Just being honest

Our man Dave has been stomping around the globe telling other countries how it is. After annoying the Pakistan Government over there terrorist sympathies, he shrugged and said: "I think you should say what you think, and be frank and clear".
A politician actually saying what they think may be as rare as a cheerful Scotsman but Dave should go further and really let rip at some other countries.

Dear Government of Canada - You are the second largest country in the World but all you are known for is killing seals pups. Just do something, anything. And stop killing baby seals and pretending it is not a greedy money making racket. And why isn't Celine Dion in prison yet?

Dear Government of Finland - You have the most lax gun laws in Europe and suffer the most gun related deaths and shootings in Europe. Want me to draw you a diagram?

Dear Government of Georgia - Picking a fight with a bigger, more powerful neighbour is stupid enough. Expecting your powerful friends to rush to your side in support is just plum crazy. Then sulking because you won't be allowed to join NATO to start a World War is worthy of making you stand in the corner with the dunce cap.

Dear Government of Israel - Where to start with you. Stop murdering your neighbours and take down that wall and nicking other peoples land and then bleating nobody likes you because you are Jewish. It isn't anti-Semitic, it's because you have been acting like tossers.

Dear Government of North Korea - Do you think that if you keep quiet we won't find out that your people are the most oppressed and poorest in the World? Stamp your feet all you want when you can't get your own way but your 6 nuclear weapons will be destroyed long before they have landed and you will be a smoking North Korea shaped hole before you can skin another Alsatian.

Dear Government of Russia - The Cold War is over. You lost. Get over it and keep your spies that side of the border.

Dear Government of Saudi Arabia - One day the oil will run out and we won't have to bend over backwards to please you anymore. Let's see how international opinion gets along with your authoritarian regime and anti-female, anti-homosexual and public flogging laws then.

Dear Government of Scotland - You know and we know that if you were granted your independence you would be bankrupt. What you pay in is a fraction of what you take out from the pot. Keep quiet and just hope we never say you can go it alone.

Dear Government of the United States of America - If you ever let Paris Hilton leave your country again, we will nuke you. You have been warned.

Go on Dave, let them have both barrells from this uppity little country that doesn't know it's rightful place in the global scheme of things.

All in this together?

On Monday we got a letter through our door telling us the price of our SKY TV subscription was going up.
On Thursday Sky revealed annual profits of £1.17bn.

Wednesday British Gas revealed profits are up 98%.
Thursday British Gas reveal they can't rule out price increases although they will try to delay them as long as they can.

Last month i, along with millions of others, were told our pay is being frozen for the next 2 years.

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

Blame the government, not Wikileaks

It says a lot about how things are run when we find out about our troops killing hundreds more civilians than previously admitted to in Afghanistan, and it is the owners of the wikileaks site that told us that wrongly get it in the neck.
It has long been the case that if you want the truth, you won't get it from the authorities, any authorities.
They will spin and twist, even apportion blame elsewhere, but they won't come clean.
I expected more from Obama but this week it has come out that rather than being '"surprised, disappointed and angry" to learn of the release of the Libyan prisoner in Lockerbie, his administration was telling the Scots that release on compassionate grounds was the preferred option.
The White House has now strongly condemned the release of the files, saying it is irresponsible and a threat to national security.
I would say the biggest threat to national security is not only starting highly dodgy wars, but killing civilians and then lying about it.
We should be thankful for whistle blowers and those that are willing to expose the dirty truth but such is the low level of esteem we hold for our Governments, is anyone genuinely shocked by this?

Our man meets Obama

Our man Dave is over there visiting their man Obama and apparently things are a bit spiky between them. The Libyan Lockerbie prisoner we released, the BP oil slick and both sniping at each other for their ideas on how to get the economy going again are three huge elephants in the room although we won't hear any of that, it will be all smiles, handshakes and talking up the special relationship which our man Dave said wasn't that important when he was still here a few days ago.
What i would love to see is them stand on the White House lawn and have a good old slanging match.

