Boggart Abroad

Friday, March 16, 2007

Tridentine Folly

One of Britain's Trident Submarines - a bit useless against suicide bombers on the London Underground

Whatever else we may think of recently elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, he has certainly livened up politics.

Last time the UK Parliament had to consider renewing the contract by which Britain agrees to pay the USA a huge sum for the privilege of being Uncle Sam's nuclear base in Europe and thus first in the firing line if anything kicks off between America and Russia, David Cameron was leader of the opposition and the traitor and war criminal Tony Blair was Prime Minister.

There was never any chance that Parliament would vote down the diktat of His Excellency Fuhrergeneralissimo, President for Eternity Blair. Presented with an opportunity to "do the right thing" the Conservatives showed, as we knew they would, that they are mealy mouthed, wet-arsed cowards who whimperingly yearn for another dominatrix to do their thinking for them.

They cite tactics as an excuse for their yellow bellied cowardice. What tactics? If Trident had been rejected (in modern warfare, against a nutter with a rucksack full of bleach and acetone on a rush hour tube train, it would be about as much use as the proverbial chocolate teapot) Blair would have faced a vote of confidence. Which he would have won.

Had that happened Blair would truly have been a lame duck Prime Minister, his political potency castrated and his legacy in ruins he would have had to stand by and watch his party polarise as the Tories did after the fall of Thatcher.

Now that would have been tactics.

Unfortunately Boy - boobs Cameron did not have the balls. Now, we are happy to say, Jeremy Corbyn does, he will oppose Trident (for the wrong reasons but a result is a result) and with the backing on SNP MPs couls severely damage Camero's credibility, if not defeat him and force a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister on this issue.

Because of intemperate remarks allegedly made on Andrew Marr’s Sunday morning television news magazine by Gen Sir Nicholas Houghton, the chief of the defence staff (“Pacifist Jezza not fit to be PM,”) a row has erupted about whether serving army officers are allowed to have an opinion.

What Houghton had actually said to Marr and realised that the senior soldier had tiptoed, not through the tlips, but through the Trident debate more deftly than print media had reported overnight.

I don’t think Sir Nick (as we should all think of him) poses any kind of threat. He seems emollient and sensibly bland; perhaps his appointment in 2013 was a reaction to his feisty predecessor, Gen Sir David (now Lord) Richards, who was inclined to launch surface to Ivory Tower missiles at government bean counters over budget cuts or David Cameron’s cadet corps’ strategic thinking.

But don’t think this sort of trouble will now melt away, for several reasons. Like most public servants, the military is pretty cross these days about the political class, Tory as well as Labour, for asking the soldiers (mostly), sailors and aircrews to do more for less, with less pay and fewer perks too. Even on Remembrance Day, it’s fair to point out that more pensioners have met an early death because of the cuts than soldiers, but their grievance is also legitimate.

So Cameron got it in the neck from Richards over Libya, as Gordon Brown and Tony Blair once did from the pyrotechnic former SAS man Lord Guthrie.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Cannabis and Common Sense

11 November, 2015

The cannabis cadeuceus (image source)

This is a story from the British courts (back in 2005), it should concern us all however. It is not particularly about the rights and wrongs of cannabis, it is about the exculsion of compassion and common sense from the legal process. When the law is managed by bureaucrats we will soon lose our freedoms. I update because only last week a similar case came before a US court, with a similarly bureaucratic and compassionless outcome.

Sixty - Eight year old Patricia Tabram of Hemshaugh, Northumbria was convicted at Carlisle Crown Court yesterday of possessing cannabis. She had admitted growing three plants in her wardrobe for self medication purposes. Mrs Tabram, who suffers from depression and arthritis mixes the dried, ground laves with various foods to lift her depression and give her respite from the chronic pain in her joints. She claims cannabis it the only therapy which works on her symptoms without causing debilitating side effects. A cup of hot chocolate containing a little cannabis gives her five hours relief from pain, the court was told.

Now this person who does not have much quality of life left nor much to look forward to in her remaining years is faced with the prospect of having to do 250 hours community service (with crippling arthritis, yeah right!) and pay £1000 legal costs. Because of the conviction her home in a sheltered unit provided by a Housing Association is also at risk.
In passing sentence Judge Barbara Forrester said she understood Mrs. Tabram only used the drug for self medication and had no intent to supply others but the law limited the scope for leniency.

It has always been a principle of Western justice since the Ancient Greeks gave us the basis of our civilisation (though it is too rarely observed in recent centuries when vengeance and retribution seem to be the only principles that matter) that justice should be tempered with compassion. If ever there was a case for a judge set a precedent in the interests of justice this was it.

