Why?

And so it goes on. 32 dead, blasted to death in a chained up classroom.
Everyone knows my position guns. Their only function is to kill, that is their one and only purpose and this senseless slaughter is bound to re-open the US gun debate which will pit gun nuts trying to justify their stance on guns despite yet another shooting spree, against the anti-gun lobby just as rabid in their stance.
What seems to be over looked is the reasons behind why these shooting seem to occur which such frequency. It was not that long ago we were debating the Amish shooting so what drives a person to pick up a weapon and go shoot others? Are all these shooters just crazies who just happen to live in America or is their something in society that creates them?
Is it the increasingly violent films available or maybe the moody music being listened to?Could it be the breakup of the family or is society creating such a lack of empathy for others that another persons life is of such little consequence?
Could it be the gun culture that sees guns in the home of many Americans which breeds familiarity and contempt for the weapons?
Whatever the reason, the debate will be about gun control but what should be addressed is just what drives these people to pick up a gun and kill other people in such a cold blooded manner and with such terrifying frequency.

I'm Bloody Hopeless

I don't often get things wrong, but when i do, i am always happy to admit it. Take the time a few seconds ago when i wrote "I don't often get things wrong", for example.
Anyone who has read or heard anything i have written will already have suspicions that I am never, ever to be trusted. Not with secrets, certainly not with booze over 37.5%, but especially not on the matter of who's sang what effing song.
My Sharona was by the Knack and not The Ramones as someone not a million miles away previously stated and was rightly corrected by Stephen and Don.
In my Chords book it is under the Ramones and because it is written in something suspiciously resembling my handwriting, i must pull back my shoulders, stick out my chin and be ready to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous mislabelling.
Still, cracking song though.

IVF Decision Splits Genders

It has been quite a while since an issue sprang up that divided people along the lines of gender. Natallie Evans and her boyfriend underwent IVF treatment after cancer treatment left her infertile.
Six embryos were frozen but the couple separated before the embryos could be implanted in Ms Evans’s womb and her former partner later changed his mind about having children. He refused permission for his ex to use the embryos and wanted to destroy them while his former girlfriend wanted to use them to have children.
After five years of courtrooms, the highest European Court has refused her permission to use the embryos and has ordered them to be destroyed.
She argued that her former partner had already consented to the creation, storage and use of the embryos and that it was unfair for him to be allowed to alter his decision.
I can see both sides of this particular argument but i do find myself coming down on the side of the man. The bottom line is he withheld his permission, although i also feel for the woman who has lost her only chance of having children.

The Rage Music List

Arthur has tagged me, so here's a list of 20 songs I would submit to Rage's be-a-guest-programmer-for-a-night competition if I were given a free run at the archives:

Teenage Kicks - The Undertones
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
November Rain - Guns N Roses
Jesus of Suburbia - Green Day
Black Parade - My Chemical Romance
New Rose - The Damned
Sound Of The Suburbs - The Members
I Don't Want To Grow Up - Ramones
My Sharona - Ramones
The Music that nobody Likes - Carter USM
Sweet Child O Mine - Guns N Roses
Creep - Radiohead
Jeremy - Pearl Jam
Ace of Spades - Motorhead
Anarchy in The Uk - Sex Pistols
My Way - Sid Vicious
Beatsie Boys - Fight For Your Right
One - Metallica
Kids arn't alright - Offspring

The rules specify that I have to justify at least five of these choices. So:
Teenage Kicks - Probably the perfect song with a riff so sharp you could grate cheese on it.
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana started and ended the Grunge thing for me and this song encapsulates the early 90's next generation punk movement.
I Don't Want to Grow Up - Ramones tunes are notoriously easy to play on the guitar but they had some cracking songs and i just like the lyrics to this one.
The Music That Nobody Likes - Carter were the ultimate early 90's punk band. Came from nowhere, gained notoriety by punching a music host live on TV and disappeared again. Brilliant lyrics, buzz saw guitars and some mighty fine angry punk songs.
Sweet Child O Mine - Guns N Roses just seemed to self destruct but it was always about Slash for me and this riff is incredibly hard to replicate but shows why he is regarded, in my eyes, as the greatest guitar player i have ever heard.

I am now tagging fellow punk fans Cody, The Intolerant One and Fez Monkey.

Is This Guy For Real?

I have to admit not knowing much about Senator John McCain apart from him being firmly in the George W Bush camp.
I didn't even know he and a few Republican buddies had visited Iraq until I saw the pictures of them strolling confidently down the middle of Baghdad Market and then at the press conference afterwards where he claimed "Things are getting better, there are encouraging signs".
That's excellent news and now all we have to do to make Iraq habitable again is undertake the same minor precautions McCain undertook before his little jaunt.
Send in soldiers to search for explosives, set up a perimeter and secure the neighbourhood. Deploy a few sharpshooters on rooftops. Don a flak jacket, travel by a Humvee to the market and surround yourself with up to 100 armed soldiers while three Black Hawk helicopters and two Apache gunships patrolled the skies above.
It really is as simple as that if the locals want to get back from the market-place in one piece.