'I welcome David Cameron as leader of Great Britain although he wasn't actually voted in by the British people and had to fudge it with the party who came third'
'Thank you Barack who had the simple task of following George W Bush, and is actually more unpopular than he was at this time in his administration'.
'So the man you let go who killed 190 Americans, doing quite well in Libya by all accounts'
'So i hear, we could have tortured him in prison but that's more your sides thing'.
'That's not what my Grandad said. You tortured him good and plenty in that Kenyan Prison'.
'Look Barack, let's calm down. I don't want a war over this. You lot would turn up five years late for it again anyway'.
'Sure Dave, hate to have to save your limey asses for a third time'
'Warmongering yanks'
'Yellow tooth limeys'

That's what we want followed by some unseemly wrestling where Obama gets Dave in a headlock and rams him into the podium while screaming 'You wanna piece of me posh boy'.
All we are going to get is smiles and handshakes. How boring especially as i think Dave could take him.

Oh dear

From Blogshares:

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That's not good.

Bush & Blair hindsight

Wouldn't it be great if we could go back and talk to our younger selves. If i could have a chat with myself 10 years ago i could warn, praise and tell myself what turned out to be dead ends and what should be pursued.
What if Tony Blair and George W Bush had this ability and could go back a decade? Would they still give the go ahead for the Afghanistan and Iraq war knowing then what they know now?
I believe in the case of Iraq, they expected it to be a quick war, in and out with a long enough stop-over for photographs of happy Iraqis lauding them both, install a friendly face in power and back home to the acclaim of their respective nations.
As for Afghanistan, God only knows what they planned to do after the Taliban were removed.
So what would the 2010 George and Tony say to the 2001 ones? Would they say that they would do the same again and the trillion of pounds spent and the deaths in the millions on all sides were worth it?
Would they say that Iraq was a debacle and we are still in Afghanistan, achieving nothing and considering holding talks with the Taliban in order to get out so leave it all well alone?
Blair may be the proud owner of a few baubles from the United States but would he consider it a price worth paying especially as it cost him his Prime Minster job with the lowest ratings of any Labour Prime Minister?
Would Bush consider the cost of over $2 trillion of taxpayers money, over 4000 dead Americans and ramping up the hatred aimed at America a good return for the net gain of removing Saddam Hussein?
With no returning older and wiser selves to guide them, all they have as they are sat in their homes, watching the news are the thoughts that either they did a good job or the realisation dawning on them that they have made a complete and utter rickets of the whole thing.
Question is, would they do it all again? Question for those who supported both the wars, would you back them again?

A Conservative future

Something everybody does when they take over a job is blame anything bad on the last guy. Politicians are especially adept at it and who can blame them, its exactly what i would do.
'Sorry guys, you aren't going to like this but we have to do it because the last lot made such a mess of everything'.
The Coalition Government are making the most of the situation and putting on their most sympathetic faces while telling us they are going to cut and slash everything to make the books balance and remind us that it's all Labours fault.
Those of us who remember the Thatcher years know that the Conservatives are all about selling things off.
Gas, telephones, electric, council homes, water, trains, airlines and even rubbish collection were all privatised and their eyes were turning towards the NHS until they got turfed out.
Now they are back in again and it's looking as though the sell off was only temporarily paused until there was a blue backside on the seat again.
Most cause for concern is the National Health Service which is to be overhauled and Hospitals being allowed to opt out of Local Health Authority control, plum pickings for the private sector.
The same treatment is being mentioned for schools and even welfare with private companies taking over.
In the short term, it will boost the economy but with hindsight, the privatisation rush of the Thatcher years has been a disaster. Prices for the services of all the above now PLC's has gone through the roof.
Gas, water and electric bills are eye wateringly expensive and anyone who makes regular use of the trains knows that it has become almost untenable. The local councils housing stock is so low that any chance of renting an affordable home is stacked against them. My local council has a list of people waiting to join the actual waiting list for a home.
The Conservatives are the privatisation party and they will be on the television shrugging sympathetically and saying they have no choice but there must soon be a point where we say hang about, Labour did make a mess and yes you do have to make tough decisions to clean it up but your idea may make sense today but as we found out from Thatcher, the hurt comes later when the private companies now running these things decide there profit margin needs extending. That barrel they have you over is very uncomfortable.
Look at the extortionate cost of your electric bill and that's our future for receiving hospital treatment and the Conservatives solution to our problems.

