Yeah the US is in the middle of some sh*t at the moment so the version of the Princeton shootings I'm going with is that recent NRA advertisement that invoked Obama's children. Personally I don't see a problem because on the day of the Newtown massacre Obama stood up, cried fake tears and invoked everybodies children. So you know we're really interested to know if the NRA are actually trying to throw this fight.
Due to the timing of the announcement we would also have accepted; Probe into pentagon shades, Princeton university, sexy time and you know, something else.
03:20 on 1/2/13.
Thursday, 31 January 2013
No It's True David Beckham has Moved...
... All the way to Paris Saint Germain (PSG).
For his part Beckham thinks he can get the stink of #Herballife off him by doing a big and loud impersonation of a five month Farewell Tour (#777). Qatar have put the money up in order to raise the issue of Qatari money during David Cameron's (UK PM) rushed visit to Libya and you know let Le Republique feel that they're included. Then someone launched a 'very rough' investigation in Barclays Bank and Qatari money while I was mocking NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg over his inability to close Jay-Z's nightclub in New York's Barclays (bank) Stadium for one night.
In other news new Spanish speaker much like old Spanish speaker.
23:20 on 31/1/13.
For his part Beckham thinks he can get the stink of #Herballife off him by doing a big and loud impersonation of a five month Farewell Tour (#777). Qatar have put the money up in order to raise the issue of Qatari money during David Cameron's (UK PM) rushed visit to Libya and you know let Le Republique feel that they're included. Then someone launched a 'very rough' investigation in Barclays Bank and Qatari money while I was mocking NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg over his inability to close Jay-Z's nightclub in New York's Barclays (bank) Stadium for one night.
In other news new Spanish speaker much like old Spanish speaker.
23:20 on 31/1/13.
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
Syria Claims Fresh Israeli Air Attack in Damascus.
In the last hour or so Syrian state television are claiming that Israeli war planes have attack a chemical weapons store facility close to Damascus deep inside Syria. There are two possible scenarios here;
Firstly Israel has mounted an attack on Syria. Apart from pre-emptively destroying Syria's chemical weapons capabilities this would significantly weaken the Assad government. Therefore it is Israel very firmly adding it's voice to the clamour of disgust of the US' seeming intention to go ahead the Rihanna operation.
Secondly and much more likely there has been no attack. Instead the Syrian government is attempting to tell it's people it's version of today's earlier Israeli air strike on a weapons convoy close to the Lebanese border. By portraying Israel as being at the front of efforts to overthrown the Syrian government Assad is trying to play into deep anti-Semitism within Syrian society in an effort to solidify support. This will fail because Assad's strongest supporters are located in and around Damascus and they will quite quickly realise they're being lied to when then they see no air strike has taken place.
Under either scenario the US's plan to contain and control Syria's Islamist opposition had better to be ready to go with immediate effect. That's because if Assad does fall sooner rather then later the US' plans in Africa are going to blow up in their faces in spectacular fashion. So I think it's really time for them to accept that I'm not the bad guy in the Rihanna story.
19:55 on 30/1/13.
Firstly Israel has mounted an attack on Syria. Apart from pre-emptively destroying Syria's chemical weapons capabilities this would significantly weaken the Assad government. Therefore it is Israel very firmly adding it's voice to the clamour of disgust of the US' seeming intention to go ahead the Rihanna operation.
Secondly and much more likely there has been no attack. Instead the Syrian government is attempting to tell it's people it's version of today's earlier Israeli air strike on a weapons convoy close to the Lebanese border. By portraying Israel as being at the front of efforts to overthrown the Syrian government Assad is trying to play into deep anti-Semitism within Syrian society in an effort to solidify support. This will fail because Assad's strongest supporters are located in and around Damascus and they will quite quickly realise they're being lied to when then they see no air strike has taken place.
Under either scenario the US's plan to contain and control Syria's Islamist opposition had better to be ready to go with immediate effect. That's because if Assad does fall sooner rather then later the US' plans in Africa are going to blow up in their faces in spectacular fashion. So I think it's really time for them to accept that I'm not the bad guy in the Rihanna story.
19:55 on 30/1/13.
Even by Local Standards Syria's Getting Bad.
Although I've long since forgotten the Operation Ostrava timescale the situation in Syria has only continued to deteriorate. Yesterday Lakhdar Brahimi the United Nations Special Envoy on the country briefed the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and spoke of a country being destroyed. This adds to the pressure from the the Gulf Co-Operation Council (GCC) nations who are continuing to call for Bashar al-Assads overthrow. This is something that runs counter to US interests because the last thing they want is a 6th Al Qaeda stronghold especially another one so close to Israel.
Fortunately though the US has so far been able to keep Russia and China on side in order to delay Assad's fall long enough for the US to gain a diplomatic foothold in Syria's disparate and divided opposition. Unfortunately Russia recently turned round to the US and basically told them that if they continue to d*ck around on this Rihanna thing Russia will simply allow Assad to fall and let the US to deal with the consequences. Obviously this has got Assad more then a little bit nervous so today he sent a convoy of heavy/chemical weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon knowing full well that Israel would blow it up. The idea being to raise the issue of why the international community is not doing more to shut down the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army's (SQIA) supply lines.
So like I've said I can only strongly recommend that the US keeps the nonsense associated with the Diamonds tour to an absolute minimum because they've already got more then enough work on without trying to play me.
13:20 on 30/1/13.
Edited at 14:40 on 30/1/13 to add: Now we've established that I hadn't forgotten about Syria because I was being driven mad with passion for Rihanna I think it's time for management to explicitly tell her that she will be calling me and meeting up with me in person once she's done with London Fashion Week. That way I can explain through her what the red lines for the Diamonds tour are. After all I'm sure she's already given up on the idea of it being fun. That's because through making her miserable management fuel the fairy tale that she'll soon retire and live happily ever after with Chris Brown.
Fortunately though the US has so far been able to keep Russia and China on side in order to delay Assad's fall long enough for the US to gain a diplomatic foothold in Syria's disparate and divided opposition. Unfortunately Russia recently turned round to the US and basically told them that if they continue to d*ck around on this Rihanna thing Russia will simply allow Assad to fall and let the US to deal with the consequences. Obviously this has got Assad more then a little bit nervous so today he sent a convoy of heavy/chemical weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon knowing full well that Israel would blow it up. The idea being to raise the issue of why the international community is not doing more to shut down the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army's (SQIA) supply lines.
So like I've said I can only strongly recommend that the US keeps the nonsense associated with the Diamonds tour to an absolute minimum because they've already got more then enough work on without trying to play me.
13:20 on 30/1/13.
Edited at 14:40 on 30/1/13 to add: Now we've established that I hadn't forgotten about Syria because I was being driven mad with passion for Rihanna I think it's time for management to explicitly tell her that she will be calling me and meeting up with me in person once she's done with London Fashion Week. That way I can explain through her what the red lines for the Diamonds tour are. After all I'm sure she's already given up on the idea of it being fun. That's because through making her miserable management fuel the fairy tale that she'll soon retire and live happily ever after with Chris Brown.
Tuesday, 29 January 2013
It's Tuesday Night and I'm Back From the Pub.
With nothing more interesting to say I was going to take the opportunity to tell you a tedious but informative story about the last time Britain convicted someone of witchcraft way back in 1944.
Unfortunately the UK Prime Minister has announced that he is going to visit Algeria in the wake of the In Amenas hostage fiasco. Then British Petroleum (BP) entered a guilty plea to a range of charges including corporate manslaughter in a US court over the Deep Water Horizon/Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The guilty plea was accepted. Women's issues in the US think this will be viewed as the US bravely slapping down the UK over it's general bad behaviour particularly that conducted in Africa. What they've failed to realise is that until Chris Brown is put in prison it's all on them. In fact unless Rihanna shows willing soon it may already be too late to get out from under this one. The fact that BP were the ones setting the momentum should really have been a big f*cking clue.
So with Britain deploying some 300 military trainers to Mali and surrounding English speaking west-African nations I feel compelled to ask; Are the local troops familiar with a concept known as 'time sensitivity'? It's just in what will be a special forces war with African troops at best playing a supporting role I feel it may be important.
Oh and yes the last person to be convicted of witchcraft in the UK was Helen Duncan. In 1941 Ms Duncan held a seance if which she summoned the spirit of one of the 800 sailors who had died when HMS Branham was sunk by a German U-boat in November 1941. The problem was that the sinking of the Barnham was kept secret until January 1942 in order to stop the news adversely affecting public morale. Therefore the only logical way Ms Duncan could have known about the incident was if someone on Britain's side who knew about the secret leaked or Ms Duncan was a German spy. After thoroughly investigating Britain's intelligence services found no indication of either of these scenarios being the case. However with D-Day coming up they really needed to shut Ms Duncan up so in January 1944 they tried and convicted her of witch craft and she spent the rest of the war in prison before being posthumously pardoned in July 2012. Actually thinking about it this case might have been what prompted the US and the USSR to spend small fortunes researching shared consciousness during the cold war.
20:20 on 28/1/13.
Unfortunately the UK Prime Minister has announced that he is going to visit Algeria in the wake of the In Amenas hostage fiasco. Then British Petroleum (BP) entered a guilty plea to a range of charges including corporate manslaughter in a US court over the Deep Water Horizon/Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The guilty plea was accepted. Women's issues in the US think this will be viewed as the US bravely slapping down the UK over it's general bad behaviour particularly that conducted in Africa. What they've failed to realise is that until Chris Brown is put in prison it's all on them. In fact unless Rihanna shows willing soon it may already be too late to get out from under this one. The fact that BP were the ones setting the momentum should really have been a big f*cking clue.
So with Britain deploying some 300 military trainers to Mali and surrounding English speaking west-African nations I feel compelled to ask; Are the local troops familiar with a concept known as 'time sensitivity'? It's just in what will be a special forces war with African troops at best playing a supporting role I feel it may be important.
Oh and yes the last person to be convicted of witchcraft in the UK was Helen Duncan. In 1941 Ms Duncan held a seance if which she summoned the spirit of one of the 800 sailors who had died when HMS Branham was sunk by a German U-boat in November 1941. The problem was that the sinking of the Barnham was kept secret until January 1942 in order to stop the news adversely affecting public morale. Therefore the only logical way Ms Duncan could have known about the incident was if someone on Britain's side who knew about the secret leaked or Ms Duncan was a German spy. After thoroughly investigating Britain's intelligence services found no indication of either of these scenarios being the case. However with D-Day coming up they really needed to shut Ms Duncan up so in January 1944 they tried and convicted her of witch craft and she spent the rest of the war in prison before being posthumously pardoned in July 2012. Actually thinking about it this case might have been what prompted the US and the USSR to spend small fortunes researching shared consciousness during the cold war.
20:20 on 28/1/13.
UK Hand Transplant Get Two Fingered Salute.
Weeks after the UK performed it's first hand transplant surgeons at the John Hopkins hospital in the US have performed a double arm transplant on a soldier wounded in Afghanistan. The main metaphor here is the 'Rehabilitation of Rihanna' narrative that the US has been trying to build up ahead of the tour. However to give you an idea of the tone of the announcement the patient is a guy called Brendan Marrocco which is just one letter out from Morrocco, his hand therapist goes by the name of Marlee which is pronounced the same as Mali and there's a Dr Assad in there somewhere too. The bit that caught my eye though was at the press conference Marracco appeared in a T-shirt bearing the slogan; "Keep Calm and Chive On" which is version of the "Keep Calm and Carry On Slogan" that appears to be everywhere these days. Coined by the British Ministry of Information during the second world war the "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters were to be used following the invasion of Britain by Nazi Germany. So it's the slogan we use when we're being over-run by fascists.
16:50 on 29/1/13.
16:50 on 29/1/13.
The Lezzo Tin.
