The Circus Continues.

On February 25th (25/2/18) the 2018 Winter Olympics drew to a close in PyeongChang in the Republic of Korea (RoK/South).

On Friday March 9th (9/3/18) the 2018 Winter Para-Olympics opens in PyeongChang in the RoK.

Traditionally the Olympics are used to bring up a wide variety of topics for discussion. A small number of those topics are then brought forward to the Para-Olympics where they are worked on in detail.

The huge topic at this year's games have been the banning of the Russian team. Leading to them being forced to compete as; "Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR).

Or more accurately the main topic was the hypocrisy of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in introducing this ban.

This is best illustrated by the case of Russian Tennis player Maria Sharapova.

It's well known that throughout her career Sharapova has used a drug called Meldonium to improve her cardiovascular performance. I hate to shatter the illusion for you but it is a standard practice for athletes to misuse drugs which are not banned by WADA to boost their performance.

The prime example are Non-Steroid Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) such as Ibuprofen. Athletes take this in high doses. Not to treat pain but to reduce inflammation to allow them to train longer and harder.

Meldonium like Ibuprofen was not on WADA's list of banned drugs. So Sharapova's use of it was hardly a secret and certainly not considered cheating.

Then at the start of 2016 the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) suddenly banned Meldonium. Specifically so they could label Sharapova a drugs cheat and ban her from competition.

This ambush went to the extent that WADA didn't tell anyone they were banning Meldonium until I think January 1st. They then tested Sharapova on around January 21st. Knowing full well that it would take 28 days for any Meldonium she had taken while it was legal to leave her system.

Meanwhile WADA continued to grant US Tennis player Serena Williams Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUE) to allow her to use corticosteroid asthma drugs like Prednisone and Prednisolone to improve her cardiovascular performance. This despite those drugs being long banned by WADA.

In preparation for the games Norway announced that it was bringing 6,000 doses of corticosteroid asthma drugs including Prednisone and Prednisolone for their athletes to use. This was something like 10 times the amount of asthma drugs that any team has ever brought to any games.

Rather than trying to hide this Norway pretty much spent their time introducing themselves to everyone as; "The most cheating Olympic team in Olympic history."

The Closing Ceremony included two medal ceremonies for men's and women's Cross Country Skiing.

The women's medals were given out first. Gold went to Norway, Silver went to Finland and Bronze went to Sweden.

The men's medals were given out second. Gold went to Finland. Silver went to the OAR. Bronze also went to the OAR.

So in the women's ceremony we saw Gold going to IOC approved doping.

In the men's ceremony we saw what the result would have been if it wasn't for IOC approved doping. Followed by two athletes the IOC won't give approval to dope.

The banning of Russia was largely led by British peer Sebastian Lord Coe. A man mired in controversy over his links to the US sportswear giant Nike and their role in the US' Seattle based doping program. Which included Serena Williams.

At the 2016 Summer Olympics it was Lord Coe - as head of the International Associations of Athletics Federations (IAAF) - who unilaterally banned Russia from the athletics events. This lead to the British based International Para-Olympics Committee (IPC) to issue a blanket ban on Russia at the 2016 Summer Para-Olympics.

Yesterday (5/3/18) the British Parliament's Committee for Digital Culture, Media and Sport released a damning report on the issue of drug use in sport.

The report was particularly damning of Lord Coe who it found had mislead them. Something which if it proved was done intentionally represents a criminal offence punishable by a prison sentence.

Mainly the report focused on British Olympic cyclist and Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins. Particularly the way WADA granted him a TUE to use the corticosteroid asthma drug Triamconolone during the 2011 Tour de France. Ostensibly to relieve him of systems of respiratory distress.

The thing is that to be suffering from the level of respiratory distress to require the doses of Triamconolone Bradley Wiggins was taking patients often require other forms of medicals support. Normally in a hospital's Intensive Care/Treatment Unit (IC/TU). You certainly don't tend to find them competing in premier cycling endurance races.

The other big topic at the 2018 Winter Olympics was Britain's August 2011 riots. How they led to me being married off to the popstar Rihanna and that marriage's implications for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the UK's June 2016 Grenfell Tower arson attack.

Although they rapidly spiralled out of hand the UK's August 2011 riots were intended as a single night of rioting in a corner of 2012 Summer Olympic host city London. The intention being to introduce the topic of rioting/urban disorder into the ongoing discussion about Olympic security.

