Diplomat's Wife Named As Anne Sacoolas

The US Government may have declined to name the US Diplomats wife who struck and killed Harry Dunn while driving her car on the wrong side of the road citing security and privacy considerations, but the British media had no such qualms and the name Anne Sacoolas, wife of Jonathan Sacoolas, is now on every news website.
What we know is that after the 19 year old Harry was killed while riding his motorbike in Croughton,Northamptonshire, 42 year old Anne Sacoolas was taken into police custody and admitted liability and assured UK Police that she would not leave the country before being contacted by a member of the US Embassy and advised to leave the UK sharpish, which she did and then claimed Diplomatic Immunity.
Psychology graduate Sacoolas, had only been in the U.K. for three weeks and has two children, one of which was in the front seat of the car at the time and lives in Virginia and has previous for driving without due care and attention, receiving a fine in 2007.
British Police and Government officials including the Prime Minister have called on the immunity to be waived and for Sacoolas to return to the country to face questioning and face possible charges of causing death by dangerous driving for the crash but the U.S. State Department said in a statement: 'Any questions regarding a waiver of immunity with regard to our diplomats and their family members overseas in a case like this receive intense attention at senior levels and are considered carefully given the global impact such decisions carry; immunity is rarely waived'.
Boris Johnson has said that if Anne Sacoolas continues to evade justice then he will take the case up with President Donald Trump but the US Embassy tactic of not naming her didn't go so well.

Get Well Soon Bernie

Somehow, i don't know how, but i have gotten myself on the Bernie Sanders email list and i have recently been receiving emails from his campaign team asking for a donation of $2 and a list of the changes he is going to make in America and today i received a request to complete a survey asking me what issues are the most important to me.
I did reply that my recycling bin still hasn't been replaced after it was stolen weeks ago and the light outside my garage has been broken since June but i'm not sure what a Vermont Congressman will be able to do about it but he asked so i told him. 
I read in the newspapers yesterday that the 78 year old suffered a heart attack and i thought he would probably drop out of the race now but this morning an email showed up in my inbox thanking me for my best wishes and a clever email using his health scare as a call for restructuring of the 'dreadful health care in America'.
I didn't have the heart to say that i didn't actually send any good wishes, although obviously i do, and that the walk from my garage to the front door as the dark nights start to draw in is much more of an immediate concern than the state of the American Health care System but i do appreciate for Americans the lack of affordable Health care is more pressing than my defunct street light.
In his email, Bernie says that he is feeling good and was fortunate to have good health care but millions of Americans are not as lucky as he was and people are dying because they can't afford to get to a doctor or buy the medicine they need.
It goes on to say that it is unacceptable that more than half a million Americans declare bankruptcy each year because they cannot pay off the outrageous cost of a medical emergency or a hospital stay and it is long past time that we end the international embarrassment of the United States being the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee health care to all its citizens.
It ends with a message that 8,000 people a day make a contribution to his campaign just above a big 'Donate' button and i say well done for turning a negative into a positive and using the heart attack as a way to bring attention to the wonky American Health Care system.
If he can sort out my recycling bin and get my light fixed then i would be happy to donate $2 (or £1.62) to his campaign which he can use to pay for a campaign advert or put towards his heart medication because it isn't cheap, well not in America anyway.

Trump Defends His Innocence By Admitting His Guilt

For someone who is a regular target for fun due to the smallness of hands, Donald Trump sure does wave them around a lot when he speaks but it was not just his teeny tiny hands on show but also his tiny brain as he went on live TV to defend himself against accusations that he solicited assistance from a foreign country in the 2020 election by admitting that he did exactly that.
That's some defence and whoever advised him that the best way to prove his innocence is to hold your tiny hands up to it may want to rethink the strategy and to then go on and do it again makes you wonder what is in the White House water.
To prove just how innocent he is, he then urged the country with which he is currently fighting a trade war with and been publicly insulting to investigate his main Democrat rival. Hmm...i wonder how that will work out. 
Trump should be impeached as he's growing more and more irrational and he should thank his lucky stars that he has got as far into the Presidency as he has but it seems as though the preferred Democrat option is removing him through the ballot box but 12 months is a long time and God knows what desperate acts he might try as he sees the writing on the wall.
Everyday Trump just makes himself look like a bigger tool than he did the day before and while he isn't starting any wars, and he is only damaging himself and his own country, i hope he hangs around for a while yet, ranting and raving and waving his teeny hands about as everyone laughs at the idiot who 62,984,828 Americans thought was the best choice to be their President.