Yesterday I posted on Twitter a picture of an airtight canister I use to keep certain things in. Provided by my paternal grandmother it originally contained a powdered Turkish fruit drink called Lezzo. In English this is a shortened/slang version of the term lesbian - something I and a lesbian stoner friend used to find hilarious. I captioned it with the words; "Where we keep the ashes when the valleys hushed and white with snow." This is part of a lyric from an old Irish folk song "Danny Boy." The full lyric goes; "Come ye back when summers in the meadow. Or the valley's hushed and white with snow." You may remember that recently Rihanna seemed desperate for me to get in more direct contact with her. Then when that mechanism was in place she suddenly lost interest. The key difference seemed to be the timing of the UK Prime Minister's much hyped speech on the European Union which was scheduled to take place on January 18th (18/1/13) but was cancelled at the last minute. On that very date the UK was hit by a snow storm which left the valleys and most other things hushed and white.
Outside of Turkey Lezzo's main market is in Saudi Arabia. Amid all the legal arguments over my grandmother Saudi Arabia genuinely suggested that the UK might want to prosecute her for being a witch. This is not a stupid as it sounds because although technically still on the statute books the UK's anti-witchcraft legislation is very old and therefore really easy to secure convictions under. Appearing to be able to control the weather would be a major element of the prosecutions case. So to certain people it could appear as though Britain's recent snow storm was my grandmother acting from beyond the grave to give Rihanna a hint. A slightly more logical conclusion would be that the number of people who think Rihanna should get in touch with me far exceeds the number of people who think she shouldn't. This energy created a disturbance in the quantum field causing it to snow. An even more logical conclusion is that it was simply a coincidence. After all although it is becoming more rare snow in the UK in January is hardly unexpected.
If you are interested in statistical anomalies though there is a 100% correlation between me opening that tin and Chris Brown violating his probation. That is based on a sample size of two. I would open it more often but clearly it puts me in quite a silly mood.
13:45 on 29/1/13.
Outside of Turkey Lezzo's main market is in Saudi Arabia. Amid all the legal arguments over my grandmother Saudi Arabia genuinely suggested that the UK might want to prosecute her for being a witch. This is not a stupid as it sounds because although technically still on the statute books the UK's anti-witchcraft legislation is very old and therefore really easy to secure convictions under. Appearing to be able to control the weather would be a major element of the prosecutions case. So to certain people it could appear as though Britain's recent snow storm was my grandmother acting from beyond the grave to give Rihanna a hint. A slightly more logical conclusion would be that the number of people who think Rihanna should get in touch with me far exceeds the number of people who think she shouldn't. This energy created a disturbance in the quantum field causing it to snow. An even more logical conclusion is that it was simply a coincidence. After all although it is becoming more rare snow in the UK in January is hardly unexpected.
If you are interested in statistical anomalies though there is a 100% correlation between me opening that tin and Chris Brown violating his probation. That is based on a sample size of two. I would open it more often but clearly it puts me in quite a silly mood.
13:45 on 29/1/13.
Monday, 28 January 2013
Chris Brown Has Been Fighting Again
Overnight Chris Brown is alleged to have assaulted another R&B singer Frank Ocean in a argument over a parking space outside the Westlake recording studio in Los Angles. Police are said to be keen to speak to Brown but not keen enough to go round to his house and arrest him. Although I'm only vaguely aware of who these people are a quick look on Ocean's Wikipedia page reveals that he was recently involved in a controversy about his sexuality after he revealed having romantic relationships with other men. So while the events most certainly do seem to have taken place and the participants may not be fully aware of their role this whole things a set up for the African Union (AU) summit that is currently going on in Ethiopia with a bit of awards season drama thrown in for good measure.
At the summit the US is trying to find out if AU nations are failing to commit troops to Mali because many of them genuinely can't afford to deploy and supply their troops for what will be a long conflict or whether it is AU nations showing their displeasure at Chris Brown's recent tour and US plans for Rihanna's upcoming tour. Of course there is also an element of the US trying to find out what AU nations know/think about those tours. So expect the Brown/Ocean story to run with lots of discussion about Brown's violent streak, how situations can be manipulated to bring that violent streak to the fore and what if any role I had in manipulating this particular situation. Then of course no charges will be filed because the US already has more then enough to jail Brown for a long time. They're simply protecting him in order to use him to control and exploit Rihanna.
Oh and also with a British Airways (BA) flight from Houston to London being diverted to Cardiff I hope I don't need to explain the latest development in the Dreamliner story to the US because they seem to be being very slow on the uptake.
16:20 on 28/1/13.
At the summit the US is trying to find out if AU nations are failing to commit troops to Mali because many of them genuinely can't afford to deploy and supply their troops for what will be a long conflict or whether it is AU nations showing their displeasure at Chris Brown's recent tour and US plans for Rihanna's upcoming tour. Of course there is also an element of the US trying to find out what AU nations know/think about those tours. So expect the Brown/Ocean story to run with lots of discussion about Brown's violent streak, how situations can be manipulated to bring that violent streak to the fore and what if any role I had in manipulating this particular situation. Then of course no charges will be filed because the US already has more then enough to jail Brown for a long time. They're simply protecting him in order to use him to control and exploit Rihanna.
Oh and also with a British Airways (BA) flight from Houston to London being diverted to Cardiff I hope I don't need to explain the latest development in the Dreamliner story to the US because they seem to be being very slow on the uptake.
16:20 on 28/1/13.
Sunday, 27 January 2013
Morsi Addresses Nation.
I've not seen it but assume he said something along the lines of;
"I'm really sorry that I rigged the judiciary to let Mubarak appeal against his conviction. I'm also really sorry that I rigged the judiciary to have the Port Said verdict announced the day after the 2nd anniversary. It's just I'm trying to challenge to see if Israel will put it's muscle behind the 2nd revolution because the last time Israel put it's muscle behind an Egyptian revolution you ended up with me as President and I'm sh*t!"
20:50 on 27/1/13.
"I'm really sorry that I rigged the judiciary to let Mubarak appeal against his conviction. I'm also really sorry that I rigged the judiciary to have the Port Said verdict announced the day after the 2nd anniversary. It's just I'm trying to challenge to see if Israel will put it's muscle behind the 2nd revolution because the last time Israel put it's muscle behind an Egyptian revolution you ended up with me as President and I'm sh*t!"
20:50 on 27/1/13.
So in the Orginal Plan.
The European rumours over Tom Daley's sexuality were meant to put pressure on ECOWAS nations regarding their performance in Mali exposing their interest in Diamonds.
20:15 on 27/1/13
20:15 on 27/1/13
Brazilian Nightclub Fire.
Overnight a fire tore through the packed Kiss nightclub in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria during a live performance by a band. The current death toll stands at 245 but with many in hospital and many still unaccounted for that is expected to rise significantly. In 2014 Brazil will host the football World Cup and in 2016 it will have to endure the great fascist dictatorship known as the Olympics. Therefore until those big events are out of the way I think it's safe to assume that the Brazilian government has had a hand in everything that has happened. Along with crime in the favelas and child prostitution public safety both at the stadiums and in the surrounding nightlife are going to be major issues.
However that said I think the governments role in this fire is something as small as switching an indoor firework for an outdoor firework. It then becomes a test of the venue and the promoter. For example do they check all their equipment is safe before they use it? If not are they able to contain any fire before it spreads? If they're not are they then able to safely evacuate people from the venue? Clearly in this case those tests have been failed and appropriately enough for Holocaust memorial day sometimes people need to see what the absolute worst that can happen is so they understand why they have to work to prevent it.
As she is pretty much considered an honorary citizen and is part of the Olympic baton passed from the UK to Brazil this story has a Rihanna element to it. If she continues on her current path and becomes nothing more then a US diplomatic pawn at best Rihanna can expect to become the pressure point everybody pushes on to let the US know they're p*ssed off. If Chris Brown remains out of prison there are going to be a lot of people who are very p*ssed off. At worst people may become so annoyed with Rihanna that they simply put her out of business. Having had this explained to them Beyonce (wife of Roc Nation boss Jay-Z) lip-synced her performance of the US national anthem at President Obama's inauguration to open discussion about what possible methods could be used to achieve that aim. After all being exposed as not being able to sing is quite damaging to a singers brand. What's happened in Brazil is the other end of that spectrum because you try getting people to pay $100 to attend a concert where they will be legitimately in fear for their life.
Of course by bringing this out into the open we are trying to reduce the possibility of it happening for this tour at least.
14:55 on 27/1/13.
However that said I think the governments role in this fire is something as small as switching an indoor firework for an outdoor firework. It then becomes a test of the venue and the promoter. For example do they check all their equipment is safe before they use it? If not are they able to contain any fire before it spreads? If they're not are they then able to safely evacuate people from the venue? Clearly in this case those tests have been failed and appropriately enough for Holocaust memorial day sometimes people need to see what the absolute worst that can happen is so they understand why they have to work to prevent it.
As she is pretty much considered an honorary citizen and is part of the Olympic baton passed from the UK to Brazil this story has a Rihanna element to it. If she continues on her current path and becomes nothing more then a US diplomatic pawn at best Rihanna can expect to become the pressure point everybody pushes on to let the US know they're p*ssed off. If Chris Brown remains out of prison there are going to be a lot of people who are very p*ssed off. At worst people may become so annoyed with Rihanna that they simply put her out of business. Having had this explained to them Beyonce (wife of Roc Nation boss Jay-Z) lip-synced her performance of the US national anthem at President Obama's inauguration to open discussion about what possible methods could be used to achieve that aim. After all being exposed as not being able to sing is quite damaging to a singers brand. What's happened in Brazil is the other end of that spectrum because you try getting people to pay $100 to attend a concert where they will be legitimately in fear for their life.
Of course by bringing this out into the open we are trying to reduce the possibility of it happening for this tour at least.
14:55 on 27/1/13.
Friday, 25 January 2013
24 Hours Gone.
And nothing. Therefore I can only assume that Rihanna's handlers haven't sat her down and explained London Fashion Week to her. That's no great surprise because no-one likes to learn they're the tethered goat. Of course the other alternative would me for her to phone me up so I can explain it to her. After all I can imagine that going to a series of fashion shows, press conferences and parties where everybody's in on the joke except you could get a bit annoying and even the handlers have been forced to concede that abusive head trauma could become an issue. I'm sorry if that sounds a bit manipulative but posting it on the world wide web kind of defeats the point.
00:10 on 26/1/13.
00:10 on 26/1/13.
Back From my GP.
It wasn't routine this time. With all the desperate efforts to strip me of disability benefits Britain has suddenly taken a massive interest in the health effects of the drugs I'm taking that support that claim. So at some point in the future I'm going to be offered an ECG to look for signs of an irregular heartbeat. Wouldn't worry too much though because I had my blood pressure taken today which came out at 125/82 which considering I'm slightly overweight, smoke and have high stress levels is actually on the low side and well within normal limits.
17:25 on 25/1/13.
17:25 on 25/1/13.
Thursday, 24 January 2013
Just a Thought
But has anyone actually sat Rihanna down and explicitly told her that she has a free choice whether to contact me or not? It's just I can only assume the current malfunction is being driven by fear. After all she's clearly a reasonably intelligent woman but blowing really hot for me in the run-up to the EU speech and then going cold the moment it's over is a dead give away. We were really all expecting at least a little bit of game to try and take the edge off especially now there's no mystery to Chris Brown's role.
11:55 on 24/1/13.
11:55 on 24/1/13.
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
I'm About to Go to Bed
Before I do though I can't help but notice that Beyonce has failed to put out a statement regarding her inauguration fiasco. I assuming this is due to a failure to find the right words. So allow me to help. I would start by apologising for wasting everybody's time. I would then go on to plead for sympathy by explaining you've just realised that by attempting to address such a vanilla issue head-on you are simply inviting a more vicious indirect attack. After all a marker was put down in Cote D' Ivorie and we're fast running out of reasons why the sentiment shouldn't be returned. So Roskilde's going to be fun because that news about woman been allowed to serve in combat should be enough to send shivers down your spine. But then it's intended too - how else are they going to achieve abusive brain trauma.
22:50 on 23/1/13.
22:50 on 23/1/13.
Israel Hate US Slightly Less the Obama Does.