Sadly, under the bureaucratic dictatorship that economic liberalism has imposed on us in the past three decades, common sense is always overridden by rules and regulations. Judges seem ever more reluctant to give verdicts that challenge a bad law because the government, which is jealous of the power of an independent judiciary, may use it as an excuse to further undermine that independence. This has led to many deplorable decisions by the dispensers of justice.

Another social commentator at an American website wrote last week of a "social recession" in the free world. It is hardly surprising. When those with the authority to do so are afraid to challenge bad laws, respect for the law breaks down. And when respect for the law breaks down we cease to be a society and become a rat pack.

Ian Thorpe at Authorsden

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Red Meat Causes Cancer Says World Health Org. Scientists. They Are Lying Of Course

Science was ever fascism's whore; it has become a catchphrase of The Daily Stirrer over the years as week after week we report instances of scientists whoring themselves for research grants, produce results that serve the vested inerests of the organisations which provide their funding.

Simple Tips for Boosting Immunity Everyone Should be Doing To Improve Resistance Against Diseases Like Cancer.

While medical science, funded by research grants from Big Pharma and corporate health care pushes to find ever more costly (i.e. profitable) therapies for the diseses that threaten us, the body is its own best doctor, as our ancestors knew. All we need do in many cases is give it the right support.

Mother jailed for child cruelty after rejecting NHS care to seek treatment at foreign clinic for teenager’s hormone therapy

from: The Ledbury Reporter:

"A MOTHER took her daughter for medical tests for conditions she didn't have and gave her medication that would not have been prescribed by doctors in the UK, a jury has been told. Health professionals, police and social services became involved after an article written by the girl's mother was seen by her father, Worcester Crown Court heard.

NHS Money Wasting Machine And The One Budget That Is Never Cut

After the usual empty promises made at the annual conferences of the three main political parties - all three party leaders swore that only their party can save the National Heath Service (NHS) eternally a key isue in UK politics, we decided it was time our we too a close look at why NHS finances are always in a mess. We assigned the task to our team of old gits with a vast store of business experience behind them and no fears of suffering career damage as the Politically Correct Thought Police exact retribution for the crime of being 'off message'.

Evil Labour Government Helped Private Companies Profit From NHS

If you live in Heywood and Middleton and were thinking of voting for the greedy, paedophile loving, elitists' party, Labour because you have been taken in by the lies peddled at the Labour conference that the wicked Tories plan to privatize the NHS, think again.

UK Health Watchdog: Studies Show Mobile Phones Cause Brain Tumours
Over the past last two years, following publication of metastudies like World Health Organisation's International Agency For Research On Cancer report on the effects of radio frequency electromagnetic waves, there is new evidence that mobile phones use can be dangerous to our health. A less technical summary of that is available from Cancer Research UK. Wireless phones, even those DECT systems you use with your landline so you can wander around with the handset, emit radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs) when in use...

India To Prosecute Bill Gates For His Vaccine Crimes

It's about time someone prosecuted him, every version of Windows has been a crime against humanity. The man who made "Not fit for purpose" marketable quality, the man who made it possible for the NSA to spy on us all, has been protected for far to long by the US Government. Someyhing to do with his father having been a director of the CIA perhaps? ...You may say that, I couldn'r possibly comment.

US Centre for Disease Control Opposes Blocking Air Travel from West Africa to Stop Ebola
Right of return and gender dimension more important than stopping spread of disease? Well that sounds about right for the admistration of The Rent Boy President. Always put acting in a politically correct way before common sense. How about this for a totally fickwitted attempt to deal with a crisis (or mayve a smart but totally evil way to create a crisis.

The science of saturated fat: A big fat surprise about nutrition?

After years of being told saturated fat is a killer and we should avoid it in favour of Big Food products that are the nearest modern chemistry can get to packaging arterial plaque, yet another scientific meta analysis shows the sat fat scare was based of fraudulent science and there is no evidence your steak is harming you.

Ebola and the Absent “Humanitarians”

When the FUKUS axis leaders, France, United Kingdom and the Unites States of America were calling for approval to intervene in Libya, Yemen, Syria and Ukraine, they justified their lust for war by claiming that bombing the crap out of those counties was necessary on humanitarian grounds. And the member of the FUKUS axis and their allies spent billions of $£€ on humanitarian bombs that wreaked hiumanitarian havoc among the innocent poor and middle class citizens of those nations. Now they have work out their 'The Jihad Is Coming' scare but have a new weapon Ebola ...

