odds with the liberal western democratic values with which we live in this civil society.

However free speech is a core Human Right and a pillar of the "unwritten British constitution".

Anti-fascists believe that such speeches merely incite racial or religious hatred.

Whereas libertarians believe total free speech is required and that intolerant arguments should be allowed to be aired to be held up for ridicule, rebuttal and contempt.

Libertarians have a point to a degree; surely such speeches should go ahead if only to give such promulgators the rope with which to hang themselves?

Brendan O'Neill is one such defender of free speech who says "People are not attack dogs - they are not automatically going to become violent if they hear controversial things."

"Rather, these views should be expressed and challenged. Otherwise these horrible ideas will not be defeated, but will survive and fester underground."

Some in the public arena have asserted that uncensored free speech gave the Nazi Party a platform to voice their views and gain power in Germany leading to a world war in which so many Allied and German soldiers perished - let alone the 25 million Russians and 6 million Holocaust victims.

This is a simplification.

If the Nazi's had not had free speech, they would have promulgated their views underground.

The point is that Germany was ripe for the rise of a fascist power and if the speeches had not struck a chord with ordinary Germans, the Nazi's could never have been voted into the German Parliament.

People back then in Europe were fairly racist and nationalistic and Germany was a wreck having suffered from WWI reparations that had bankrupted the country.

I don't think that the current socio-political climate in the UK would lend itself to people taking such speeches to heart.

However, there are new laws that make inciting racial and religious hatred a crime.

For many years the Muslim cleric A.Hamza or Dr Hook as he was known, spouted pure hatred from his rotten heart at Finsbury Park calling for the murder non-Muslim British citizens.

Surely if we ban Hamza and his hook, ought we to ban Irving if his speech incites racial hatred?

There has in my opinion always been compelling evidence for the genocide at the Death Camps.

The question is are we allowed to question truths we hold to be true?

History is always open to revision. But in this case we are dealing not in interpretation and analysis but assumptions based upon previously unchallenged empirical evidence.

I have watched many documentaries on the Holocaust and seen the interviews with Jews who survived. Why would they fabricate such a story? Why the railway tracks that stop at the ovens - the end of the road? There is so much evidence that the Holocaust happened!

Surely there is ample evidence of the Holocaust to refute Irving's claims and show the implausibility of his argument.

As unpalatable as such views are and indeed as shocking as they are, must we censor any discussions that make us uncomfortable?

Likewise - shall we not ban all broadcasts from Osama bin Laden, for surely he incites racial and religious hatred... why give him a platform either?

Or for that matter, why was Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad invited to address Columbia university last September?

Ahmadinejad is one of the most outspoken Holocaust denyer's on God's green earth.

Free-speech expert Lee Bollinger had a noble vision of what Columbia was trying to achieve when he said:

"To commit oneself to a life - and a civil society - prepared to examine critically all ideas arises from a deep faith in the myriad benefits of a long-term process of meeting bad beliefs with better beliefs and hateful words with wiser words."

Are we frightened of what they are going to say because we don't know how to counter it? Are we like Galileo meeting the Papacy and refuting the notion that the Sun revolves around the Earth?

There is a temptation to let such spokesmen for the BNP dig themselves a hole.

But what if, we have got it wrong and in fact people today in the UK start to like what they hear from the BNP- in a similar way to the Nazi message in 1930's Germany...

Therein lies the danger.

Do we give them the rope and let them hang themselves... or do we extinguish their fire by suffocating it without the oxygen of publicity?

Iranian Nuclear Nightmare - Uranium Enrichment For Peaceful Means?

2007-11-22T23:33:00.000Z

There is nothing new about the nuclear showdown between the West and Iran.

The US is now applying pressure on Iran to stop the enrichment of uranium that could be used to make an Atomic weapon.

The Iranians maintain that they feel such weapons of mass destruction are "illegal, illegitimate and even ineffective"
according to the Iranian Nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

However, the Iranian president wants to wipe Israel off the map.