Yesterday Israel held a general election which to the surprise of no-one was won by incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu's centre right Likud party. They will most likely go on to form a coalition with the Yesh Atid party which is essentially Kadima in new clothes. However the result that everyone was interested in was how the ultra-nationalist Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party would perform because they were an essential part of Obama's efforts to get Chuck Hagel confirmed as defence secretary. The idea being that such a controversial appointment would provoke a surge in votes for parties like Habayit Hayehundi and then having been seen to strenghen Jewish Zionism the US Republicans would drop their opposition to Hagel. Of course the downside of that strategy is that the US ends up with Chuck Hagel as defence secretary. In the end Habayit Hayehundi only won 11 seats which is 1 less then they were predicted prior to Hagel's nomination.
Of course the only way that Likud was able to secure it's narrow victory was by merging with the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party. Therefore despite Habayit Hayehundi's poor showing the election results represent a large shift in Israeli politics towards ultra-nationalism driven largely by the new threats Israel faces caused by the Arab Spring. So while I don't want to cause the Norwegians any problems they may want to consider revoking Obama's Nobel Peace Prize because any hope of the two state solution is gone now.
Oh and while I'm here I should point out that Hillary Clinton's mentioning of AFRICOM during the Benghazi hearing which took place during the Africa Cup of Nations was the US trying to find out if it's got any friends left in Africa post Contra Mundum.
17:05 on 23/1/13.
Edited at around 20:20 on 23/1/13 to add: The hearing on Benghazi is still going on and the Democrats especially the ones from California are not coming out of this at all well. They're all using it as an opportunity to congratulate Hillary Clinton on her success as Secretary of State when in reality in just four short years she has managed to do far more damage to US interests abroad then George W Bush managed in eight years and two deeply unpopular wars.
The award for most stupid question so far must go to Brad Sherman for asking if after all the help the US had given them the Libyan people could be relied upon to pursue the people who carry out this sort of attack. That of course would be the same Libyan people who forced Ansar al-Sharia out of Benghazi while Clinton and Obama were trying to fuel Olympic discussion about PTSD through that overly theatrical remains ceremony. So Clinton does appear to be running the Nero defence that she was fiddling while Benghazi burned.
Of course the only way that Likud was able to secure it's narrow victory was by merging with the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party. Therefore despite Habayit Hayehundi's poor showing the election results represent a large shift in Israeli politics towards ultra-nationalism driven largely by the new threats Israel faces caused by the Arab Spring. So while I don't want to cause the Norwegians any problems they may want to consider revoking Obama's Nobel Peace Prize because any hope of the two state solution is gone now.
Oh and while I'm here I should point out that Hillary Clinton's mentioning of AFRICOM during the Benghazi hearing which took place during the Africa Cup of Nations was the US trying to find out if it's got any friends left in Africa post Contra Mundum.
17:05 on 23/1/13.
Edited at around 20:20 on 23/1/13 to add: The hearing on Benghazi is still going on and the Democrats especially the ones from California are not coming out of this at all well. They're all using it as an opportunity to congratulate Hillary Clinton on her success as Secretary of State when in reality in just four short years she has managed to do far more damage to US interests abroad then George W Bush managed in eight years and two deeply unpopular wars.
The award for most stupid question so far must go to Brad Sherman for asking if after all the help the US had given them the Libyan people could be relied upon to pursue the people who carry out this sort of attack. That of course would be the same Libyan people who forced Ansar al-Sharia out of Benghazi while Clinton and Obama were trying to fuel Olympic discussion about PTSD through that overly theatrical remains ceremony. So Clinton does appear to be running the Nero defence that she was fiddling while Benghazi burned.
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Wanna Hear Something Interesting?
No not the fact there's been a large scale shooting incident at the Lone Star College in Texas USA. After all northern Mali is roughly the same size as France. France is roughly the same size as Texas, Israel's having a general election and Britain's Prince Harry has been getting all uppity in his Apache. What's interesting is that about an hour prior to the shooting (17:50) in a moment of quiet contemplation my mind wandered back to the time I was working at the Mind in Croydon charity shop "Enterprise House." More specifically it wandered to what we would do if that armed police vehicle stop outside had turned into a mass shooting incident. The conclusion was move all staff and customers to the back of the shop, contact the emergency services, treat any wounded then after establishing we hadn't been forced in that direction as part of an ambush evacuate via the rear gate. Mind you we never really had 10,000 staff and customers. So yeah my brain's kind of in that mode at the moment.
In other news it's Tuesday night and I'm back from the pub where I decided that smartphones have taken all the skill out of pub know-it-all-ism. After with a few taps of a screen everybody found out that the Saint Piran whose feast day the Wetherspoons pub chain will be celebrating on March 5th is in fact the patron saint of Cornish tin miners much to the annoyance of one guy who actually knew that.
20:10 on 22/1/13.
In other news it's Tuesday night and I'm back from the pub where I decided that smartphones have taken all the skill out of pub know-it-all-ism. After with a few taps of a screen everybody found out that the Saint Piran whose feast day the Wetherspoons pub chain will be celebrating on March 5th is in fact the patron saint of Cornish tin miners much to the annoyance of one guy who actually knew that.
20:10 on 22/1/13.
Sunday, 20 January 2013
Algeria Appears to be Over.
At around 16:00 GMT on Saturday the Algerian government declared the hostage situation at the In Amenas natural gas plant to be over. Mind you they made the same declaration at around 16:00 on Friday and at around 16:00 on Thursday.
Quite apart from the fact that the Algerians only appeared to be working on this between the hours of 9 and 5 the main problem has been the sheer size of the In Amenas plant. The site itself covers an area of 64km^2 and is made up of an accommodation block roughly 1.6km^2 in size, 1.6km on from that there is a security block roughly 3km^2 in size, roughly 1km on from that there is a warehouse/factory block 16km^2 in size and next to that there is the actual gas processing facility that's around 38km^2 in size. This facility actually serves five gas fields covering an area of 10,000km^2. So saying that hostages have been taken at In Amenas is a bit like saying hostages have been taken somewhere in Scotland. The facility was attacked by a force of less then 100 men which is nowhere near enough to dominate an area of that size and complexity. So when the initial attack took place the vast majority of the some 600 staff on site simply hid or ran off into the desert. The attackers focused on taking westerners hostage and split them up into small groups before moving them around within in the facility. Therefore the largest part of the operation has been locating staff who were hiding either within the facility or in the surrounding desert rather then fighting with hostage takers.
This problem was compounded by the Algerian government treating the situation as their moment in the spotlight. Therefore they have been very tightly controlling the flow of information in order to hook all the nations with nationals amongst the hostages into a very long a complex negotiation with the situation very much being used as a metaphor for the situation in Mali. On top of that the US and the UK have been using the situation to have coded discussions about their issues such as the EU and Mali. That's because while successful hostage rescues are celebrated and quickly forgotten failed operations lead years of inquiry, recrimination and argument. For example I'm pretty sure the UK and Australia are still arguing about Gallopi. Japan in particular seem to be innocent bystanders caught up in the middle of all this.
Also Britain is now treating the renowned tobacco and drug smuggler Mokhtar Belmokhtar who is believed to be behind the attack as public enemy number 1 with rumours that the SAS have already been deployed to hunt him down and kill him. This is no surprise because the last thing Britain wants is for someone else to capture and question him in case he reveals how much BP paid him to stage all this.
And oh look the African Cup of Nations has just begun. It's Mali today and Algeria on Tuesday.
16:05 on 20/1/13.
Quite apart from the fact that the Algerians only appeared to be working on this between the hours of 9 and 5 the main problem has been the sheer size of the In Amenas plant. The site itself covers an area of 64km^2 and is made up of an accommodation block roughly 1.6km^2 in size, 1.6km on from that there is a security block roughly 3km^2 in size, roughly 1km on from that there is a warehouse/factory block 16km^2 in size and next to that there is the actual gas processing facility that's around 38km^2 in size. This facility actually serves five gas fields covering an area of 10,000km^2. So saying that hostages have been taken at In Amenas is a bit like saying hostages have been taken somewhere in Scotland. The facility was attacked by a force of less then 100 men which is nowhere near enough to dominate an area of that size and complexity. So when the initial attack took place the vast majority of the some 600 staff on site simply hid or ran off into the desert. The attackers focused on taking westerners hostage and split them up into small groups before moving them around within in the facility. Therefore the largest part of the operation has been locating staff who were hiding either within the facility or in the surrounding desert rather then fighting with hostage takers.
This problem was compounded by the Algerian government treating the situation as their moment in the spotlight. Therefore they have been very tightly controlling the flow of information in order to hook all the nations with nationals amongst the hostages into a very long a complex negotiation with the situation very much being used as a metaphor for the situation in Mali. On top of that the US and the UK have been using the situation to have coded discussions about their issues such as the EU and Mali. That's because while successful hostage rescues are celebrated and quickly forgotten failed operations lead years of inquiry, recrimination and argument. For example I'm pretty sure the UK and Australia are still arguing about Gallopi. Japan in particular seem to be innocent bystanders caught up in the middle of all this.
Also Britain is now treating the renowned tobacco and drug smuggler Mokhtar Belmokhtar who is believed to be behind the attack as public enemy number 1 with rumours that the SAS have already been deployed to hunt him down and kill him. This is no surprise because the last thing Britain wants is for someone else to capture and question him in case he reveals how much BP paid him to stage all this.
And oh look the African Cup of Nations has just begun. It's Mali today and Algeria on Tuesday.
16:05 on 20/1/13.
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
Probably Shouldn't Put This on the Internet.
However with British Prime Minister Cameron trailing a big speech, France being tricked into military action in Mali, horse meat being found in Irish beef burgers, the Christian cases at the European Court of Human Rights and the Rihanna single "Stay" moving to number 4 in the UK charts it's clear that Britain and elements of the US had big plans for the EU. Now it looks like those plans won't be happening Britain has chosen to crash a helicopter into a crane close to the MI6 HQ in London as a way to discuss the viability of those plans. The flight actually originated from the Battersea heliport which Britain for a long time has been using to direct helicopters over my house in order to annoy me. In other news two Japanese airlines have now grounded their fleets of Boeing 787 Dreamliners so it's fair to say Chris Brown's clock is now ticking loudly.
Going back to everybody's favourite subject people are now pushing Rihanna to release the song "Pour it Up" as her next single. So I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it's pretty clear that Rihanna's role in the current album and tour is that of the punchline.
10:50 on 16/1/13.
Edited at around 13:35 on 16/1/13 to add: Clearly it's been a busy morning in London.
It's now emerged that the Augusta 109 that crashed in Vauxhall didn't originate from the Battersea heliport. It was actually on a positioning flight from Redhill to Elstree using the H4 flightpath which took it over Battersea. It was at this point it collided with the long established hazard of the Saint George's Wharf tower - a Barclay's Brother's development. Details of the pilot have yet to be officially released however knowing what a small world it is it would be interesting to see if he had any health, money or relationship worries because this is looking like a very spectacular suicide.
In Algeria up 6 foreign workers of undisclosed nationality have been kidnapped from a BP operation by Islamic militants. As Algeria is a former French colony and it was a hostage crisis that prompted France to take military action in another of it's former colonies Mali this should probably read; "British Petroleum arrange for their own workers to be kidnapped in order to put pressure on France over Mali."
In the US the wife of one of the victims of the Aurora shooting is now suing the shooters psychiatrist over their failure to protect the public. The liability a psychiatrist has for the actions of their patients is an argument that's almost as old as psychiatry itself. However the timing of this particular case which will most likely fail is to raise doubt over whether Chris Brown's probation officer can be held liable for his actions and their effects. The hope is that no-one will notice the massive distinction between the role of a private psychiatrist and a state employed probation officer. If a private psychiatrist can be held responsible for the actions of their patients they will simply stop treating high risk patients which will have a much more negative effect on public safety. However no-one chooses to have a probation officer so their duty to protect the public far exceeds their duty to respect their patients wishes in order to maintain a relationship.
Going back to everybody's favourite subject people are now pushing Rihanna to release the song "Pour it Up" as her next single. So I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it's pretty clear that Rihanna's role in the current album and tour is that of the punchline.
10:50 on 16/1/13.