Why Does The US Government Hold A Patent On The Ebola Virus? Just Askin'

The outbreak of Ebola fever in west Africa has been making headlines since January this year, but as usual we are only being told half the story by mainstream media. It took a lot of digging by myself and colleagues in the blogosphere to dig up this pile of dirt which suggests the "new strain" of Ebola faver that has killed far more people than previous outbreaks may have resulted from attempts to weaponise the virus. And guess which national government is allegedly responsible.

A Message For Nanny State

Nanny State is on the warpath, admonishing finger wagging furiously, lips compressed into a thin line, she is launching another determined effort to make sure we are all too scared to think for ourselves or make our own choices, Nanny is now warning, with the usual threats of early and painful death is we disobey, that we should ...

Saturday, February 10, 2007

A Stick With Which To Beat Dick

by Xavier Conolly

The Carbon cucle of a tree (Image source)

Billionaire self - publicist Richard Branson has offered a $25million prize for the first scientist to come up with a machine that will suck carbon dioxide out of air.

Sorry to be the one to break the bad news folks but such a machine already exists, it called a tree and a lady named Mother Nature has been growing them for millions of years.

Ma. N. is unlikely to claim Dick’s money however, she is an old hippy and has never had any interest in money. On the up side she will be happy to keep providing us with as many tress as we need free of charge so long as we promise to stop cutting them down to make room for more houses, offices, factories, roads and shopping malls.

So the answer is simple and the Branson prize for reinventing the wheel is just another publicity stunt.
But Mother Nature is no meanie, she tells me if we all start being nicer to her she will ask her trees to provide each of us with a stick with which to beat Branson for being a Dick.

When we get down to the fine detail, the billionaires who suddenly develop an interest in saving the planet can always be linked to schemes to suck CO2 (an essential trace gas without which carbon based life forms cannot exist) out of the air, or clean up the oceans, and pocket vast profits in the process.

Electric cars are another scam that control freak technology billionaires are trying to hype as an alternative to reality:

from The Tap:
VW scandal opens up the way for electric cars.

Automobile research analyst at Bernstein Research, Max Warburton believes that the VW scandal could mark the beginning of the end for the global diesel car market, In an interview on the subject he stated that: “The move against VW is going to act as a catalyst to speed up the fall in diesel market share in Europe and halt it in the US.” Diesel cars already have a bad reputation amongst those consumers with an environmental interest, because of the high levels of emissions that they produce, and diesel cars are already around 10-15% more expensive to insure than petrol cars (with adequate car insurance coverage being a legal requirement in most markets) making them generally more expensive for consumers to run. This is devastating news for Europe, which has seen billions of euros extensively invested in diesel technology over the last decade, in a bid to find a cleaner and more environmentally friendly diesel engine. The fraudulent activity of the region’s largest manufacturer means that this money has been, effectively, wasted. No doubt because on of their biggest exports sits at the heart of the scandal, the German government has raised its concerns over the lack of regulation within the car industry, and costly new regulations are sure to be implemented in the short term.

Not the first electric car this has happened to while the batteries were charging (Image source)

The VW scandal will open nothing. The case is electric cars simply do not work adequately to be a realistic replacement for the internal combustion engine. Performance drops of quickly as the batteries discharge, the range is poor, recharging takes too long and they are too expensive to be an affordable choice for most people. And they are not clean, they simply move the pollution (far nastier stuff than CO2) away from the street to the mines, smelting plants, battery factories etc.

And as for Googles driverless joke, who would pay £20k to be ferried around in a pimped up mobility scooter that doesn’t work in bad weather. Ignore the hype, electic cars are a pipe dream.

And even if they did work you would have to prise the keys to my Alfa Romeo out of my cold, dead fingers to take that car away from me.

https://originalboggartblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/01/car-barbie-tesla-supercar-bursts-into-flames-while-charging/

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Friday, February 09, 2007

Cold Comforts #1 - Shepherd's Pie

I could not bear to think of my American friends shivering through another winter of arctic conditions without the comfort of some traditional dishes from the North of England. So here we go with the first of a series of recipes that add a new dimension to the phrase "hot and substantial." Now Shepherd's Pie is confusing on two counts, first it is not truly a pie, there being no pastry involved and secondly a lot of people mistake it for cottage pie (it is Shepherd's Pie if made with lamb or mutton and Cottage Pie if made with beef.

Traditional Shepherd's Pie can be bland and dull so we will be zapping this up with a few additions to the basic "school dinners" recipe.

Now, as the famous Mrs. Beeton might have said, "first catch your shepherd..."