They were scheduled to coincide with the, technically, civil partnership ceremony between my lesbian mothers. At the time they were living very close to the Olympic park in the Stratford area of east London.

To give you an idea of how close they were living to the Olympic park they wanted to move house in the summer of 2012. However they were forced to delay the complex chain of house buyers and sellers due to the traffic restrictions imposed around the Olympic park.

Eventually though they did move to Salisbury in the south-west of England.

Later yesterday (5/3/18) Salisbury made global headlines.

A major incident was declared after two people were rushed to the IC/TU of Salisbury hospital after being found poisoned with an unknown substance in Salisbury city centre. An exact area of Salisbury city centre I know extremely well.

The two poisoned individuals have since been identified as Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

 was an officer with Russian military intelligence who was recruited as a double agent by Britain's foreign intelligence agency MI6. Following his capture he as was exchanged in 2010 for individuals who had spied for Russia.

This invoked memories of Georgi Markov. A Bulgarian dissident who was assassinated by Soviet spies on London's Waterloo Bridge in 1978. He was killed using a pellet containing the poison Ricin. The pellet was fired from an airgun disguised as an umbrella.

You know how I have a tendency to tell stories that sound like they're made up? Well;

One of my mother's university friends was dating and went on to marry one of the doctors treating Markov. Legend has it he was the specific doctor who worked out Ricin had been used as a poison solving the mystery.

Frustratingly I'm trying to fit this in around real world activities. So at around 13:35 on 6/3/18 (UK date) I will pick it up later.

Edited at around 17:15 on 6/3/18 (UK date) to add above & below;

It also invoked memories of the death of Alexander Litvinenko who was killed using Polonium-210. Also in London in 2006.

The other big talking point of the games has been the FBI's attempts to rig the 2016 US Election by inventing claims of foreign interference.

Just like the RoK's equivalent of the FBI - the National Intelligence Service (NIS) - succeeded in rigging their 2012 Election by inventing claims of foreign interference.

Having failed to rig the 2016 Election sections of the US intelligence community have continued to use these claims of foreign interference to run an illegal shadow US foreign policy. As we saw from the February 14th (14/2/18) Parkland school shooting they are prepared to kill US citizens to pursue their aims.

Primarily led by the US Democrat Party the US claims of foreign interference are based on two sources.

The first of these is claims Russia hacked the email system of the Democrat National Committee (DNC).

Nobody has been allowed to inspect the DNC's computers to verify these claims. Instead they've been forced to rely on the word of Crowdstrike. A private company in the employ of the DNC.

The Opening Ceremony of the Olympics featured a staged Cyberattack in the form of the; "Olympic Destroyer" malware.  This was done to provide a talking point about Cybersecurity.

Although this was made by the South Koreans themselves Crowdstrike have claimed it was a Russian attack. Revenge for the banning of Russian athletes.

The second source of the Democrats claims is an intelligence dossier produced by a company called "Fusion GPS." Again this private company is in the employ of the Democrat Party.

The lurid claims in the dossier are primarily the work of a man called Christopher Steele. A former officer with Britain's MI6.

Prior to the Olympics the US Republican Party released what has become known as; "The Nunes Memo."

This revealed that the FBI failed to inform the Court that Fusion GPS was in the employ of the Democrat Party when using the Steele dossier to obtain surveillance warrants to spy on the Republicans 2016 campaign.

On the penultimate day of the games the US Democrat Party released what has become known as; "The Schiff Memo."

The Schiff memo corroborated the Nunes memo. The FBI had failed to disclose to the Court it was asking to spy on the Republican campaign on behalf of the Democrat campaign.

I'm still waiting for the retractions from all the news agencies that have denied that the FBI spied on the Republican campaign.

The exact office politics of what caused Christopher Steele to leave MI6 are an official UK state secret. However the UK have certainly not denied that it was due to his response to the Litvinenko death.

People talk about spies being; "Double Agents." Alexander Litvinenko was at least a Quadruple Agent.

He worked for the Soviet Union's Committee for State Security (KGB) domestic intelligence agency. He went on to work for its replacement the Federal Security Service (FSB) following the fall of the Soviet Union.