Edited at around 13:35 on 16/1/13 to add: Clearly it's been a busy morning in London.
It's now emerged that the Augusta 109 that crashed in Vauxhall didn't originate from the Battersea heliport. It was actually on a positioning flight from Redhill to Elstree using the H4 flightpath which took it over Battersea. It was at this point it collided with the long established hazard of the Saint George's Wharf tower - a Barclay's Brother's development. Details of the pilot have yet to be officially released however knowing what a small world it is it would be interesting to see if he had any health, money or relationship worries because this is looking like a very spectacular suicide.
In Algeria up 6 foreign workers of undisclosed nationality have been kidnapped from a BP operation by Islamic militants. As Algeria is a former French colony and it was a hostage crisis that prompted France to take military action in another of it's former colonies Mali this should probably read; "British Petroleum arrange for their own workers to be kidnapped in order to put pressure on France over Mali."
In the US the wife of one of the victims of the Aurora shooting is now suing the shooters psychiatrist over their failure to protect the public. The liability a psychiatrist has for the actions of their patients is an argument that's almost as old as psychiatry itself. However the timing of this particular case which will most likely fail is to raise doubt over whether Chris Brown's probation officer can be held liable for his actions and their effects. The hope is that no-one will notice the massive distinction between the role of a private psychiatrist and a state employed probation officer. If a private psychiatrist can be held responsible for the actions of their patients they will simply stop treating high risk patients which will have a much more negative effect on public safety. However no-one chooses to have a probation officer so their duty to protect the public far exceeds their duty to respect their patients wishes in order to maintain a relationship.
Tuesday, 15 January 2013
Ah the Most Joyous Day of the Week.
That's right it's Tuesday the day I'm forced to go to the pub and drink far too much far too fast before allowing everybody to have a go at rattling my brain like it's a magic 8-ball to see what pops out. So much like a Friday then.
Today though I have come prepared with a vitally important story that you must all hear. Remember how last week I brought a new TV. Well in deciding exactly which TV to buy I spent ages agonising over whether to get one with a built in DVD player or not. In the end I decided that built in DVD players aren't really that good quality, they make that awful grinding noise whenever you switch the TV on and well I've already got a perfectly good, decent quality, working DVD player. So instead I decided to just get a dedicated TV. Then when I got home and plugged everything in I switched on the DVD player and heard that horrible grinding noise telling me that I no longer had a perfectly good, decent quality, working DVD player. As a result whilst at the supermarket today I had to pick up a cheap DVD player.
So now I have a working TV, a working DVD player and the first three seasons of "Breaking Bad" on DVD. As a result it looks likes Wednesday is cancelled and possibly Thursday too unless of course it's nowhere near as good as everybody says.
20:00 on 15/1/13.
Today though I have come prepared with a vitally important story that you must all hear. Remember how last week I brought a new TV. Well in deciding exactly which TV to buy I spent ages agonising over whether to get one with a built in DVD player or not. In the end I decided that built in DVD players aren't really that good quality, they make that awful grinding noise whenever you switch the TV on and well I've already got a perfectly good, decent quality, working DVD player. So instead I decided to just get a dedicated TV. Then when I got home and plugged everything in I switched on the DVD player and heard that horrible grinding noise telling me that I no longer had a perfectly good, decent quality, working DVD player. As a result whilst at the supermarket today I had to pick up a cheap DVD player.
So now I have a working TV, a working DVD player and the first three seasons of "Breaking Bad" on DVD. As a result it looks likes Wednesday is cancelled and possibly Thursday too unless of course it's nowhere near as good as everybody says.
20:00 on 15/1/13.
Monday, 14 January 2013
Easy Now
Even though I've just started to write up the shooting of British 8 year old Imani Green in Jamaica on Friday (11/1/13) I can already tell it's going to become one unwieldy monster of a post. Therefore the full version won't be available until tomorrow at the earliest and much more likely Wednesday. In the meantime though here's the short version;
A former British colony Jamaica is part of the Commonwealth Realm. This is a group of 16 nations that have the Queen of England as their head of state. However Jamaica and in particular it's Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller want to drop the Queen as head of state and leave the realm. Therefore the Imani Green shooting was designed to act as punishment and an attempt to assess how widely Simpson-Miller's views are shared particularly within the apparatus of state such as the police by putting pressure on Jamaica as a whole. The main way this is achieved is through the British government phoning up the Jamaican government every five minutes asking them if the murder has been solved. In order to add further pressure it is tangled up in a discussion about Rihanna's festive break to Barbados which she cut short in order to reunite with Chris Brown in Los Angles. Barbados is of course another Caribbean nation that is part of the realm. The Imani story contains so many little hooks to the Rihanna story that I can't list them all here but for example Imani was in Jamaica in order to get respite from Sickle Cell Anaemia from which she suffered. This is a condition of the blood which obviously raises the issue of HIV/AIDS that was such a part of Rihanna's para-Olympic performance. Sickle Cell anaemia also almost exclusively affects people from an afro-Caribbean background and along with leukaemia is often central to drives to get people from an afro-Caribbean background to sign up as bone marrow donors - a cause Rihanna supports through her Believe Foundation although they really need to work on their spelling. The fact that Imani was given special permission to miss school to take the trip also plays into a long running argument in Britain about children being taken out of school in order to go on cheap family holidays. January and February is very much the peak booking time for British family holidays.
The main purpose of the incident was the fact that the shooting occurred in a family owned cafe/grocery store links up with the March 2011 shooting of Thusha Kamaleswaran in convienence store in Stockwell, South London close to where Imani Green lived. As the Kamaleswaran family are originally from India this very nearly caused an international incident as was hardly a high point for London's gang/gun culture. In the mid to late 1990's Jamaican gangsters known as Yardies started becoming active across South London provoking some vicious turf wars. This coupled with the shipping of Loyalist paramilitary weapons from Northern Ireland to northern English cities such as Manchester as part of the peace process really marked the start of Britain's gang/gun culture. So the shooting was supposed to look like it was feeding into the current unrest in Belfast over the flying of Union flags. In reality though having hooked them in with the Rihanna link it was Britain trying to find out what both India and the US think about the current situation in India which is quite interesting what with the border clashes with Pakistan and the gang-rapes.
As a little bonus by being seen to take a fair old whack at a Caribbean island Britain was hoping to positively re-inforce the idea that Rihanna was correct to leave Barbados to reunite with Chris Brown in order to protect Barbados. That's nonsense because the problem was Chris Brown not Barbados. Without the Chris Brown issue Rihanna's trip to Barbados would have just been her relaxing in the sun enjoying being hugely rich and massively popular. So once again I'm forced to utter what is fast becoming my catch phrase and say; "Why Brown's probation officer has yet to see any red flags raised by this relationship I do not know."
16:40 on 14/1/13.
A former British colony Jamaica is part of the Commonwealth Realm. This is a group of 16 nations that have the Queen of England as their head of state. However Jamaica and in particular it's Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller want to drop the Queen as head of state and leave the realm. Therefore the Imani Green shooting was designed to act as punishment and an attempt to assess how widely Simpson-Miller's views are shared particularly within the apparatus of state such as the police by putting pressure on Jamaica as a whole. The main way this is achieved is through the British government phoning up the Jamaican government every five minutes asking them if the murder has been solved. In order to add further pressure it is tangled up in a discussion about Rihanna's festive break to Barbados which she cut short in order to reunite with Chris Brown in Los Angles. Barbados is of course another Caribbean nation that is part of the realm. The Imani story contains so many little hooks to the Rihanna story that I can't list them all here but for example Imani was in Jamaica in order to get respite from Sickle Cell Anaemia from which she suffered. This is a condition of the blood which obviously raises the issue of HIV/AIDS that was such a part of Rihanna's para-Olympic performance. Sickle Cell anaemia also almost exclusively affects people from an afro-Caribbean background and along with leukaemia is often central to drives to get people from an afro-Caribbean background to sign up as bone marrow donors - a cause Rihanna supports through her Believe Foundation although they really need to work on their spelling. The fact that Imani was given special permission to miss school to take the trip also plays into a long running argument in Britain about children being taken out of school in order to go on cheap family holidays. January and February is very much the peak booking time for British family holidays.
The main purpose of the incident was the fact that the shooting occurred in a family owned cafe/grocery store links up with the March 2011 shooting of Thusha Kamaleswaran in convienence store in Stockwell, South London close to where Imani Green lived. As the Kamaleswaran family are originally from India this very nearly caused an international incident as was hardly a high point for London's gang/gun culture. In the mid to late 1990's Jamaican gangsters known as Yardies started becoming active across South London provoking some vicious turf wars. This coupled with the shipping of Loyalist paramilitary weapons from Northern Ireland to northern English cities such as Manchester as part of the peace process really marked the start of Britain's gang/gun culture. So the shooting was supposed to look like it was feeding into the current unrest in Belfast over the flying of Union flags. In reality though having hooked them in with the Rihanna link it was Britain trying to find out what both India and the US think about the current situation in India which is quite interesting what with the border clashes with Pakistan and the gang-rapes.
As a little bonus by being seen to take a fair old whack at a Caribbean island Britain was hoping to positively re-inforce the idea that Rihanna was correct to leave Barbados to reunite with Chris Brown in order to protect Barbados. That's nonsense because the problem was Chris Brown not Barbados. Without the Chris Brown issue Rihanna's trip to Barbados would have just been her relaxing in the sun enjoying being hugely rich and massively popular. So once again I'm forced to utter what is fast becoming my catch phrase and say; "Why Brown's probation officer has yet to see any red flags raised by this relationship I do not know."
16:40 on 14/1/13.
DJ's May Come and DJ's May Go.
But nothing tears into the agony of a red wine hangover like the brutality of the harsh electric buzz of a cheap alarm clock.
09:30 on 14/1/13.
09:30 on 14/1/13.
Sunday, 13 January 2013
You See the Last Time I Updated my iPod
I did so specifically to update one song. However I somehow managed to forget to update that song so have spent the last week gradually running down the battery on my iPod in order to plug it back in. I am now uploading that song while at the same time trying to give myself enough battery life for the next couple of day while still allowing me to go on my travels with a full battery.
In the meantime I've realised that the Kinks are sh*t.
23:20 on 13/1/13.
In the meantime I've realised that the Kinks are sh*t.
23:20 on 13/1/13.
Seriously 140 Characters
Although arguably the Big Brother house as seen in the Dutch format Celebrity Big Brother is an example of a structured reality it was the US who invented soft scripted shows such as "The Hills." The idea being that if people are able watch as many hours of 'real people' on TV they will somehow fail to notice that they're being worked so hard for so little pay that they have neither the time nor the money to go out and meet actual real people. So I guess it's true turkeys sometimes do vote for Christmas.
22:40 on 13/1/11.
22:40 on 13/1/11.
Wiltshire is not Technically a Foreign Country.
However the specific little bit of it where my mothers now live doesn't really have TV, cellphone coverage is sketchy at best and it most certainly doesn't have mobile Internet. So before I make my first visit this Friday through Saturday (18-19/1/13) I'm going to need to normalise myself in preparation. For me personally this means cutting back on the drinking and the drugs specifically the weed. Now I can either smoke today and the go seven days clear or I can not smoke today but smoke on Tuesday and instead go five days clear. See if you can guess from my conduct over the rest of the evening which one I chose?
Oh and I should just point out that with a cousin in the army when my mothers announced they were moving close to the big army base on Salisbury Plain I said the military were very slowly and gradually trying to kidnap my entire family. Well now that they've moved guess what the army's done.
17:10 on 13/1/13.
Oh and I should just point out that with a cousin in the army when my mothers announced they were moving close to the big army base on Salisbury Plain I said the military were very slowly and gradually trying to kidnap my entire family. Well now that they've moved guess what the army's done.
17:10 on 13/1/13.
Saturday, 12 January 2013
The French Military: Still Useless.