Katherine Jenkins

The lady to the left is Katherine Jenkins. There is no real reason for me to post a picture of her, she hasn't done anything particularly interesting or controversial, just got herself a part in the Dr Who Christmas Special.
What i will admit to is having a humongous crush on her.
Not only is she beautiful, there are plenty of beautiful women around, but more importantly she is nice.
You never hear of her involved in any scandal, she has never appeared topless or posing in just her knickers in lads magazines, suffers no diva tantrums, is always smiling and nobody ever has a bad word to say about her.
She sings Opera, apparently very well, and she never wins in any popularity contests where the likes of the more media hungry Cheryl Cole who are more ready to strip off sweep up.
Katherine just goes about doing what she does under the radar of most with very little of the spotlight.
Beauty, talent, humility and modesty in one package is very rare. If only more girls aspired to her as a role model rather than the likes of Katie Price or Victoria Beckham.

Another great idea

When i was younger i had a great travel idea after we had got lost once again and dad had sat folding and unfolding a huge map of the South coast on the car bonnet for 20 minutes before giving up and asking directions from a passer-by.
Why didn't someone, i thought, make and sell individual maps of all the British cities small enough to fit in a plastic holder sat on the car dashboard but big enough to contain all the cities streets. Nobody would be lost in a strange city ever again.
30 years later and Sat-Navs do this job and gone was my fortune and the chance to clutter up the dashboard of cars with little plastic maps.
Now is the time to mention my latest idea which i will do nothing about but whinge i thought of it when someone else does, cars that drive themselves.
We have automatic cars that change gears already and there are plenty of machines around that contain the technology to avoid objects in its path, why not marry the two together? All that's needed is a way to regulate the speed for certain areas, 30mph for built up areas and 70mph for motorways and hey presto, put the destination post code in the sat nav and sit back and watch your car drive you safely there.
No more car crashes, speeding tickets, driving into ditches or bored kids sat inside a car on a hot summers day while the parents try and work out where the hell we are.
Alternatively, how about a small plastic map that fits inside a plastic holder on your dashboard? Cheaper than a sat-nav.

Another World Cup over

Another World Cup over and congratulations to Spain and a vigorous finger wag to the Netherlands who went from total football to totally kicking lumps out the Spanish in the final.
I didn't really care who won it out of those two at the start but ended up firmly rooting for the Spanish because of the Dutch tactics of stopping the Spanish playing by any means necessary and Robben's constant whining. Fair enough, breaking up the flow of a superior team is a justified method but it makes for a boring game to watch and it wasn't until most of the Dutch team were on a yellow card that the game actually got interesting.
The referee with the full little black book was an Englishman and i thought that he had a decent game apart from a five minute spell where he gave a goal kick when it should have been a corner which led to the Dutch attack which should have resulted in a free kick on the edge of the Spanish box which they skipped away from and scored. A rather long chain of events but one followed another and resulted in the Spanish changing into red World Champions t-shirts 6 minutes later.
Not a great World Cup, i expected more from the big names such as Messi and Kaka and England were embarrassingly bad but nice to see Nelson Mandela wheeled out once again.
Now it is back to the pre-season friendlies before the domestic season kicks off again in August.
My team are off on a tour of the United States and Canada and as we are millions in debt and have hocked any of our players who could kick a ball straight, i ask you yanks and maple leafers to take it easy on us. Oh, and if you want to make a donation to the club funds while your teams are pounding us, it would be gratefully received (just don't tell the taxman).

Raoul Moat Facebook page

Due to blanket coverage, we have all been watching the Raoul Moat drama unfold to its conclusion where he blew his own head off.
To me that is a satisfactory conclusion, the less nutters we have running around armed with guns blasting at policemen and ex-girlfriends the better. It was only by a sheer fluke that out of the 3 people he shot, only one died.
Now it seems that the police are being blamed for shooting him with a taser which caused him to either spasm and pull the trigger of the gun tucked under his own chin or made up his mind to do what he had been threatening to do anyway. Either way, good. He was lucky to have been negotiated with for 6 hours before something happened. If the police had taken him out the second they saw him it would have been justified.
What does astound me is the thousands of people who have signed up to a memorial Facebook site that refers to him as legend.
What goes on in the minds of these people? He was a killer and was going to kill again if he had the chance.
He had plenty of time to surrender but chose not too. Well done the Police and if you are one of those who see him as a legend or condone his actions, you are an idiot.