Whilst working for the FSB Litvinenko was also working providing private security for Boris Berezovsky. A Russian oligarch with deep involvement in organised crime.

His work for Berezovsky led to Litvinenko betraying the FSB. He started working for Britain's MI6. Providing them with information on Berezovsky's criminal rivals in the hope Britain would eliminate the competition on Berezovsky's behalf.

In 2000 Litvinenko was found out by the FSB and fled to the UK. There he started working for Sweden's Military Intelligence and Security Service (MUST).

Litvinenko's role for MUST was in supporting Swedish backed Islamist terrorists operating out of Russia's Caucus region such as Chechnya and Dagestan.

While working for MUST Litvinenko made all sorts of outlandish claims.

He claimed that the October 1999 assassination of the Armenian Prime Minister at the Armenian Parliament building was the work of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). The intention being to stop the Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR) being ceded to Muslim majority Azerbaijan.

This is a sensitive topic in Turkey's ongoing invasion in Syria's Afrin Canton. Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan keeps trying to liken his actions to Azerbaijan's desires in NKR. This puts pressure on Russia which backs both Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Litvinenko also claimed the September 1999 Russian apartment bombings were the work of the FSB. An attempt to smear Islamist terrorists backed by MUST. A claim recited by that other arm of MUST's operations - Human Rights House.

Litvinenko went on to claim that both the October 2002 Moscow Theatre Siege and the September 2004 Beslan School Massacre were the work of the FSB. Attempts to smear Islamist terrorists backed by MUST. Claims recited by that other arm of MUST's operations - Human Rights House.

Litvinenko even went so far as to claim the July 2005 bombings in London, UK were the work of the Russians. An attempt to smear the otherwise good name of Al Qaeda.

Every time Litvinenko moved onto a new employer he demanded more money. He also handed over the secrets of his previous employers.

His work for MUST was particularly hazardous. Islamist terrorists put a great deal of effort into their atrocities. When you deny them the glory by blaming someone else you really anger them.

So Litvinenko died is was easier to draw up a list of people who didn't want to kill him.

Britain's MI6 were certainly not happy about him passing on their secrets to MUST and publicly accusing them of lying about the July 2005 bombings.

Christopher Steele however became fixated on the idea that Litvinenko had been murdered by the SVR. In an elaborate conspiracy that went all the way to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This caused others within MI6 to question both Steele's judgement and his sanity. As a result he was asked to leave the organisation.

Then of course the was the 2014 Winter Olympics held in Sochi, Russia. The Saudi bombing campaign, the US' overthrow of the government of Ukraine and the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 meant that anti-Russian conspiracy theories were suddenly very fashionable.

So nine years after Litvinenko's death the UK held an Inquest in 2015. This blamed his death on Russia.

However the evidence the Inquest based its conclusions on were utterly ridiculous.

It claimed the Russian agents who'd carried the Polonium-210 had placed the lives of thousands of Londoners in danger. Not least because they had attended an Arsenal football match.

The Closing Ceremony of these games focused on the scientific concept of; "Wave-Particle Duality."

This really stems from the work of Scottish physicist Charles Wilson. He showed how radioactive particles collided with and ionised other particles in his famous; "Cloud Chamber Experiment."

Through this he identified two types of radiation; Alpha and Beta. However he and other physicists could not understand the third type of radiation; Gamma. This behaved like a wave and couldn't be seen in the Cloud Chamber.

Polonium-210 is a source of Alpha and sometimes Beta radiation. The radiation it produces behaves as particles and collide with other particles like air or dust and quickly become ionised and harmless.

In short the radiation Polonium-210 produces can be stopped by the human skin or even just the air. The only way you can be harmed by it is by ingesting it as Litvinenko did. The claim it would endanger thousands of people of a football match is utter nonsense.

To give you an idea of how harmless Polonium-210 is they allow High School children to play about with it doing the Cloud Chamber experiment. Or at least the students who don't waste their lives on women's studies.

The Inquest also claimed that Polonium-210 is so rare it could only have been obtained by someone with high level access to a Russian nuclear reactor. Again utter nonsense.

As it decays Polonium-210 emits a small electrical charge. As a result its used as a power source in a huge array of commercially available electronics.

So provided you know what to ask for you can buy Polonium-210 on any high street in Britain. There's probably even some of it sitting in the computer you're reading this on now.