Over the past two days the French military have been extremely busy. Over Thursday night they deployed troops to Mali to help Malian troops fight Al Qaeda militants who have been advancing from the north of the country since the fall of Qaddafi in Libya. Although the situation in Mali has been bad and has been getting worse for a long time what triggered the intervention was the kidnapping by Al Qaeda fighters of a number of French nationals. As these Islamist fighters are the same people that the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were arming, training and building relationships with in order to overthrow Qaddafi it's pretty obvious that the kidnapping was carried out specifically to trap France into a conflict in Mali in order to stop it intervening in the Central African Republic (CAR) to support the government against the rebel alliance (Seleka).
Having finally worked that one out over Friday night French special forces mounted a raid to free a hostage being held by al-Shaabab in Somalia. This raid was a complete failure with the hostage being killed, a soldier being killed and another missing presumed taken hostage. The intention of the raid was to draw comparisons between a possible solution for Mali and the US' great mistake in Somalia. In roughly 2005/06 US special forces fought a secret war in Somalia in order to overthrow the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) who were the de-facto government in the failed state. The problem with this is that although they had the word Islam in their name the UIC weren't linked to Al Qaeda in any meaningful way and were much more focused on reconstructing the damaged country then waging Jihad. Their main problem was dealing with al-Sahaab which roughly translates as "The armed youth." With the UIC out of the way al-Sahaab proceeded to cause chaos in the way that only a 15 year old with an assault rifle truly can. Their presence and piracy were used to garner western support for intervention in Somalia and it now looks like the nation will be broken up with the southern portion being used as an export route from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) via Rwanda. Sadly the Somalia model won't work in Mali because the Islamists in Mali are militant, heavily armed and deeply embedded in the nation. However deploying French troops to CAR instead would have given France an excellent excuse as to why either the UK or the US would have to sort out Mali.
Rwanda of course have just begun their 2 year membership of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) so if Susan Rice is going to continue in her post the US is going to get massacred. It's a shame then that I'll be tied up with Rihanna's "Diamonds" tour because try to guess what most of these African conflicts are about. Seriously if I was in her management team at this point I would be very seriously looking at cancelling the tour and recouping the loss by suing Chris Brown et al and the Los Angles probation service. Either that or just change the name.
13:00 on 12/1/13.
Having finally worked that one out over Friday night French special forces mounted a raid to free a hostage being held by al-Shaabab in Somalia. This raid was a complete failure with the hostage being killed, a soldier being killed and another missing presumed taken hostage. The intention of the raid was to draw comparisons between a possible solution for Mali and the US' great mistake in Somalia. In roughly 2005/06 US special forces fought a secret war in Somalia in order to overthrow the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) who were the de-facto government in the failed state. The problem with this is that although they had the word Islam in their name the UIC weren't linked to Al Qaeda in any meaningful way and were much more focused on reconstructing the damaged country then waging Jihad. Their main problem was dealing with al-Sahaab which roughly translates as "The armed youth." With the UIC out of the way al-Sahaab proceeded to cause chaos in the way that only a 15 year old with an assault rifle truly can. Their presence and piracy were used to garner western support for intervention in Somalia and it now looks like the nation will be broken up with the southern portion being used as an export route from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) via Rwanda. Sadly the Somalia model won't work in Mali because the Islamists in Mali are militant, heavily armed and deeply embedded in the nation. However deploying French troops to CAR instead would have given France an excellent excuse as to why either the UK or the US would have to sort out Mali.
Rwanda of course have just begun their 2 year membership of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) so if Susan Rice is going to continue in her post the US is going to get massacred. It's a shame then that I'll be tied up with Rihanna's "Diamonds" tour because try to guess what most of these African conflicts are about. Seriously if I was in her management team at this point I would be very seriously looking at cancelling the tour and recouping the loss by suing Chris Brown et al and the Los Angles probation service. Either that or just change the name.
13:00 on 12/1/13.
Friday, 11 January 2013
Oh Dear the US Has Got the Flu.
Yesterday the National Institute of Health pretty arbitrarily decided that the US is experiencing a flu epidemic. This has prompted a nation wide campaign to get people to get vaccinated. Once you sift through all the crap about my HIV status, my diabetes status, SARS, Avian flu, Swine flu, all the conspiracy theories and that old saying about the US economy sneezing and the world catching a cold there's actually quite an interesting debate about US health care costs and the shift towards Obamacare hiding in there somewhere. The decision by the New York Governor to publicly have his flu shot was an indirect swipe at North Korea through Venezuela's attempts to deconstruct the cult of personality around Chavez as he missed his inauguration due to ill health. That's because someone of Cumo's age really doesn't need to be getting a flu shot unless there's something about his health he's not telling us.
Also one of Justin Bieber's bodyguards is suing the star over something or other. As with the Taft shooting this a attempt to crush pressure on Rihanna because it's a story just crying out for someone to say; "She's paying how much a year for security and no-one's shot Chris Brown yet?!" It seems a little unfair because California has a well worked out legal mechanism to deal with the likes of Brown. They're simply refusing to follow it.
11:30 on 11/1/13.
Also one of Justin Bieber's bodyguards is suing the star over something or other. As with the Taft shooting this a attempt to crush pressure on Rihanna because it's a story just crying out for someone to say; "She's paying how much a year for security and no-one's shot Chris Brown yet?!" It seems a little unfair because California has a well worked out legal mechanism to deal with the likes of Brown. They're simply refusing to follow it.
11:30 on 11/1/13.
Thursday, 10 January 2013
Celebrity Big Brother - The First Eviction.
Last night former supermodel Paula Hamilton was the first contestant evicted from Celebrity Big Brother (CBB). With the overt political agenda having been dropped this was really a reflection of the star of the famous VW 'Divorce' advert's behaviour in the house. With simply turning up being enough to get paid since entering the house Paula had been making it her mission to get herself evicted. This included throwing tantrums, threatening walkouts, faking symptoms of a nervous breakdown and generally trying to make herself the centre of attention. This has had a very disruptive effect on life on the house and although it was tempting to force her to stay until the bitter end she was really my second choice for eviction.
My first choice for eviction - Spencer and Heidi (Speidi) have now been given a secret task which sadly makes them immune from the next round of evictions on Friday. Fortunately though it will see the pair who were nominated for eviction by all other housemates kept away from the other housemates. Having successfully staged a walk out Speidi will now spend a few days in a secret annex to the house where they will watch the other housemates on TV before returning to the main house. This is a deliberate reference to the infamous 2004 series of Big Brother which was broadcast on the rival Channel 4. In this series two of the housemates were 'evicted' in a double eviction but rather then leaving they spent a week in a secret annex watching the other housemates on TV before returning to the main house. The problem was that there was such tension in the house and the other housemates were so rude about the 'evicted' pair that when they returned it triggered such an epic argument that police had to enter the house to break up a knife fight, one of the housemates threw up in fear and another had to leave in order to be detained in a psychiatric facility under the Mental Health Act. Of course this was also the series that featured one of my next door neighbours (Kitten) and the show was being manipulated to give daily national updates on what was going on in the house I lived in at the time. So in order to fully draw the comparison with 2004 since the weekend Lacey Banghard and Tricia Penrose have started to resemble people I met up with over the weekend. The 2004 series is still clearly a very sore point with the Channel 4 production team so they've been circulating false rumours that Paula Hamilton failed her psychological evaluations for Channel 4 in an effort to demonstrate that they're not the only ones prepared to jeopardise someone's mental health for entertainment purposes.
If anything though it does demonstrate that CBB's voting is not fixed because you get the feeling that this whole homage to 2004 was designed specifically for Paula so she could spend a couple of days doing her theatrical mental breakdown on Channel 5 in order to antagonise Channel 4.
15:45 on 10/1/12.
My first choice for eviction - Spencer and Heidi (Speidi) have now been given a secret task which sadly makes them immune from the next round of evictions on Friday. Fortunately though it will see the pair who were nominated for eviction by all other housemates kept away from the other housemates. Having successfully staged a walk out Speidi will now spend a few days in a secret annex to the house where they will watch the other housemates on TV before returning to the main house. This is a deliberate reference to the infamous 2004 series of Big Brother which was broadcast on the rival Channel 4. In this series two of the housemates were 'evicted' in a double eviction but rather then leaving they spent a week in a secret annex watching the other housemates on TV before returning to the main house. The problem was that there was such tension in the house and the other housemates were so rude about the 'evicted' pair that when they returned it triggered such an epic argument that police had to enter the house to break up a knife fight, one of the housemates threw up in fear and another had to leave in order to be detained in a psychiatric facility under the Mental Health Act. Of course this was also the series that featured one of my next door neighbours (Kitten) and the show was being manipulated to give daily national updates on what was going on in the house I lived in at the time. So in order to fully draw the comparison with 2004 since the weekend Lacey Banghard and Tricia Penrose have started to resemble people I met up with over the weekend. The 2004 series is still clearly a very sore point with the Channel 4 production team so they've been circulating false rumours that Paula Hamilton failed her psychological evaluations for Channel 4 in an effort to demonstrate that they're not the only ones prepared to jeopardise someone's mental health for entertainment purposes.
If anything though it does demonstrate that CBB's voting is not fixed because you get the feeling that this whole homage to 2004 was designed specifically for Paula so she could spend a couple of days doing her theatrical mental breakdown on Channel 5 in order to antagonise Channel 4.
15:45 on 10/1/12.
I Really Don't Want to Break the Momentum
So probably best handlers only. I hope you're familiar with the terms of an either/or deal because I'm going to need more convincing then a ferry crash. In fact the ferry crash actually reduced credibility but hey what's life without a bit of confusion.
15:20 on 10/1/12.
15:20 on 10/1/12.
Tuesday, 8 January 2013
It's Yuesday Night and I'm Back From the Pub
And I'm just signing in because to frank on a night when the local tension is as high as it is if I didn't people would get upset. Fortunately I have something to report. I have have brought a new television. If this sounds excessive in the current economic climate then I apologise but you remember how I got really upset when my glasses broke. Well it turns out that was just the beginning of the week from hell most properly entitled; "The week where everything in my house broke." First my glasses broke, then my stereo broke, then my TV broke, then my boiler broke and finally the lock to my door broke. So you can probably guess why I've waited until I got back from the pub to tell you this story. Anyway I got my glasses replaced, the boiler repaired and the lock on the door sort of fixed itself.
So today I replaced my TV with a Bush LED26982HDT if you're really that interested. I was a bit annoyed because the Samsung LT27B550 that I wanted to buy was no longer available. This was annoying because the Samsung is a smart TV but with a removable Wi-Fi card so I was looking forward to playing a game of "Who can hack my TV?" I suppose it was for the best though because upon returning home I discovered that I only had a 28" gap to fit the TV in so 27" would have been a bit of a challenge. Plus with CES2013 going on it would have been a bit provocative because at that US tech show there's plenty of Japanese, South Koreans and a bit of Chinese but very little North Korean.
And in other local news the British House of Commons has decided to put through to a second reading a bill that would see the benefit cap rise to 1% which sounds about right to me because well Britain needs to feel included.
20:20 on 8/1/13.
So today I replaced my TV with a Bush LED26982HDT if you're really that interested. I was a bit annoyed because the Samsung LT27B550 that I wanted to buy was no longer available. This was annoying because the Samsung is a smart TV but with a removable Wi-Fi card so I was looking forward to playing a game of "Who can hack my TV?" I suppose it was for the best though because upon returning home I discovered that I only had a 28" gap to fit the TV in so 27" would have been a bit of a challenge. Plus with CES2013 going on it would have been a bit provocative because at that US tech show there's plenty of Japanese, South Koreans and a bit of Chinese but very little North Korean.
And in other local news the British House of Commons has decided to put through to a second reading a bill that would see the benefit cap rise to 1% which sounds about right to me because well Britain needs to feel included.
20:20 on 8/1/13.
Deport Piers Morgan.