Ingredients (to serve 6 to 8)
2 lbs. Potatoes (mashed with a little milk or butter)
1 medium onion
2 carrots
1 stick celery
1 to 1½ lbs. minced (ground?) lamb or mutton
a small clove of garlic
2 tablespoons (2 Ounces) tomato puree
equal amount of water
Salt, Black Pepper to taste
½ teaspoon each, Thyme & Cumin
A shake of Worcestershire or Soy sauce.

Method:
Heat your oven to 200 Celsius, 400 Fahrenheit

Peel, the potatoes and set them boiling. There will be plenty of time to prepare the rest prepare before they are ready to mash.

Mince or finely chop the onion, carrot and celery and gently fry them in a little of your favourite oil or fat.

Once the onion is translucent set the vegetables aside and fry the lamb with the garlic until it is brown (traditional British chefs would recommend not doing this, but if you don’t the meat will look grey and unappetising.)

When the meat is browned stir the tomato puree and Worcester / Soy sauce into the water and add it to the lamb.

Add the thyme, cumin, salt and pepper and return the vegetables to the pan.

About now the potatoes should be ready to mash with the milk and butter.

Let the meat simmer while you do that.

Put the meat and vegetables in an oval baking dish (it doesn’t have to be oval, but somehow it looks better) Now lightly spread the mashed potatoes on top and fork the surface into a "ploughed field" pattern (kids of all ages like it like that) and bake at the top of the oven for 30 minutes.

British cooking has a reputation for blandness. It was not always so - before the Protestant reformation enjoying one’s food was not considered sinful. Do not skip on frying the vegetables and meat here, it improves the flavour immensely and follows the method described in Elizabethan cookery books.

To make Cottage Pie simply substitute beef for lamb.

A very tasty vegetarian version can be made with a soya based meat substitute

Saturday, January 27, 2007

How do you stop a Rhinoceros feeling horny?

There's no stopping a horny Rhinosceros (Image source)

German animal rights activists launched a campaign against plans for a giant ferris wheel in Berlin, saying it would disturb the sex lives of rhinos in a nearby zoo.

Investors unveiled plans for a 175 metre wheel, 40 metreshigher than the London Eye, hoping to attract millions of visitors from 2008. Activists say moving lights on the wheel would disturb the
rhinos daily routine and threaten breeding.

Normally I find animal rights campaigns a bit bonkers but I'm right behind this one coz I know how I used to feel when somebody disturbed my mating rituals.

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Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Ice Storm has elements of Shakespearean Tragedy

A contact at gather.com told me yesterday there is a big ice storm going on in America's mid west. Millions of people in the area around St. Louis, Missouri have been without electricity for nearly a week after ice and snow brought down overhead power lines. So far 36 people have died because of the freak weather. Government officials say it will be several more days before power can be restored even if temperatures rise.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070115/ap_on_re_us/winter_blast

Meanwhile us climate change deniers crank up the volume as we ask, "So how does this biggest ice storm ever equate with global warming then eh? And the airlines tell us to keep on flying, there is no danger.

And George W. Bush announces an escalation of the war in the Middle East.

Perhaps the President needs a lesson in literature. Let's start with Shakespeare; Henry 1V part 2 (Act 4) where somebody asks the King:

"Be it thy course to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels?"
Yeah well, quite.

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Monday, January 15, 2007

Brace Yourselves For The Invasion of Iran.

Image source

Sometime early in 2007, one of my blogging alter ego's Little Nicky Machiavelli made one of his famous predictions. (Not all Lille Nicky's predictions come true, we just don't mention the ones that don't.) In posting at Salon.com, Guardian News Blog, Gather.com and other venues I said that with public opinion in the U.S. turning against him, George Bush would delay the war with Iran until after the mid term elections which would go against the Republicans.

Bush would then start banging the wardrums and launch the attack in late 2007 or early 2008, providing an excuse to declare a national emergency and suspend the Presidential elections. Well I exaggerated about the last bit to boost readership, its more likely the attack on Iran will be a last desperate gamble to swing America behind the war and ensure a Republican succession.

That is not how things played out of course, as we now know Vladimire Putin stood between the neo con dominated US military / industrial complex and its dream of perpetual war but most of it I stand by. Only the timescale has been stretched

There follows the opening paragraph of an article written by Dan Plesch, an expert on Middle Eastern politics. It appeared on that day in 2007.

"The evidence is building up that President Bush plans to add war in Iran to his triumphs in Iraq and Afghanistan - and there is every sign, to judge by his warmongering speech in Plymouth last Friday that Tony Blair would be keen to join in if he were still in a position to commit British forces to the field."

Double brace yourselves folks because I now predict that Blair will now delay his resignation until after the invasion of Iran in order to gamble on being asked to stay on rather than "destabilise the government in a time of crisis." After all a change of leadership in such circumstances would be bad for morale.