Okay maybe he is advocating genocide of the Israeli's by conventional weapons; either way it is an abomination of Apocalyptic proportions.

Take leaf out of the pages of history in the middle-east and Iran is bound to a major factor.

The fact is that Iran has been the big bully on the block for thousands of years, albeit when it was known as Persia.

We all know about the wars between the Greek city-states and Darius and Xerxes of Persia around 490-480 B.C. In that day, the Iranian people had flexed their muscles to the extent that they controlled all of present day Iraq and the rest of the middle-east as well as Egypt.

It was the intention of the Persian Empire to conquer Europe through Greece. Not too far off the current Iranian ideal of a Global Caliphate with Iran as the nucleus.

Of course in ancient times, the Persian Empire was initially pagan, before the invention of Zoroastrianism before finally Islam was brought to the Sassanid dynasty at the point of the sword by the Arabs.

The Iranians themselves are not Semitic – insomuch as they are not Arab.

They are Indo-European, like Germans, Italians, English, Welsh, Scandinavian etc – all those peoples who came out of the Russian steppes around 2000BC and with chariots migrated west into Europe or east into Iran and North India – hence why the Brahmin Hindu’s of India are paler than the Dravidian lower castes and why the polytheistic religion of Hinduism is so close to those of the pagan Europeans such as the Greeks, Romans and Germans/Celts…

Digression aside – are we not seeing a repeat of the 2003 – hunt for Weapons of Mass Destruction that were never found in Iraq.

Some on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C believe that Bush Junior is determined to invade or attack Iran before he ends his term of office.

Apart from the Islamic fundamentalism that has seen the West as demonic and the USA as the Great Satan, the Iranians have a track record of throwing their weight around – just read the Bible to get a feel for their warring in the middle-east.

Iranian interest in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and so forth is nothing new.

The difference is that we are now dependant on oil and can’t ignore regional instability in this region any longer.

However, maybe the friction between the Sunni Muslims in Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Egypt will counter the Shi'ite Islam of Iran, Syria and Lebanon?

Certainly Iran cannot be allowed Nuclear armaments but the way forward is not that of Iraq 2003, but rather the way the Cold War was won: through diplomacy and economic competition.

Is Pakistan Ripe For Islamic Revolution?

2007-11-22T22:31:00.000Z

Could Pakistan Heading for an Islamic Revolution? Many of the ingredients to be found in 1979 Iran can be found in Pakistan...

Pakistan has been thrown out of the Commonwealth for the second time in 10 years for suspending Democracy and installing a Military Dictatorship - just like the way the Shah of Iran ruled.

Paikistan's civil society is shaky. Its society is jaded and polarized.

And even it’s favorite son, Imran Khan, Pakistan’s star-cricketer was grabbed by an Islamic mob from his student supporters and carried off to be imprisoned.

It faces growing Islamic fundamentalism and borders Afghanistan where the Taliban are fighting a guerilla war to impose an aggressive Islam.

Imran Khan was on the news this morning. He stated that America's backing of the dictator Musharraf is similar to the way that the United States backed the Shah in Persia (Iran) prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution that.

The meddling in Iran caused a democratic movement to become anti-American ironically and from there, Islamic.

Heaven forbid that happens in Pakistan. It might with the Taliban making themselves felt in the north.

Indeed, with Pakistan a nuclear power, the bomb may fall easily into Iranian hands if Pakistan goes the way of Iran circa 1979.

Pakistan’s fate hangs by a knife edge and the gun is the law. The gun of the State Police or the gun of the Pakistani Islamic fanatic.

It is increasing uncomfortable, nay dangerous to occupy a democratic middle ground between the two. In other words you have a scenario whereby it’s like a choice between Nazi or Soviet rule in World War II.

How are the unarmed democratic elements in Pakistan supposed to hold the middle ground as the country becomes more polarized?

The irony really is that the United States has backed a dictator, similar to Thatcher’s British Government with the monstrous General Pinochet in Chile with his death squads.