A petition on the White House's website calling for CNN journalist Piers Morgan to be deported from the USA over his stance on gun control following the Newtown massacre has garnered the 100,000 signatures needed for the White House to make a formal response. To anyone who doesn't watch Piers Morgan's nightly CNN talk show (so most people then) this is seen as a bit of a joke. However it does touch onto something much deeper. In the episode broadcast on December 13th (13/12/12); http://archive.org/details/CNNW_20121214_050000_Piers_Morgan_Tonight# Morgan interviewed former New York Mayor Rudi Gulliani and spoke at length about the issue of gun control talking specifically about the AR-15 rifle used at Newtown. Gulliani went into a monologue basically advising any would be mass shooter who couldn't get access to take hand guns instead. This is exactly the sort of psychological trigger which could be used to activate a mentally unstable person who was being prepared to carry out this type of attack. The fact that the episode went on to be broadcast internationally the following day - the day of the attack - does also look like the US warning it's networks abroad (Embassies etc) of what was to happen with out leaving much of a paper trail.
If true this wouldn't be the first time that Morgan has been stitched up by the political establishment. In 2004 during the occupation of Iraq Alistair Campbell - the Prime Minister's press officer - provided Morgan with photographs showing British troops abusing Iraqi detainees. Morgan then published these photographs in the Mirror newspaper of which was editor. The problem was that the photographs were quite easily provable fakes and the ensuing scandal forced Morgan's resignation and meant that all other genuine stories of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners were treated with scepticism.
So I hope the White Houses' response to the petition does bear those issues in mind. However I hope that Morgan doesn't get deported because if he does it means he'll have to come back here to Britain.
16:55 on 8/1/13.
If true this wouldn't be the first time that Morgan has been stitched up by the political establishment. In 2004 during the occupation of Iraq Alistair Campbell - the Prime Minister's press officer - provided Morgan with photographs showing British troops abusing Iraqi detainees. Morgan then published these photographs in the Mirror newspaper of which was editor. The problem was that the photographs were quite easily provable fakes and the ensuing scandal forced Morgan's resignation and meant that all other genuine stories of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners were treated with scepticism.
So I hope the White Houses' response to the petition does bear those issues in mind. However I hope that Morgan doesn't get deported because if he does it means he'll have to come back here to Britain.
16:55 on 8/1/13.
Google in the DPRK
Yesterday Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson began a vist to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) more commonly known as North Korea. As this visit is ongoing I am severely restricted in what I can say. However It's common knowledge that on December 12th 2012 (12/12/12) North Korea carried out a successful rocket launch to put a satellite into orbit. Although there is an almost consensus that this was in fact a long range missile test in disguise and therefore violated multiple UN resolutions this represented a marked improvement in the way North Korea normally behaves. Along with North Korean leader Kim Jung-Un's New Years day message this was seen of evidence of a nation keen to reform and mend it's ways.
However what the US would like you to believe that the positive way in which North Korea's rocket launch was carried out was entirely due to pressure they put on the nation through negotiations about the Google visit going ahead. The visit itself was supposed to be a reward for good behaviour by giving North Korea a front row seat to negotiations between the US and China over the issue of Internet freedom. The US State Department's rather unconvincing outrage at the visit was supposed to be viewed by people within the industry as the US claiming full responsibility for the visit and the positive impact it had on the rocket launch. To a domestic US audience it was supposed to cast Google as a villain who enjoys a generous tax relationship with the US but still thinks nothing of going against US diplomatic interests. This would feed into Chris Browns miraculous lack of imprisonment and the wider G8 argument over tax and multinational corporations.
My concern is that with the US clearly intent on discussing far more then Internet censorship with the Chinese this visit could become more of a punishment for North Korea by seeing the small nation squashed between two superpowers. That will obviously weaken the position of North Korean reformers and slow down the pace of change. Mind you with a love of authoritarianism seeming to unite a vast range of people on both sides of the US political divide I wouldn't be at all surprise to learn that the US is in fact trying to punish North Korea for attempting to become a more free society.
10:30 on 8/1/13.
However what the US would like you to believe that the positive way in which North Korea's rocket launch was carried out was entirely due to pressure they put on the nation through negotiations about the Google visit going ahead. The visit itself was supposed to be a reward for good behaviour by giving North Korea a front row seat to negotiations between the US and China over the issue of Internet freedom. The US State Department's rather unconvincing outrage at the visit was supposed to be viewed by people within the industry as the US claiming full responsibility for the visit and the positive impact it had on the rocket launch. To a domestic US audience it was supposed to cast Google as a villain who enjoys a generous tax relationship with the US but still thinks nothing of going against US diplomatic interests. This would feed into Chris Browns miraculous lack of imprisonment and the wider G8 argument over tax and multinational corporations.
My concern is that with the US clearly intent on discussing far more then Internet censorship with the Chinese this visit could become more of a punishment for North Korea by seeing the small nation squashed between two superpowers. That will obviously weaken the position of North Korean reformers and slow down the pace of change. Mind you with a love of authoritarianism seeming to unite a vast range of people on both sides of the US political divide I wouldn't be at all surprise to learn that the US is in fact trying to punish North Korea for attempting to become a more free society.
10:30 on 8/1/13.
Saturday, 5 January 2013
It's As if My Soul Has Been Replenished.
Yes that's right I'm back from Brighton un-arrested and sadly un-molested. This was the first time I've seen people since before Halloween so the conversation was mostly taken up with everything that's happened in the last three months. However it should come as no surprise to you to learn that we're quite into people watching so funnily enough the issue of Celebrity Big Brother did come up.
The general consensus is that Lacey Banghard is the ultimate porn-a-like. Not only does she resemble Kelly Brook if you force her she can make herself look like Vanessa White from the girl-band "The Saturdays." This reflects on a wider trend within the UK publishing industry. Back in the mid-1990's there emerged these publications known as 'Lad's Mags.' Aimed mostly at men titles such as "Loaded," "FHM," "GQ," "Esquire" and "Maxim" were defined by their covers which featured sexy ladies in not many clothes. However if you got deeper into the mag these pictures of women without very many clothes only took up about 10-15% of the publication and were often accompanied by in-depth interviews explaining why the women were famous for reasons other than not wearing very many clothes. As with the rest of the print media these monthlies suffered heavily from the spread of the new (Internet) media but also came under attack from lesser titles such as "Zoo" and "Nuts." Published weekly these appeared to undercut the Lad's Mags by about £2 on the cover price and are essentially just porn mags for people who aren't brave enough to by actual porn mags. A good 70% of them are made up of 'models' standing around in just their panties with very few words to explain why they're 'famous.' It was for this world that Ms Banghard was born.
Then for some reason still not explained we ended up watching "Splash!" ITV1's new effort in which celebrities coached by Tom Daley attempt to high dive into a swimming pool without breaking their faces on the water. After a disappointing lack of casualties Jade Ewen and Helen Lederer were knocked out while the public vote took Omid Djalili through. Then shock of shocks the broken nose from "Benidorm" found himself up against Jenni Falconer in front of the judges and based on technical ability alone the Judges sent Falconer home. Personally I'm just more interested to see how Vernon Kay's shorts are going to hold up throughout the series.
00:55 on 6/1/13.
The general consensus is that Lacey Banghard is the ultimate porn-a-like. Not only does she resemble Kelly Brook if you force her she can make herself look like Vanessa White from the girl-band "The Saturdays." This reflects on a wider trend within the UK publishing industry. Back in the mid-1990's there emerged these publications known as 'Lad's Mags.' Aimed mostly at men titles such as "Loaded," "FHM," "GQ," "Esquire" and "Maxim" were defined by their covers which featured sexy ladies in not many clothes. However if you got deeper into the mag these pictures of women without very many clothes only took up about 10-15% of the publication and were often accompanied by in-depth interviews explaining why the women were famous for reasons other than not wearing very many clothes. As with the rest of the print media these monthlies suffered heavily from the spread of the new (Internet) media but also came under attack from lesser titles such as "Zoo" and "Nuts." Published weekly these appeared to undercut the Lad's Mags by about £2 on the cover price and are essentially just porn mags for people who aren't brave enough to by actual porn mags. A good 70% of them are made up of 'models' standing around in just their panties with very few words to explain why they're 'famous.' It was for this world that Ms Banghard was born.
Then for some reason still not explained we ended up watching "Splash!" ITV1's new effort in which celebrities coached by Tom Daley attempt to high dive into a swimming pool without breaking their faces on the water. After a disappointing lack of casualties Jade Ewen and Helen Lederer were knocked out while the public vote took Omid Djalili through. Then shock of shocks the broken nose from "Benidorm" found himself up against Jenni Falconer in front of the judges and based on technical ability alone the Judges sent Falconer home. Personally I'm just more interested to see how Vernon Kay's shorts are going to hold up throughout the series.
00:55 on 6/1/13.
Friday, 4 January 2013
Britain's First Hand Transplant.
In a move that has sent surgeons in France and the US to sleep at the routiness of it all Britain has preformed it's first full hand transplant. This gives Britain the opportunity to spend lots of time talking about 'gout,' 'making connections' and 'waiting for the nerves to heal.' Along with the hashtag #thestoryofmyscar which was trending on Twitter for most of yesterday it also gives me an opportunity to provide a prime example of what it means to live in my world.
Back in 2003 when I first exploded onto the global scene with those funny holes in my hands by way of explanation Britain turned round and said; "Twenty years ago when he was an infant we deliberately burnt those scars onto his hands and we've been training him ever since for just this moment." Everybody else in the business heard that and thought; "Sounds reasonable." Although the initial industrial accident was just that - an accident - it is a review of this conversation that is a large part of the reason why my sister's been undergoing skin graft surgery on that chemical burn on her leg. My sister doesn't seem to mind much though but then she is on that heavy duty cocktail of painkillers known as 'the Micheal Jackson mix'
12:35 on 4/1/12.
Back in 2003 when I first exploded onto the global scene with those funny holes in my hands by way of explanation Britain turned round and said; "Twenty years ago when he was an infant we deliberately burnt those scars onto his hands and we've been training him ever since for just this moment." Everybody else in the business heard that and thought; "Sounds reasonable." Although the initial industrial accident was just that - an accident - it is a review of this conversation that is a large part of the reason why my sister's been undergoing skin graft surgery on that chemical burn on her leg. My sister doesn't seem to mind much though but then she is on that heavy duty cocktail of painkillers known as 'the Micheal Jackson mix'
12:35 on 4/1/12.
Thursday, 3 January 2013
Celebrity Big Brother Returns.
Since picking up the rights from Channel 4 in 2011 Britain's Channel 5 has really struggled with this Endemol format. However the latest series of the "Celebrity Big Brother" spin-off which was launched last night shows they're learning from their mistakes. For example they have decided to return the show to it's usual January time-slot when everybody's broke, TV's terrible and it's too dark to go outside rather then trying to broadcast it during the middle of the summer. Also thanks to clear explanations as the housemates entered the house I didn't have to Google a single one of these 'celebrities.'
The major fault with this series though is that it is far too political. Rather then just living together in one house (technically a bungalow) contestants have been spilt into two groups. One lives upstairs in relative luxury while the second group are forced to live in a basement which is essentially decked out to resemble a warehouse squat with no running water etc. This is of course an idea that has been popular in reality TV and is a 'tribute' to the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. Along with Mili-thingy's electric shock tests these were a series of US psychological experiments designed to heal the wounds of the holocaust by trying to determine if peer pressure can dehumanise people to such an extent that they will carry out all manner of brutality against strangers. They discovered that it most certainly can with the Stanford experiment having to be stopped after the test subjects given the 'prison guard' role almost killed the test subjects given the 'prisoner' role.
