Not one swear word, I promise. No bad language at all.
Most of you won’t understand the underlying politics, or recognise the players in this drama, but you must have heard of Libya and The Middle East.
Rebel forces and the threat of a Canberra Spring
You may find it funny, or you may find it hard work and give up on it. 😀
Originally posted on MyT the following re-post, prompted by Bearsy’s post, Has The Chariot jumped the shark? links to a full explanation of ‘jumping the shark‘ with a take on ‘progressives’ and mission creep.
Depending on the website I visit the Libyan leader (well he is as I go to press) Gaddaffi’s surname changes. I’ve seen Gadhafi, Kadaffi and Quadaffi on my travels. It seems there are 112 ways to spell the tyrant’s name. Even his “Christian” name is problematic with Muammar or Moammar the top two in the charts.
Another guy who gives me headaches is Mahmoud Abbas or Abu Mazen as he is sometimes called. This man with two names should make his mind up. You don’t see our newspapers writing Cliff Richard or Harry Webb as he is known to some.
I suppose I’m being hypocritical as most of us have alibis (sic) we use in cyber space. Some with multiple identities. I’m now about to venture into dangerous waters as I might upset the owner with this one. Boadicea, seemingly, has a Gadhaffi-like tentacle alternative list of monikers. Boudicca and Bodica, two such examples.
Quickly moving on and finishing with a Royal flush, misspellings don’t bother me when they are still logical. You know what I mean, Rodger instead of Roger, Bryan instead of Brian, Jon instead of John. However, when Freddie is spelled Freddy I blow a fuse. Spell it rite i.e without the y.
The recent riots in the UK received worldwide media attention, from newspapers and television to the internet and blogspots. The theme of these responses varied from Schadenfreude through to chicken-licken. Continue reading “‘The State’ and civil disobedience.”
I started writng this in response to Ana’s post but then felt it warranted a separate entry.
Ana has written an interesting post. However, I can’t help feeling that she has gone against her own advice and that rather than “stand back from such events before forming a definite judgement, simply to allow the facts to settle”, she has reached a conclusion. “It’s no more than hooliganism, based on forms of avarice that would shame even the greediest banker.”
It is of course easy to say that and is probably true. But what it does not reveal is that given the right environment, avarice and hooliganism are present in most human beings. You do not have to be hard up to be greedy. The various financial bubbles, Tulips, Louisiana, South Sea, Dot-Com, Credit etc. have all proved that greed is present even in the most ‘civilized’, affluent and well educated individuals. Just consider some of the high profile divorce cases to see how wives such as Heather Mills or Linda Evangelista try and screw every undeserved penny out of their ‘errant’ husbands. Or those who have sued their employers for sexual harassment stemming from a pat on the bum. Or look at those people from companies such as Enron, WorldCom, Tyco etc to see how with little regard for others, they plundered their companies’ resources and ruined the lives of tens of thousands of employees and shareholders. As for the Credit Bubble, everybody from the unemployedAtlantasingle mother on benefits who took a mortgage she could not begin to afford right up to the likes Fred Goodwin and Alan Greenspan, was guilty of greed and hubris. Continue reading “The Riots and what to do about them.”
Hi, everybody. Sorry that I’ve not been here for a bit but I’ve been rather preoccupied with other things recently. Anyway, I’m sure that those of you who do not live in England will have seen the scenes from
London, broadcast across the world. I wrote the following piece yesterday afternoon in something of a rush, and in a mood, angered by some ignorant and ill-informed comment on an American-based online newspaper. I’m posting it here by request. 🙂
I want to say a word or two about the riots in London, my city, my home. My view is that – as with the Norwegian massacre – it is best to stand back from such events before forming a definite judgement, simply to allow the facts to settle. But judgements are already being formed which have nothing whatsoever to do with facts and everything to do with politics. The suggestion is that these events, which have disgraced my country and its capital in the eyes of the world, are somehow to do with cutbacks. This is no more than a supposition, based not on evidence but wishful thinking.
The opportunity has also been taken to attack the police, that somehow they do not respect the ‘right to peaceful protest,’ an assertion that again is utterly at variance with the facts. No it’s more; it’s an outright lie, one that is clearly intended to give a completely wrong impression to people who know little of the Metropolitan Police, who know little of London and little of this country. If anything the police have gone too far in the opposite direction, a softly softly approach that sometimes makes the force look fumbling and weak, an approach that saw them lose control at the weekend Continue reading “Shopping with Violence”
Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame. A scapegoat may be a child, employee, peer, ethnic or religious group, or country. A whipping boy or “fall guy” is a form of scapegoat.
Over on what has become ‘the dark snide’, the omnipresent anti-Islamic element continue to propagate their tedium. I have to support their right to do so and am not obliged to read any of it. However, there is an occasional post that raises some ‘real issues’ and, in this case, some amusing responses. In all honesty I have to say that I find it necessary to curtail my emotional reactions, which are engaged by such posts, before I can engage in a rational reaction. The post in question is 67% of Britons want the burqa banned by riteway. Continue reading “It’s an age thing”
In January 2011 I wrote ”A very European Road to Perdition’, which I posted on the ‘dark side’. The article was taken from the ‘Daily Reckoning’ web site. As this site gives out financial advice, my inherent cynicism of human sincerity and merit clouded my views on its veracity. At the time there was a critical comment on my view that contributors to the site were ‘snake oil salesmen’. I now think quite rightly so and withdraw, with some reservation, my comment about ‘snake oil salesmen’. However, I keep my view that politicians are ‘snake oil salesmen’. I’m with Diogenes in the adage that “It takes a wise man to discover a wise man” , and await my epiphany.
Here is my dark side post – revisited. Bill Bonner writing from Paris for the ‘Daily Reckoning’ claimed that the US road to bankruptcy is running parallel to France. He stated that; Continue reading “A very European road to perdition -revisited!”
Boadicea's Chariot 
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