It would be deadly if the Pakistani democratic movement was hijacked by anti-Americanism that manifested itself in an abhorrent Islamic Fundamentalism that mirrors the 1979 democratic Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Millions Face Fraud Thanks To Moronic Methods

2007-11-22T00:10:00.000Z

25 million child benefit records, many with bank account details have been lost along with Social Security (NI) numbers by a laissez-faire clerk working for HM Revenue and Customs.

Moronic? Or just plain lazy...? It was a huge security breach. Were they desperate to get back to office gossip, facebook or some such eminently more pressing matter?

The culprit has now been given a minder and is hidden in a safe house (read hotel) at the tax payers expense just in case a member of the public was let the them know how they felt.

What on earth is going on with the mechanics of this UK government?

First Northern Rock falters and is bailed out with millions of tax payers money and now the civil service can't even follow it's own guidelines on safe data protection law!

It reminds me of the fiasco's facing that other socialist government

in the former USSR circa late 1989. The state was failing, supermarket shelves were empty and people were having to make acorns for coffee.

The United States tends to set trends.

The dollar is now the lowest it has been since the 1970's Oil Crisis in part due to the bottom falling out of the American mortgage market.

It's not going to be long before the knock on effects begin to really shake things up.

Are we heading for another Black Monday as in 1987? Or worse...a 21st Century Financial depression to dwarf the 1930s Great depression when Wall Street crashed.

Nowadays the market is based in London. So if London fails, that is it.

Rome found itself financially stretched with wars against the Sassanids of present day Iran just before the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

This duress, combined with shifting populations of illegal and legal immigrants also drained the treasury and stretched the military in a similar manner to British difficulties in prosecuting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's no secret the troops don't have the equipment they need and it's no secret that at least in the UK, local authorities are increasingly struggling to spread resources such as benefits and housing among immigrants and UK citizens.

Britain, like Ancient Rome, seems to be suffering from a malaise of lethargy.

It's staggering to comprehend how some "job-for-life" civil servant lazily download 25 million bank and benefit details onto 2 CDs on his desk before shoving them in the hands of a courier with no registration of the transaction and conveyance of the CDs.

A courier who would know full well what kind of information might be in an unregistered package sent from Inland Revenue.

Pathetic and a signpost as to where we are heading unless we have one collective attitude adjustment.

If it Smells Fishy, it is - Dumping Dead Fish in the North Sea

2007-11-20T23:36:00.000Z

With so much of the world starving with not enough food, it is perverse that British fishermen are having to throw back 60% of their catch into the sea in order to meet EU conservation quotas.

The fish are dead when they are thrown back into the sea. So the fish are not "conserved" anyway. All they do is feed the gulls.

With cod at £13 a kilo, it is appalling that such food is wasted.

The BBC reported this morning that thousands of tonnes are wasted and it is set to ruin the fishing industry in the UK. This is staggering incompetance given that for the past decade at least, we have been trying to increase the levels of cod.

Now once the levels are at a decent level and we are catching more of them, we have to throw them back? Lunacy. Moronic.

The fishermen it seems are catching more than their quota by accident - obviously trawling with a net is not an exact science hence the excess.

One fisherman told the BBC news crew that by June of this year he had caught all the cod he could and was now only allowed to catch other fish such as prawns and haddock...any cod he caught had to be thrown back before returning to port.

Yet another example of the European Union and Brussels bureaucrats not being pragmatic enough nor savvy enough in their law making.

How on earth are fish levels to be increased in the North Sea if the method of policing and maintaining that level is unrealistic?

The fisherman, faced with having to find other species once he has reached his quota of another for the year, is forced to dump all the fish he can't take back to port.

Surely given that it's a bit of luck as to what you find in your net, it should come down to the number of catches rather than what is in them?

This morning in Kent, southern England, a fisherman showed all the dead fish he would dump because he was hoping for prawns and there were none in his catch.
The EU must wake up.