However in case any viewers were too thick to pick up on the rich/poor divide being a commentary about Austerity Britain under the ConDem coalition the walls of the basement had been daubed with graffiti reading; "We're all in this together" - the Prime Minister David Cameron's infamous slogan used to sell all the cuts. To really ram home the point one of the first contestants to enter the house was Paula Hamilton who was (allegedly) a supermodel. In the 1980's she famously appeared in the famous 'Divorce' advert for the VW Golf which was like porn for a generation of Yuppies. Now she's one of those glamorous grandmother's who are moaning about David Cameron taking away their winter fuel allowance after they'd "jolly well voted for him all their lives" and inflicted those "Keep Calm and Carry On Posters" on everyone while totally missing the irony. Then there were a pair who will forever been know to me as "cheap Colin Farrell' and "cheap Kelly Brook" who are apparently an actor and a porn star respectively (Ok I'll admit I recognised Lacey Banghard immediately because that is actually her real name). Their purpose in the show is to point out that some celebrities are so easily replaceable they actually have their own tax-code in the UK. Not that I'm looking in anyone's direction sweetheart. The show also features Claire Richards who used to be in a pop-band called "Steps" before the band broke up and she got really, really fat and Neil Ruddock who got really, really fat and then decided to retire from football. These two represent Britain's obesity epidemic and it's associated spiralling health care cost particularly in areas such as stroke and diabetes. The hope is that the fat, unemployed, illiterate, ugly, council housed scum who watch this show will take this pair to heart in such a big way that they'll keep voting for them over and over again leaving them without any money to buy food.
The biggest misfortune to afflict this series though was not really the producers fault. You see they had booked Jim Davidson who was a popular TV comedian in the 1980's before he revealed himself to be deeply racist, deeply homophobic and deeply misogynistic. In his last foray into reality television he launched into a vicious homophobic rant against fellow contestant Brian Dowling on "Hell's Kitchen." Brian Dowling is the host of Celebrity Big Brother. Unfortunately when Davidson arrived back in the UK from Dubai where he is effectively exiled police investigating the Jimmy Savile case promptly arrested him for sex offences. At this point Channel 5's lawyer's started to cry and cancelled his appearance. Personally I think they missed a trick because I'm pretty sure they could have got a kick-back from the prison service for making sure Davidson stuck to his bail conditions. Actually thinking about it maybe Channel 5 had already been paid-off to lure Davidson back in order for him to be arrested.
The big disappointment of the evening was that US actress Lindsey Lohan won't be appearing in this series. This was kind of obvious because it was a reference to the last series of Celebrity Big Brother. Here Channel 5's media team spent weeks putting out rumours about the big names (including Lindsey Lohan) who would be appearing. In the end they delivered a show that was so poor it was said that the contestants had to Google themselves before entering the house. As a result of this series of spiteful deception that series was thoroughly and rightfully slaughtered by all other sections of the British media. So I guess there is a teachable moment for the LA system in there somewhere.
Anyway I'm sure the one thing we can all agree on is that we would all pay good money to see Neil Ruddock punch Rylan Clark full in the face.
00:50 on 4/1/13.
The major fault with this series though is that it is far too political. Rather then just living together in one house (technically a bungalow) contestants have been spilt into two groups. One lives upstairs in relative luxury while the second group are forced to live in a basement which is essentially decked out to resemble a warehouse squat with no running water etc. This is of course an idea that has been popular in reality TV and is a 'tribute' to the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. Along with Mili-thingy's electric shock tests these were a series of US psychological experiments designed to heal the wounds of the holocaust by trying to determine if peer pressure can dehumanise people to such an extent that they will carry out all manner of brutality against strangers. They discovered that it most certainly can with the Stanford experiment having to be stopped after the test subjects given the 'prison guard' role almost killed the test subjects given the 'prisoner' role.
However in case any viewers were too thick to pick up on the rich/poor divide being a commentary about Austerity Britain under the ConDem coalition the walls of the basement had been daubed with graffiti reading; "We're all in this together" - the Prime Minister David Cameron's infamous slogan used to sell all the cuts. To really ram home the point one of the first contestants to enter the house was Paula Hamilton who was (allegedly) a supermodel. In the 1980's she famously appeared in the famous 'Divorce' advert for the VW Golf which was like porn for a generation of Yuppies. Now she's one of those glamorous grandmother's who are moaning about David Cameron taking away their winter fuel allowance after they'd "jolly well voted for him all their lives" and inflicted those "Keep Calm and Carry On Posters" on everyone while totally missing the irony. Then there were a pair who will forever been know to me as "cheap Colin Farrell' and "cheap Kelly Brook" who are apparently an actor and a porn star respectively (Ok I'll admit I recognised Lacey Banghard immediately because that is actually her real name). Their purpose in the show is to point out that some celebrities are so easily replaceable they actually have their own tax-code in the UK. Not that I'm looking in anyone's direction sweetheart. The show also features Claire Richards who used to be in a pop-band called "Steps" before the band broke up and she got really, really fat and Neil Ruddock who got really, really fat and then decided to retire from football. These two represent Britain's obesity epidemic and it's associated spiralling health care cost particularly in areas such as stroke and diabetes. The hope is that the fat, unemployed, illiterate, ugly, council housed scum who watch this show will take this pair to heart in such a big way that they'll keep voting for them over and over again leaving them without any money to buy food.
The biggest misfortune to afflict this series though was not really the producers fault. You see they had booked Jim Davidson who was a popular TV comedian in the 1980's before he revealed himself to be deeply racist, deeply homophobic and deeply misogynistic. In his last foray into reality television he launched into a vicious homophobic rant against fellow contestant Brian Dowling on "Hell's Kitchen." Brian Dowling is the host of Celebrity Big Brother. Unfortunately when Davidson arrived back in the UK from Dubai where he is effectively exiled police investigating the Jimmy Savile case promptly arrested him for sex offences. At this point Channel 5's lawyer's started to cry and cancelled his appearance. Personally I think they missed a trick because I'm pretty sure they could have got a kick-back from the prison service for making sure Davidson stuck to his bail conditions. Actually thinking about it maybe Channel 5 had already been paid-off to lure Davidson back in order for him to be arrested.
The big disappointment of the evening was that US actress Lindsey Lohan won't be appearing in this series. This was kind of obvious because it was a reference to the last series of Celebrity Big Brother. Here Channel 5's media team spent weeks putting out rumours about the big names (including Lindsey Lohan) who would be appearing. In the end they delivered a show that was so poor it was said that the contestants had to Google themselves before entering the house. As a result of this series of spiteful deception that series was thoroughly and rightfully slaughtered by all other sections of the British media. So I guess there is a teachable moment for the LA system in there somewhere.
Anyway I'm sure the one thing we can all agree on is that we would all pay good money to see Neil Ruddock punch Rylan Clark full in the face.
00:50 on 4/1/13.
I Think the Student Loan Company Have Finally Cracked.
During the COP18/CMP8 I received a letter from the Student Loan Company (SLC). It informed me that Her Majesties Revenue and Customs (HMC/Tax office) had informed the SLC that my employer (who doesn't exist) had informed HMRC that I was now earning above the repayment threshold so they had begun to deduct re-payments from my salary accordingly. As at up to this point I wasn't aware I was receiving a salary I haven't got a clue where to look to see if these deductions are being made. Even more curiously though these re-payments appear to be increasing the principle sum of the loan. So what I suspect is that someone at the HMRC has made a very bizarre deliberate mistake in order to first create a panic about my finances (this was planned before my grandmother's death) and second what role my student loans will play in any compensation package for the roughly 6 years of my life I've had stolen. This was an issue that Britain was trying to force onto the COP18/CMP8 but sort of got drowned out.
I suppose I should give the SLC a call at some point to unf'ck this mess. However that's not a priority because this type of debt doesn't show up on a credit report and is never going to be repaid so they may as well just be making up number which appears to be exactly what they're doing. So in summary I think certain people should be more focused on getting their own house in order because as time passes option 1 becomes less viable making option 3 more of a necessity.
17:00 on 3/1/13.
I suppose I should give the SLC a call at some point to unf'ck this mess. However that's not a priority because this type of debt doesn't show up on a credit report and is never going to be repaid so they may as well just be making up number which appears to be exactly what they're doing. So in summary I think certain people should be more focused on getting their own house in order because as time passes option 1 becomes less viable making option 3 more of a necessity.
17:00 on 3/1/13.
Wednesday, 2 January 2013
Today is Not Tuesday.
Due to the festive period I went to the supermarket today -Wednesday - rather then my more traditional Tuesday. I completed this task without falling over, throwing up or punching anyone. Now all I need is someone to follow me around for the rest of the day whispering; "Today is not Tuesday. You are not going to the pub. You are not going to drink until you make a fool out of yourself. Today is not Tuesday."
16:40 on 2/1/13.
16:40 on 2/1/13.
Fiscal Cliff Deal Done.
Long after I went to bed the US House of Representatives passed the Senate bill averting the fiscal cliff into law. Obviously I will now need to wake up, read and digest that bill but with it only delaying the proposed spending cuts for two months and another argument about raising the US debt ceiling looming I think it's just a case of the US government agreeing to continue arguing.
Adding to the drama of the evening apparently a press photographer was hit by a car and killed in Los Angles while trying to take paparazzi shots to the pop star Justin Beiber. This is LA County's legal system attempting to argue that nothing should be done about Chris Brown because I couldn't possibly deal with all the attention that would come with dating Rihanna. That may well be true but the last time I checked there were slightly more then two men on this planet so whether or not I can date Rihanna should have no bearing on her relationship with Brown. Besides that is a point of law now. He has committed an offence therefore he needs to be punished for that offence.
12:45 on 2/1/13.
Edited at around 16:50 on 2/1/13 to add it was clearly a dramatic night in LA because the 32 year old son on the owner of the LA Clippers basketball team being found dead of a drugs overdose. The Clippers have been used as code for the LA courts system which is why they were on a winning run while their most famous son - Chris Brown - was on his little tour. That winning streak came to an end yesterday one game shy of the Boston Celtics all time record. So while I'm talking in terms of a restraining order a lot of other people seem to have moved on to a discussion not about whether to kill him but how to kill him. With all this going on I'm sure you can appreciate why Rihanna herself is not in a particularly chatty mood.
Adding to the drama of the evening apparently a press photographer was hit by a car and killed in Los Angles while trying to take paparazzi shots to the pop star Justin Beiber. This is LA County's legal system attempting to argue that nothing should be done about Chris Brown because I couldn't possibly deal with all the attention that would come with dating Rihanna. That may well be true but the last time I checked there were slightly more then two men on this planet so whether or not I can date Rihanna should have no bearing on her relationship with Brown. Besides that is a point of law now. He has committed an offence therefore he needs to be punished for that offence.
12:45 on 2/1/13.
Edited at around 16:50 on 2/1/13 to add it was clearly a dramatic night in LA because the 32 year old son on the owner of the LA Clippers basketball team being found dead of a drugs overdose. The Clippers have been used as code for the LA courts system which is why they were on a winning run while their most famous son - Chris Brown - was on his little tour. That winning streak came to an end yesterday one game shy of the Boston Celtics all time record. So while I'm talking in terms of a restraining order a lot of other people seem to have moved on to a discussion not about whether to kill him but how to kill him. With all this going on I'm sure you can appreciate why Rihanna herself is not in a particularly chatty mood.
Tuesday, 1 January 2013
Blimey it Must Be Bad.
I've been hit with a sudden urge to tell you all about Campbell V Tormey (1969) as per Ashworth because it has some relevance to Gbago, the ICC, my grandmother, some English law and basically it's a little bit funny.
Way back in 1969 - just after the introduction of drink drive legislation - a man named Ashworth was driving home when he was stopped by a police officer who believed him to be drunk. So drunk in fact that when the police constable suggested that rather then continuing to drive home Mr Ashworth might prefer to accompany him to the police station where they will provide free room and board Mr Ashworth agreed. On arriving at the station Mr Ashworth was shocked to discover that rather rather then sandwiches the police would much prefer him to provide a blood sample to prove just how drunk he was. Obviously Mr Ashworth refused which in itself is an offence. However at his trial Mr Ashworth argued that because it is only an offence to refuse a laboratory specimen once you have been arrested as he had not technically been arrested no crime had been committed. Needless to say the court disagreed and the precedent was sent.
02:00 on 2/1/13.
Edited at around 02:45 on 2/1/13 to add: Yeah probably the important part of that story was that the court found that when Mr Ashworth was told that he could not leave the police station until he provided a laboratory specimen (specifically a blood sample) he should have considered himself to be "under arrest." Likewise when Mr Gbagbo found himself surrounded with men with guns ordering him onto a plane to the Hague he should have realised that he was on his way to the ICC and anything he said would be taken down and at that point considered irrelevant.