DNA database

Something that drives some people crazy is the idea of the Government or the police keeping databases on the public. I know that the Government departments do not have a great record on keeping these things secure, the Inland Revenue managed to lose a whole database of 25m taxpayers a few years ago and they always seem to be leaving laptops and DVD's in the back of taxis or on trains.
The new Government have decided to back down on the idea of a DNA database and i think that is a shame because if it was down to me, i would expand it to include everyone.
Just this week a murderer was caught for a crime committed a few years ago using DNA and this seems to be becoming a more regular occurrence. It has also cleared innocent people who have been wrongly jailed.
Of course the crimes can only be solved if the DNA of a suspect is on the database otherwise it is back to old fashioned detective work.
If there was a secure DNA database of everyone in the country, crimes would be quickly solved and we would be almost certain that we had the right person standing in the dock.
It seems a waste of an opportunity but the concerns are how secure it would be and if it would be used for other purposes such as profiling or details sold on by dodgy coppers looking to make a quick quid to more shady areas. There is also the problem of DNA being planted that could cause problems but a bit of police work should be able to eliminate most of these cases.
If this can somehow be secured by limiting access or fragmenting the database so nobody has access to all of it, then i would fully support expanding it to include everyone here.

I think i probably am a lefty

It has been mentioned on quite a few occasions whilst blogging and littering other sites with comments that i am one of those lefty types.
This may be true, i don't really know, because i'm not completely sure what a lefty or righty type is.
I ask my wife who is much more up on these things but after the fifth time of me asking to dumb it down a tad she is called away by an urgent call on her mobile. Strange how i never actually heard it ring.
As usual, i resort to the internet for answers and what i discover is that the left and right date from the days of the French pre-revolution days where everyone sat to the right of the King wanted to keep things as they were and everyone who sat to the left wanted to change it.
Not sure where i would sit if i was within the vicinity of royalty, probably whichever side gave me the best angle to throw rotten fruit at them.
After much reading my mind finally got to grips with this left and right thing, i think.
Basically, the left want what is best for the whole while the right want what is best for the individual.
The left include environmentalists, pacifists and Guardian readers. The right have royalists, religionists and Daily Mail readers.
The main difference seems to be that the left put down the stick and wave around carrots while the right swing the stick and make juice from the carrots.
The right had Hitler and the left Stalin as the leaders both try and brush under the carpet which makes a mockery of the rights religious credentials and the lefts wanting to do what is best for the majority.
Looking at the evidence i agree that i am easily one of those lefty types. I want to see things change towards a more fairer society and less of this divisive greedy attitude where the individual self gratification comes before everything else.
I am left wondering why would anyone want to be on the right? I am sure there are some well hidden good traits but you right wing guys do seem to come off sounding horribly selfish.

(Sometimes) Getting away with murder

Two stories on successive pages in the newspaper today. The first makes you despair for what goes on in the seats of power and the other to restore a bit of the faith you lost reading the first story.
Story one is the Liberty medal being awarded to Tony Blair by the American National Constitutional Center for his role in "bringing liberty to people around the world".
Bill Clinton is to present the Award and said: "It was a privilege to work with my friend Tony Blair to help end 30 years of sectarian violence and broker a lasting peace in Northern Ireland (he never, John Major did) to stop the killing in and mass exodus from Kosovo (backed the KLF who started the killing and tried the same trick in Montenegro until told to stop by NATO), and to develop policies that would improve living conditions for people in both our countries (US & UK are bigger terrorist targets than ever).
For a Prime Minister directly responsible for more deaths than any other post-war Prime Minister, the award of another bauble from a country responsible for the most deaths of any post-war country, he must feel very proud.
The second story to restore my faith that we are not all mad is the five peace campaigners who caused £180,000 damage to an arms factory supplying Israel with military equipment and was cleared by the judge under the ruling that they had committed an offence to prevent a more serious crime.
The five's defense was that they had acted to prevent further Israeli war crimes after three weeks of Israel attacks on Gaza last January. A UN investigation later accused Israel of War Crimes in their Gaza attacks and the jury agreed that they had a lawful excuse and set them free.
Two stories with one that shows you can actually get away with murder if you are big and strong enough, get a medal for it actually, and the other that shows no matter how big and strong you may be, the small and powerless can sometimes stop you getting away with murder.