The World Wildlife Fund have suggested that fishermen specialise in just one type of fish on any given day but as we have seen, that is an imperfect and I would imagine, incredibly difficult task.

Are fish so territorial that we can ascertain where cod live and where prawns aren't?

The entire farce is right up there with the European Butter Mountain of the 1980s in which France in particular paid it's farmers subsidies and in turn the farmers churned out tonnes of the stuff - so much surplus that there was no market for it.

This at a time when Live Aid was drawing the worlds attention to the famine in Ethiopia. Butter mountains. Created by over production of butter, in fields that could have been used for growing grain.

As for the fish, yes they may track shoals of fish, yes they may ask fishermen to specialise in one particular fish, prawn, crab or maybe pay to have them retrain in IT - which seems to be the big solution to professions facing mammoth change.

EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg has said that there is no clear solution but agreed it was 'immoral' to throw back so many fish.

Maybe they could just ask the fishermen to fish the old fashioned way, with a mixed catch... except using a smaller net?

Positively Draining - Plumbing the depths of your pocket for Plumbers

2007-11-15T10:55:00.000Z

There has been a trend of academic professionals chucking in their jobs and taking up highly paid positions elsewhere.

Does that mean we will begin to hear about Stockbrokers who know their Socrates from their Chaucer or Oil Rig Engineers technicians who can also diagnose mononucleosis?

No indeed! Professionals have been retraining as none other than plumbers due to a shortage of tradesmen and the high fees charged when self employed.

Indeed even stockbrokers themselves have been lured by big pay packets to become plumbers and are taking up the plunger and wrench.

There are not many other more unsavoury jobs than plumbing surely? ....Aside from maybe being consigned to a life as a Hindu untouchable and spending life ostracized and spending every day doing the most awful tasks in society: street cleaning, handling the dead and tanning leather.

This morning the plumber came to my apartment because of some complication with the waste drains.

As a plumber he spends his life handling human waste right down to human hair and women's toiletries.

While I endeavoured to eat my breakfast, he kindly regaled me with the ultimate icebreaker - tales of what one finds in blocked sanitation units and how to sieve and chop your way through blockages...

More Vegemite on toast?

Watching him work, it struck me how laissez-faire he was with the filth he was handling without gloves nor grimace.

Impressed, I remarked that I hoped he was paid enough "danger money".

And here's the rub - he apparently earns close to £1,000 a week or nearly US$2,000... Why?

Well apart from having had to train for 4 years (again why would a professional wish to spend all that time retraining?), they are in short supply in the UK. They face getting sued if the job is done poorly and especially in cold climes, it must be terrible working in freezing winter weather.

Furthermore it must be positively draining, dealing with stressed people whose toilet has flooded the kitchen.

But it is an important job. I just don't see how miserable you'd have to be as a doctor, teacher or academic to be up to your armpits in other people's excrement.

Certainly the Romans valued plumbers very highly. Indeed they had great skills in moulding and soldering lead pipes and guttering as well as the engineering required to make the aqueducts, sewers and running water to fountains. In fact the Latin word Plumbum means "lead". Some villas in Pompeii had as much as 30 taps!

At least the role of the modern plumber is not as bad as the work of a Medieval leather tanner who used dog sh!t to treat leather.

The canine faeces was, I understand, mixed with brains and lovingly massaged by some poor soul into leather to make it into armour and shoes and saddles.

The mix of crap was ironically called Pure and in London the Pure Gatherers or Pickers were those who poop-scooped all day; the end result visible in everyday leather goods.

Nice.

Now that really has to have been the worst job and certainly put the plumber's job into context.

I doubt there'd be many professionals retraining for that little gig!

Martial Law in Pakistan - Dictators vs Democracy

2007-11-12T22:11:00.000Z

"I was involved in the process of arming Saddam Hussein," Lord Heseltine declared on the BBC's Question Time on Sunday evening in answer to the allegation that Britain had been right to back the military dictatorship of General Musharraf in Pakistan after his 1999 coup.