Way back in 1969 - just after the introduction of drink drive legislation - a man named Ashworth was driving home when he was stopped by a police officer who believed him to be drunk. So drunk in fact that when the police constable suggested that rather then continuing to drive home Mr Ashworth might prefer to accompany him to the police station where they will provide free room and board Mr Ashworth agreed. On arriving at the station Mr Ashworth was shocked to discover that rather rather then sandwiches the police would much prefer him to provide a blood sample to prove just how drunk he was. Obviously Mr Ashworth refused which in itself is an offence. However at his trial Mr Ashworth argued that because it is only an offence to refuse a laboratory specimen once you have been arrested as he had not technically been arrested no crime had been committed. Needless to say the court disagreed and the precedent was sent.
02:00 on 2/1/13.
Edited at around 02:45 on 2/1/13 to add: Yeah probably the important part of that story was that the court found that when Mr Ashworth was told that he could not leave the police station until he provided a laboratory specimen (specifically a blood sample) he should have considered himself to be "under arrest." Likewise when Mr Gbagbo found himself surrounded with men with guns ordering him onto a plane to the Hague he should have realised that he was on his way to the ICC and anything he said would be taken down and at that point considered irrelevant.
Go Republicans!
At around 05:01 today the US officially went off the fiscal cliff.
Ok technically it's more of a sharp fiscal incline however until a deal is done 2 million Americans will see their unemployment benefits stop, purchasing orders throughout the federal government will be rejected, Medicare doctors will stop being paid and everyone's going to have to pay their accountant that little bit extra to deal with fluctuating income tax rates.
Fortunately at around 07:00 the Senate passed by a margin of around 80 votes a bill that will see the tax cuts for households earning under $450,000 continued and all those cuts to defence spending deferred for the next two months.
Unfortunately that bill has now gone to Republican controlled House of Representatives who are currently refusing to even vote on passing the bill into law.While I'll agree that seeing the world's financial markets re-open following the New Years break with this uncertainty hanging over their heads will be absolutely hilarious I can't help but feel that driving the US economy back into recession in order to achieve this might be something of a Pyrrhic victory.
Oh who am I kidding the Republicans know exactly what they're doing. Acting like something of fifth column trying to destroy the US from within. Hell I'm pretty sure it was just after the recent election that even Texas starting circulating a petition saying they didn't want their Tea Party nutters involved in this debate.
23:30 on 1/1/13.
Ok technically it's more of a sharp fiscal incline however until a deal is done 2 million Americans will see their unemployment benefits stop, purchasing orders throughout the federal government will be rejected, Medicare doctors will stop being paid and everyone's going to have to pay their accountant that little bit extra to deal with fluctuating income tax rates.
Fortunately at around 07:00 the Senate passed by a margin of around 80 votes a bill that will see the tax cuts for households earning under $450,000 continued and all those cuts to defence spending deferred for the next two months.
Unfortunately that bill has now gone to Republican controlled House of Representatives who are currently refusing to even vote on passing the bill into law.While I'll agree that seeing the world's financial markets re-open following the New Years break with this uncertainty hanging over their heads will be absolutely hilarious I can't help but feel that driving the US economy back into recession in order to achieve this might be something of a Pyrrhic victory.
Oh who am I kidding the Republicans know exactly what they're doing. Acting like something of fifth column trying to destroy the US from within. Hell I'm pretty sure it was just after the recent election that even Texas starting circulating a petition saying they didn't want their Tea Party nutters involved in this debate.
23:30 on 1/1/13.
You Dirty Bunch of B'stards.
That's right it might be New Year's Day but it's also a Tuesday so I'm back from the pub. Keeping with the spirit of reviewing the old year and preparing for the new I've been checking out my hit count. This simply displays the number of times that every post on this blog has been viewed. For example my post about Senator Feinstein's proposed assault weapons ban received 7 hits while my post about the South African leg of Chris Brown's tour received 16 hits. The out and out winner though with 110 hits was my post entitled "Hayley Atwell's Boobs."
Being serious for a moment though the former US Ambassador to the UN who had "Bolton's law of international relations*" named in his honour John Bolton has claimed that (still) US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent admission to hospital for a blood clot is a 'diplomatic illness.' The suggestion being that this is all being faked so Clinton can avoid a Congressional committee on the Benghazi attacks. For possibly the first time in his career Bolton is very nearly correct. While I wouldn't go so far as to say Clinton's condition it is totally faked it is quite common for someone who's suffered a blow to the head to experience bleeding between the scalp and the skull. As with bleeding in other parts of the body this normally quickly clots and the clot normally breaks up on it's own without anyone noticing unless they're stuck in a MRI machine. This used to happen all the time with my grandmother every time she had a fall and every time the doctor would say "Well she's got a blood clot but it's nothing to worry about. That's to be expected." The reason why everyone is making such a fuss about Clinton's blood clot is that along with Chris Brown and Susan Rice she represents part of the unholy trinity of people who really need to leave US public life. The problem is that while Clinton's brand of authoritarian femi-socialism which encompasses Israel Tzipi Livni and the UK's Jacqui Smith is slowly dying out it still has some adherents world wide some shoving them away too quickly could cause some short term tensions. Then of course there's the fact that people who really don't like the US and what it represents (the Gulf Monarchies mainly) would much prefer it if completely useless people continue to occupy top jobs within the US government. So this bout of illness along with the speculation that Clinton could run for President in 2016 is the US sounding out the world about Clinton's future.
*Bolton's law simply states that whenever John Bolton is speaking on any matter relating to international diplomacy you listen intently and take notes if need be before doing the precise and exact opposite.
20:25 on 1/1/13
Being serious for a moment though the former US Ambassador to the UN who had "Bolton's law of international relations*" named in his honour John Bolton has claimed that (still) US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent admission to hospital for a blood clot is a 'diplomatic illness.' The suggestion being that this is all being faked so Clinton can avoid a Congressional committee on the Benghazi attacks. For possibly the first time in his career Bolton is very nearly correct. While I wouldn't go so far as to say Clinton's condition it is totally faked it is quite common for someone who's suffered a blow to the head to experience bleeding between the scalp and the skull. As with bleeding in other parts of the body this normally quickly clots and the clot normally breaks up on it's own without anyone noticing unless they're stuck in a MRI machine. This used to happen all the time with my grandmother every time she had a fall and every time the doctor would say "Well she's got a blood clot but it's nothing to worry about. That's to be expected." The reason why everyone is making such a fuss about Clinton's blood clot is that along with Chris Brown and Susan Rice she represents part of the unholy trinity of people who really need to leave US public life. The problem is that while Clinton's brand of authoritarian femi-socialism which encompasses Israel Tzipi Livni and the UK's Jacqui Smith is slowly dying out it still has some adherents world wide some shoving them away too quickly could cause some short term tensions. Then of course there's the fact that people who really don't like the US and what it represents (the Gulf Monarchies mainly) would much prefer it if completely useless people continue to occupy top jobs within the US government. So this bout of illness along with the speculation that Clinton could run for President in 2016 is the US sounding out the world about Clinton's future.
*Bolton's law simply states that whenever John Bolton is speaking on any matter relating to international diplomacy you listen intently and take notes if need be before doing the precise and exact opposite.
20:25 on 1/1/13
Stampede in Ivory Coast.
Back in the winter of 2010 Cote D'Ivorie was very nearly sucked back into civil war after Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede the Presidency to Alassane Ouattara following an election. Due to the high-profile intervention in Libya which took place at the same time France were eventually pressurised into using military force to arrest Gbagbo. As I largely got the blame for this the French went on to use Gbagbo's indictment at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to address the legal question of whether a person is considered to be under arrest if they are detained regardless of whether the correct procedure has been used which. This was central to my grandmother's Court of Protection (COP) case that was held in December 2011. The ICC agreed with me.
While I was going off on one on Sunday (30/12/12) Chris Brown was accompanied by Rihanna to the KORA awards in the Ivorian capital Abidjan which had been specially re-arranged to accommodate his attendance. Today (1/1/13) at least 60 people (primarily children) were killed and a further 100 injured during a stampede at a New Years Eve fireworks display at a stadium in Abidjan. Now across the developing world safety standards at public events of this type are not as high as they should be. However children being crushed to death during a fireworks stampede does seem a very apt metaphor for the African leg of Brown's tour.
I am though hesitant to blame the Ivorian authorities for the tragedy because to create this type of disaster literally all you need is for one person to shout "Fire!" in a crowded room. The US themselves may actually be to blame because it does fit into the public order policing/public safety theme which was a central part of Brown's visit to South Africa. Britain is also always a likely suspect because it would feed into the fake argument that Britain is trying to convince everyone it is having with France over the situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) along with the Hillsborough football tragedy which has been a long running means of discussion between the UK and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.
13:05 on 1/1/13.
Edited at around 14:50 on 1/1/13 to add; Seeing how I've already spoilpt everyone's day I might as well properly go for it.
Britain is claiming that it has lost Ibrahim Magag a terrorism suspect who was on Terrorism Prevention Investigation Measures (TPIM). He was last seen in the Camden area of London which is a famous celebrity hangout being home to the late Amy Winehouse amongst others. The replacement to control orders TPIM's are a way to monitor and restrict the movements of terrorism suspects who cannot be brought to court without jeopardising secret intelligence. They are essentially restraining orders of steroids proscribing who a person can and cannot contact, where they can and cannot go, placing curfews on them and even forcing them to move to different areas of the country. So like I said on Saturday (29/12/12) a restraining order preventing him from contacting Rihanna even at music industry events is the absolute barest minimum action the US is expected to take against Chris Brown.
As for the Ivorian thing the more and more I think about it the more I'm convinced the US had a hand in it. Not least because they've already issued a denial. The purpose of Brown's Africa tour was to put pressure on African governments in order to crush information out of people who are seen as less mature then governments in developed nations. So by putting this right at the end the US seems to be trying to find out if it achieved that objective or whether it's simply being made to look like they did.
While I was going off on one on Sunday (30/12/12) Chris Brown was accompanied by Rihanna to the KORA awards in the Ivorian capital Abidjan which had been specially re-arranged to accommodate his attendance. Today (1/1/13) at least 60 people (primarily children) were killed and a further 100 injured during a stampede at a New Years Eve fireworks display at a stadium in Abidjan. Now across the developing world safety standards at public events of this type are not as high as they should be. However children being crushed to death during a fireworks stampede does seem a very apt metaphor for the African leg of Brown's tour.
I am though hesitant to blame the Ivorian authorities for the tragedy because to create this type of disaster literally all you need is for one person to shout "Fire!" in a crowded room. The US themselves may actually be to blame because it does fit into the public order policing/public safety theme which was a central part of Brown's visit to South Africa. Britain is also always a likely suspect because it would feed into the fake argument that Britain is trying to convince everyone it is having with France over the situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) along with the Hillsborough football tragedy which has been a long running means of discussion between the UK and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.
13:05 on 1/1/13.
Edited at around 14:50 on 1/1/13 to add; Seeing how I've already spoilpt everyone's day I might as well properly go for it.
Britain is claiming that it has lost Ibrahim Magag a terrorism suspect who was on Terrorism Prevention Investigation Measures (TPIM). He was last seen in the Camden area of London which is a famous celebrity hangout being home to the late Amy Winehouse amongst others. The replacement to control orders TPIM's are a way to monitor and restrict the movements of terrorism suspects who cannot be brought to court without jeopardising secret intelligence. They are essentially restraining orders of steroids proscribing who a person can and cannot contact, where they can and cannot go, placing curfews on them and even forcing them to move to different areas of the country. So like I said on Saturday (29/12/12) a restraining order preventing him from contacting Rihanna even at music industry events is the absolute barest minimum action the US is expected to take against Chris Brown.
As for the Ivorian thing the more and more I think about it the more I'm convinced the US had a hand in it. Not least because they've already issued a denial. The purpose of Brown's Africa tour was to put pressure on African governments in order to crush information out of people who are seen as less mature then governments in developed nations. So by putting this right at the end the US seems to be trying to find out if it achieved that objective or whether it's simply being made to look like they did.
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