Making Money From Incarceration

Furore ensued after the 15 sailors captured by Iran sold their stories to the highest bidder. I am not against the former hostages making a few pound out of their experiences, the tabloids have been full of every Tom, Dick and Sally who had a story to tell over the last decade so it was to be expected really.
What i do expect to happen, and by all accounts is going to happen, is the twisted tales that are going to emanate courtesy of the MOD looking to cover their backs over the whole sordid adventure.
Stories of psychological torture and sub-human conditions look pretty pathetic when the latest pictures from Tehran show the 15 sitting around a table full of food laughing, joking and waving for the camera.
Yes, they probably were terrified and scared but compare their brief incarceration to those held at Guantanemo Bay or Abu Ghurayb and it puts things into perspective. Make your money but don't paint things as even a fraction of what some of the other hostages are having to deal with because they will not be sent back home in a new suit and clutching a goody bag.

Same Old Boring, Easter Morning

The guy who lives across the hall from me is some sort of religious minister. Every year we exchange Easter eggs and Christmas cards and occasionally he will try and 'save my soul' by trying to get me to pop along to his church. Of course we have got into many debate's about God and Christ and all that jazz and it is always pointed out that i do not believe in God but i partake in religious festivals such as Christmas and Easter. He tends to believe that i have deep psychological struggles with the whole religion thing and also believes that at some point in the future i will succumb to God. Pretty unlikely as i have managed to get along the past 38 years poo pooing religion as a load of pants.
That said, i am driving halfway across the country today to visit my family and deliver Easter Eggs to another group of people who totally dismiss religion. So the point is, should Atheists partake in religious holidays with all it's chocolate egg giving or has Easter become just a long weekend with chocolate with any religious undertones long forgotten?
I am sure i will ponder on it for a while during the journey down the motorway, or alternatively i will slam in my new OI!! Punk CD and belt out The Sound of The Suburbs.
Enjoy your choccy everyone.

Boxing's Dangerous Mismatch

As a girly there is a perception that us of the fairer sex do not know much about sport. Admittedly i wouldn't know the rules of rugby even if i got smacked on the bonce with them, and the same goes for boxing.
Since the Eubank/Watson fight ended with Michael Watson in a coma and brain damaged there has always been an uneasiness surrounding the sport. The visit by the blind and brain damaged ex-boxer Gerald MClelland to our shores last month drives home just how brutal and unforgiving it can be.
That said, and i do get an earful from fellow peaceniks for this, but i like to watch boxing. I also like to watch reality TV but when the two come together, i smell something rotten.
This evening, the runner up in the US reality show The Contender is taking on our very own Joe Calzaghe. As Joe is the current World Super-Middleweight Champion and is unbeaten in 40 fights, the challenger is not expected to hang around long.
What worries me is that Peter Manfredo jnr is out of his depth, out of his league and is going to lose royally. As the bookies have Calzaghe as 50-1 on to win, everyone is expecting it to be horribly one sided.
In most sports that would be a hiding to embarrassment but in boxing, it is just downright dangerous. Manfredo should not be in the same ring as Joe. If he was good enough he would of risen up the ranks and not had to qualify by coming second in a reality show.
I hope Joe wins and i hope that Manfredo comes out of it with little more than his pride bruised and a thick pay packet, but in such a dangerous sport i find it reckless to present such a mismatch as entertainment.

Canadian Puddle Drinkers

Every year about this time since i can remember, i have taken part in the annual ritual of ticking off the Canadians.
As not to disappoint, i am about to do it again and place any supporters of the brutal Canadian seal cull on a par with the sort of person who drinks puddles of rainwater.
I usually drag out my 'big book of why Seal Culling is wrong' and then get into a debate about it and quote statistics and such but it really doesn't move the argument on any further so what's the point?
Actually, there is a lot of point because Belgium and Germany have both implemented a ban on seal products and some of the UK supermarkets we have been urging to ban Canadian fish products for years have signed up to keep the fish labelled with "Produce of Canada" off it's shelves.
Maybe we are getting somewhere after all.
That's one in the eye for you lot of puddle drinking baby seal killers.

Decisions Decisions

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, dubbed the British government’s performance in dealing with Iran as 'pathetic'.
A senior American commander in the Gulf has said his men would have fired on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard rather than let themselves be taken hostage .
Right wing blogs everywhere are bravely stating the Brits should of gone out with all guns blazing rather than be taken hostage.
Of course everyone has an opinion on what the 15 sailors should have done or not done, but from where i am sitting there are 15 sailors still alive who would certainly not be if they had started firing their weapons.
Alive and captured or dead.
Is it really only me who sees these choices as a no brainer?