Should we give him the benefit of the doubt again?

After all - he has got Taliban supporters swarming over the hillsides and a back door unlocked leading into his neighbours Afghan poppy patch.

David Heseltine went on: "The reason we armed Saddam Hussein is because he was seen as an absolutely fundamental interest of the west against rising Muslim fundamentalism based on Iran. We have destabilised Iraq, greatly empowered Iran and the dangers to us in that process have been very considerably increased."

I guess those are the politics of political expediency.

Musharraf imposing martial law reminds me of Oliver Cromwell's imposition of Martial Law after various rump parliaments after the English Civil War failed to give him what he wanted.

Essentially Lord Heseltine's thrust was that we should not condemn martial law in Pakistan out of hand because if Democratic elections were held, they might bring the Pakistani-Taliban to power.

After all - Democracy brought Hitler to power!

Presumably General Musharraf feels that free elections might usher in the rise of Islamic fundamentalist fascism?

Maybe that is why we supported Saddam in Iraq as a secular bulwark against the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism after the Iranian revolution in 1979...?

What if they did have free elections in Pakistan and we get a new "Iran" - it's worth remembering that Pakistan is equipped for Nuclear Warfare and it would not take long for the raw materials and know how to get to Iran.

But if we truly believe in Democracy and free speech, we cannot allow ungrounded martial law and the detention of lawyers and the dissolution of the Pakistani legislature and judiciary to go unchallenged.

At some point we have to have the courage to give other peoples the right to their own self determination, lest we be seen as perpetuating the stigma of colonialism and gunboat diplomacy.

Ultimately, the threat of Islamic Fundamentalism will not go away until the community to which it belongs has the guts to debate and to challenge it's assumptions - and what better place than within the Democratic process.

But if that process bears bad fruit - then we could be looking at 1939 all over again.

A Sort of Homecoming...Benazir Bhutto Bombing

2007-10-19T08:19:00.000+01:00

Off with a Bang! The Taliban pulled out all the stops when ex-PM Ms Benazir Bhutto landed, setting off a road side bomb that killed 130.

It doesn't surprise me when you consider that sinister way that pro-Taliban groups have been operating for years inside Pakistan.

This will be a trial for Ms. Bhutto.

If she thought it was tough the last time she exercised power within Pakistan before the military took over, it will be nothing compared to the divisive and mutually exclusive notions of a democracy with a female PM versus a medieval and demented mentality of the fundamentalist Islamists.

Pakistan is the one country in the Islamic world, that thanks in part to its British heritage and the Muslim League, was a Democracy.

It now faces the same fate as Afghanistan, if pro-Taliban warlords begin to eat away at the national fabric and civil society like the cancer cells that they are.

The spread of Communism was far quicker in the impoverished societies of East Asia during the 1950s and 1960s - from China to Vietnam.

Those Oriental societies (whilst having a rich cultural heritage - as does the middle east) exhibited a lack of civil society as does many countries facing the threat of cross border contamination by Islamist fundamentalism.

We are facing the same global problem as we did during the instability from the Communist threat in the cold war.

Instead we have the war on terror (not an intelligent response to 9/11) and an Islamic fundamentalist ideology that also knows no borders.

I remember my geography teacher at school who was Malay Muslim and even he, a devout follower of Islam and a published scholar, could never have foreseen this terrible predicament.

It will take Muslims themselves everywhere to have the courage to stand up against it.

Muhammad Ali, after 9/11 said that had he been on one of those planes, he'd have had something to say to those terrorists...

One can only hope that Ms. Bhutto is made of the same mettle as Ali.

Cold Humble Pie - Why Did the All Blacks Lose?

2007-10-07T09:42:00.000+01:00

Well it's time for another slice of cold humble pie from the back of the fridge that All Black supporters have been choking on for the past 5 world cups.

The All Blacks did not go out and play with a do or die attitude. France did.

The AB's did not defend like they have done in past 3 years and did not attack in the manner spectators were accustomed to seeing.