Power is a very seductive mistress, especially to those with a messianic self image.

READ MORE

How prophetic those last words have turned out to be in most respects. The US military / industrial complex are still seeking world domination. Russia, China and Iran are still defying them. The main difference between then and now is that western nations have abandoned their pretence that elected leaders actually run democratic nations.

Our governments are controlled and all important decisions are made by bureaucrats, academics and wealthy financiers.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

DeadHamsterPhone - the latest Must Have...

Hamster Phone - not quite as we imagined but close

I guess you would have to be some kind of idiot genius to buy a dead hamster thinking it was a 3G phone movie player, internet access, a million ring tones and various hands free, ears free, brain free gizmos. But there's a small time criminal down in South Wales currently looking for such a punter.

So how did this crim. come to confuse such a phone with a dead hamster? Well the hamster was all packed up in a nice Eriksson box on the back seat of a parked car.

The hamster's owner is understandably distraught and is getting grief counselling because having been unable to bury his pet he needs to find closure so he can move on.

I can't help thinking however the dead hamster thief could be a struggling taxidermist looking for a way to boost trade. After all a hamster is just the right size to have a modern cellphone inserted in its furry little tummy and what better way to preserve the memory of a beloved pet could there be?

So if you are down in South Wales and you see people walking along the street chatting into a hamster's arse you will know what's going on.

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Friday, January 05, 2007

No Dodgy Syrups in Civil Court Cases.

A Judge should convey an impress of wisdom and gravitas at all time. So why do british High Court judges have to wear comedy wigs?

We're not sure whether the news that soon judges in civil law cases will no longer be required to wear those ridiculous horsehair wigs is a good thing or not.

The question is will the change pressure judges into abandoning also their silk stockings, suspenders and waspie waist-cincher. Or, will the end of this anachronism make them feel liberated enough to choose some entirely more fetching headwear in auburn or blonde from one of those specialist shops for men of certain inclinations we find in the seedy part of town.

ianthorpe at authorsden

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Thursday, January 04, 2007

They Haven't Thought It Through #nnn (sorry I lost count)

When my son was at college, his group did an exercise to find out what words people in Britain, France and The Netherlands associated with various nationalities. Germans were efficient, The British were snobbish, french people were said to be self important, The Dutch boring ... and the word most associated with Americans was 'paranoid'. I'm not saying that is true, but ......

The Original Paramilitary group The Minutemen was formed in America during the War of Independence when the colonists would rally to the call "The British Are Coming."

Since gaining independence from the British Colonial Yoke, America has fallen into a kind of national paranoia. In the early nineteenth century "The Canadians Are Coming" was the cry (and for once it was true as the Canadian army marched to Washington, said "nyah nyah na nyah nyah" and then went home. A few years later it was The Spanish Are Coming, though they got stuck in Texas because half the army deserted to work as film extras on The Alamo. The Spanish (who at the time were really The French) were superseded by the Mexicans who again got stuck in Texas.

Almost as soon as the Mexicans had come and gone The Indians Are Coming became the rallying call for U.S. paranoia although the Native American tribes were not actually posing any threat other than to people who were trying to run them off their traditional lands. That was followed by "The French Are Coming" as Napoleon 111's puppet Emperor of Mexico, Maximilian succeeded in posing no threat whatsoever.

After that they went back to The Indians Are Coming couples with The Blacks Are Coming as the freed slaves demanded work, land and basic human rights (i.e. the right not to be hanged for being black)

The Minutemen became redundant in WW1 as the threat posed by Germany was to America's rapidly growing economic empire became apparent. The 1940s however the need to defend the homeland against things that did not threaten God, Apple Pie and The American Way arose again. The Japanese were coming.

In the 1950s The Russians Were Coming, in the sixties The Chinks Were Coming, in the seventies The East Coast Liberal Faggots were coming. The eighties saw the return of the Russians. The threat in the 1990s was The Ayatollahs and in the 21st century they are going for broke. Not only are the Bearded Ragheads and The Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys posing a threat to the American way of life, but THE MEXICANS ARE COMING! again.

The latest revival of the minutemen, a group in Arizona, are planning to defend the homeland by building an anti - Mexican fence. Leader Al Garza says the 3m high security fence is not purely symbolic though it does symbolise something (he's not sure what.) Garza insists the fence will have a role in stemming the tide of illegal immigrants.
The Minutemen's fence, when completed will be one mile long. The U.S. border with Mexico is 1995 miles long in total.
Does something tell you in their paranoid state they haven't thought it through?