At around 18:35 on 6/3/18 (UK date) there is one more edit to come.

Edited again at around 20:50 on 6/3/18 (UK date) to add;

As with the February 25th (25/2/18) explosion on Hinckley Road in Leicester, UK the release of information regarding events in Salisbury is being very tightly controlled.

However the initial reports were that Skripals had taken an overdose of the drug Fentanyl. Or some other transdermal opioid.

The reason why Hobbiton police are obsessed with Fentanyl is that it plays such a large role in the US' current opioid epidemic. Something which featured heavily at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Realistically Wiltshire police's - like much of the UK - main drug problem is with what are know locally as; "Legal Highs." Or in the US as; "Bath Salts.

These are synthetic drugs produced largely in 2022 Olympic host China. They're sold as experimental compounds. Then once one is made illegal the Chinese simply change the recipe slightly and start selling it all over again.

This has really revolutionised the recreational drug market.

Largely gone are the days of welding bricks of Heroin into washing machines to smuggle them through customs. Now with just a couple of clicks of a computer mouse you get whatever synthetic drug you desired mailed directly to your house. In a Bradley Wiggins style jiffy bag package.

This is actually causing huge problems not only for law enforcement but also medical services.

Drugs like Heroin and Cocaine can be hugely damaging to your health. However medical professionals fully understand how those drugs can damage your health.

They have absolutely no idea how these synthetic compounds which seem to change every week damage the human body. They don't even have ways to test for them. Let alone provide an antidote.

The US' opioid epidemic provides an example of just how biased the US media is against President Trump.

On October 26th 2017 (26/10/17) President Trump declared the opioid epidemic to be a public health emergency. His speech was carried live by CNN.

It was then quite fun to watch CNN's panelists scramble around live on TV for reasons to explain to their viewers why this was a bad thing.

About three days later they finally picked up on the growing trend of synthetic drugs being delivered through the mail. They then used this as a way to condemn Trump's plan to build a much needed wall with Mexico.

What they failed to mention to their viewers is that once the wall is built US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) resources can then be redeployed to more rigorously inspecting packages sent through the mail. Particularly ones being sent from China.

In November 2017 the UNFCCC held their 23rd Conference of Parties (COP23).

The big talking point at COP23 was the retirement of Robert Mugabe. The only President Zimbabwe has ever known. Salisbury is the colonial name for Harare. The capital of Zimbabwe.

I think it is safe to say that the entire nation of Zimbabwe agreed that it was time for Robert Mugabe to retire. However in making that a reality Zimbabwe received some help from China.

It is part of China's transactional foreign policy that help must be paid for by the retirement party forming the main talking point at COP23. China is of course very defensive about the Paris Agreement which allows them to continue growing their Green House Gas (ghg) emissions. Making Climate Change worse.

This idea of booting out corrupt leaders seems to have caught on in South Africa - Zimbabwe's immediate neighbour. On February 14th (14/2/18) they ousted the very corrupt Jacob Zuma. A story that was largely drowned out by the Parkland school shooting.

Jacob Zuma was replaced by Cyril Ramaphosa. Despite the early elation Ramaphosa has only added to concerns about South Africa's future. 

He's declared that private property can be seized by the government without compensation. It's exactly this type of; "State Capture" which was the main problem with Zuma.

Obviously this seizure of white farms will appeal to Julius Melema's Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Party. However Julius Melema's a f*cking moron. You only need to look at Zimbabwe to see that.

As for Sergei Skripal - he's not done anything for MI6 since at least 2010. Despite MI6 having to continue to pay for his very nice house in Salisbury.

Much like how the BBC were forced to pay for; "McMafia." Despite no-one wanting to watch it.

Seriously they only saved the finale by doing a frame-for-frame rip off of the Metro chase scene from the; "Game of Chance" episode of the US TV Show; "The Unit." 

Also I think we should take a moment to congratulate British actor Gary Oldman on the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar he won on Sunday (4/3/18). 

This is really a lifetime achievement award. However it was won specifically for his portrayal of UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the movie; "The Darkest Hour."

That is a movie about the question of appeasement in the wake of the annexation of the Sudetenland.

Turkish broadcaster TRT found his win particularly controversial. 

Apparently women's rights suddenly matter to Erdogan.

21:45 on 6/3/18 (UK date).