This team has been ranked Number 1 for the past 3 years and won 42 from 46 games.

They have won 3 Tri nations and 1 Grand Slam. France have been creamed by them on the last 7 occasions stretching back to 2002.

It's all between the ears. Mental strength. Guts. Sounds trite but it's true.

The All Blacks heavy rotation of players to cover possible injuries did not allow the team to galvanize under pressure.

The conditioning programme (that ruined the super 14 and perhaps kick started the Boks confidence with an all SA super 14 final) which rested 22 key All Blacks in the Super 14 did not leave them battle hardened.

The irony is that 3 AB’s left the field injured (including the world's best flyhalf Daniel Carter )at the 60 minute mark when the game turned in French favour. They came off with sprinter's injuries which would indicate that their training had been too sterile and not rough and tumble. Only rugby prepares you for rugby.

NZ lead 13-0 for 50 minutes and then the useless ref (a rookie) gave what is now recognised as

an erroneous yellow card for a body check
and in the next 10 mins allowed a try from a French forward pass that even the commentators said was wrong.
plus a penalty count that was a first in awarding 9 penalties against a team in one half and no penalties to the other. Even the IRB admit that France should have been penalized 3 times in the last 10 minutes for off side play...
Plus no advantage was played when it should have been.

GAME OVER.

Ah well "four more years boys, four more years". Like 1999 all over.

Why on earth did they not practice drop goals and such strategies in the easy pool games... such hubris.

That is sudden death rugby, all mental and it’s the English and French who have performed with courage and conviction as if their lives depended on it.

You can’t coach that!

Off to Afghanistan with the British Territorial Army

2007-10-04T11:04:00.000+01:00

Well the day arrived last Monday when two friends of mine flew off in a massive Hercules airplane to Afghanistan.

It had been 5 years since they first realised that as British Territorial Soldiers, they'd have to join the regular forces and go and fight.

Initially I imagine they met the idea with incredulity that the one time they joined up, was just before the biggest period of sustained military fight since arguably WWII.

Certainly the military suggests that the casualty rate in Afghanistan has now reached WWII figures in Hellmand, a province that the soldiers have renamed Hellman...

And for good reason! Alexander the Great, or Sekander as he is known there, only managed to bring peace to the warring tribes, by marriage. That is not really an option for most squaddies unless they want a hair cut from the blade of the local Warlord, Taliban, or Al-Qaida operative.

The British had to give up in Afghanistan in the Victorian period when British power was unparalleled and still the native people, the terrain and the climate determined that a strategic withdrawal was the only option.

Likewise the USSR, as it rolled into Afghanistan in the 1980s also floundered against the Mujaheddin in particular (albeit partly equipped by the Pentagon in terms of munitions).

So now the Brits are back. As NATO forces under the current control of a Danish General, I wonder how the strategies have been formulated? You cannot win a guerrilla conflict when one pitches conventional forces against such hit and run tactics. Vietnam illustrated that clearly.

So if the tactics are to burn poppy fields without a suggestion as to how to offer an alternative cash crop, I fear all the troops will do is alienate locals and drive them into the Taliban's arms.

With porous land locked borders it is a nightmare scenario. The enemy can reinforce North, South, East and West.

Surely the borders must be secured first in terms of supply routes and treat the opium production separately to the Taliban.

Gordon Brown maintains it needs an economic answer.

Maybe it also needs a policing answer and the campaign would be better off conducted with a policing action whereby the enemy are neutralized at source rather than allowed to congregate.

Perhaps it is not a war that can be won, save for controlling the borders to stifle the opium trade thus denying the Taliban foreign currency they fleece from selling on opium.

Ultimately the question to the Head of NATO forces should be:

"Given the historical lessons of successive failures by foreign occupiers in Afghanistan in the past 2,300 years, what is your exit strategy?"

World Cup - Competition or Coronation for the All Black Favourites?

2007-09-27T09:59:00.000+01:00

On the face of the amazing run of success that the New Zealand All Blacks have won over the last 3 years, many in the Sports Media have claimed this World Cup would be a walk over for the men in black.

What people fail to wake up and realise is that in this competition, every team raises their game - none more so than the Australian Wallabies, who have been champs twice.

Yet when you take a look at the world rankings over the past 4 years, the All Blacks are consistently 1st.

So doesn't that suggest in the scheme of things that statistically they already are champs...?

I guess it's all about success on the given day and the mental toughness to "guts it out".

Just look at the 2003 World Champs. England had the best camaraderie and sense of purpose but not the best players overall.

Over the past 20 years it has been the All Blacks that have dominated the top spot but won only the 1987 competition. This has got to be due to complacency.

Choking on the big day? Jonah Lomu doesn't think so.

He claims that when the All Blacks were beaten, it was because they were well beaten, not because they choked at crunch time.

When formerly undefeated world heavyweight marauder Attila the Hun was beaten at the Battle of Chalons by the Roman and Visigothic Armies under command of Aetius in the 5thC AD, history didn't accuse him of having an "off day"!

"Oh Attila yeah, well he just wasn't in the zone today what with the pressure of destroying the Roman Empire and setting up an age of savagery and darkness n' stuff. Guess he choked..."

Pressure?

Well what All Black team doesn't run into the Stadium's arena without the pressure of knowing the NZ public expects them to win and win well? And that's not even in a world cup!

So for those of you certain that they will again fail this time, here is my take...

Have faith in Coach Graham Henry. Remember the second half of the Bledisloe cup match when it was like a new team ran out.

New Tactics. Relentless physicality. Clinical execution.

Don't be afraid my friend for I say unto thee, that the All Blacks will "Become the Destroyer Of Worlds" in this World Cup.

A cup which will runneth over with tries a plenty played not in the dour spoiling fashion of the current holders of the crown.

Henry has been so careful to send mixed messages to oppositions. In the Tri-Nations the ABs won every game by playing poorly by their own lofty standards, then in the last 40 minutes they played completely differently - much more like Vs France in Nov 2006.

Is it all a bluff?

Will Henry force his hand or just show glimpses unil the quarter finals?

Then we will truly see if the All Blacks "always peak too soon".

We saw a statement of intent vs Italy three weeks ago and little else since. It will be the quarters when we see the true mettle and the strength of rotation and conditioning.

So leave the mind games up to the others. Leave the talking for on the field.

ACTA NON VERBA as the Romans would have said.

History Repeats - Is there anything to be learned from the past to prepare us for the present?

2007-09-26T01:45:00.000+01:00

"Those who cannot learn from History are doomed to repeat it", so said George Santayana.

Indeed Thucydides himself felt that History was merely the philosophy of teaching by examples from the past.

But what of our world? Are there similarities between today's news and what has come before.

How much better off are we in the age of Nuclear Oblivion, Global warming, potential religious Apocalypse and reality TV repeats such as Big Brother?

Compare that trauma to those that lived through the Black Death, The Fall Of Rome, The Vikings, the Crusades, WWII or indeed 1950s Black and White Television and 1970s "heat and eat" SMASH.

Of course Henry Ford, (of whom I have owned two damn fine motor cars), maintained: "History is more or less bunk....the only history that is worth a Tinker's damn is the history we write today". Well, let's just see.

Today the UK Govt admitted that due to the pathetic reticence to discuss border controls (think the Sangatte farce), there are no figures as to how many illegal foreign nationals are within the UK. Staggering.

Take a look at the borders of the UK. Porous. What springs to my mind are the borders of the Roman Empire through which new comers poured and ended up tearing the fabric of Roman society: the Franks, The Visigoths, the Burgundinians... and of course Attila the Hun.

I'm not even going to debate the enormous benefit skilled immigration brings to a country - for instance Australia, but for me there are very salient similarities between the vast migrations of the early 21st Century and those of the last huge change in Europe that took place between 360 AD and 475 AD.