P45 For Doctor Mackereth

A doctor at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has lost his case against unfair dismissal at a tribunal which ruled that he was rightfully terminated for allowing his Christian values to stop him doing his job correctly.
Dr. David Mackereth was fired from his job after telling his manager that due top his Christian values: 'he would never call any 6-foot tall bearded man madam' to which the judge replied in that case the government department had every right to sack him and that the doctor’s biblical beliefs and objection to transgenderism had no place in British society.
The Doctor counsel quoted Genesis 1:27, 'So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them' and belief in this verse, he argued, leads to the understanding that 'every person is created by God as either male or female. A person cannot change their sex/gender at will and any attempt at, or pretense of, doing so, is self-destructive, and sinful'.
After the ruling the Doctor said that: 'The ruling will have profound ramifications' and he is right, it will by making sure that dinosaurs with outdated ideas like his are marginalised and eventually erased from society.

Planning Ahead For The Global Emergency

We may all hope it doesn’t come to it, but let’s face it, their are some proper crackpots in power at the moment so it’s better to be prepared and scientists have named the top places if a human extinction-level emergency breaks out.
Ruling out small islands and meeting the criteria of being far enough away from other land masses, no natural hazards and available resources, Australia was found to be the best location for riding out the global pandemic but if the thought of being surrounded by Australians is too scary, the next most viable places are New Zealand, Iceland, Malta and Japan.
'It’s important to think ahead just in case' said the scientists who think the global emergency is most likely to come from deadly genetically-engineered organisms being accidentally or intentionally released.
Iceland or Japan would be my bolt-holes of choice so if there is a real life Andromeda Strain outbreak, Zombie Apocalypse or Plague resurrection, then i will be found in Japan's Tokyo district or Iceland's Svalbarðsstrandarhreppur but probably Tokyo because i can spell that on the postcards.

The Body Beautiful

While waiting for the anaesthetic to take effect, my dentist was talking to me about how the amount of youngsters visiting her surgery has increased and when I asked why, after wiping the dribble from my cheek, she put it down to selfies.
It seems that the proliferation of teenagers taking pictures of themselves and posting them online has led to a surge in them overly worrying about their appearance.
Having the pearly whites buffed and polished is not the only symptom either, all sorts of cosmetic surgery from nose jobs, jaw shavings and boob jobs have increased and its men as well as women although women 'getting work done' vastly outnumbers the men.
Young women have always looked to squeeze every inch out of what nature gave us with make-up, push up bras, false eyelashes, perfume and stiletto shoes but the young generation seems to have taken it one step further and now actually get their bodies surgically and chemically sculpted.
Skin whitening is now a thing and i don't even want to think what anal bleaching entails but i have seen if offered as part of a package for a 'beautiful body' which in some cases begins even before the foetus is formed.
Science is closing in on cell manipulation before implantation and gene modifications in bio-engineering but all this comes at a price with anorexia, emotional instability, insecurity, self-mutilation,  and eczema all on the rise in the search for the perfect body like those advertised in the magazines and on television.
The NHS does not offer cosmetic surgery and going private is beyond the purse of most youngsters, £5,000 for breast enhancement, £4,500 for liposuction and £4,500 for nose surgery and these come with a disclaimer that results are not guaranteed.
I get that young people, women especially, want to look their best but where in my day it was hair dye, a whole case of foundation, a little red dress and padded bras, today it is a whole other thing altogether.

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are

Anybody watching events on our Planet in recent times would quite rightly stay the hell away from us and a SETI researcher, James Benford, thinks that is exactly what is going on with Aliens watching us from a safe distance.
The scientist thinks that if there are outsiders from another solar system eavesdropping on us humans then they could be hiding behind asteroids, biding their time while our civilisation develops and reporting back on to their home planet.
Benford thinks we should send up some probes to check out the asteroids and flush them out if necessary because if nobody from another Galaxy had discovered us it would be 'stunning'.
Other astrobiologists are joining in the call for someone to go check out the closest asteroids in a search for intelligent life but if any aliens have been watching us, and they have eavesdropped our plans to go greet them, they would have been halfway back to Alpha Centuri by now because when it comes to meeting new civilisations, we do not have a great track record.

Adults Should Be Thanking Greta

A year ago, a young girl walked out of school on her own and warned her parents and teachers she would not go back into lessons until adults began working to end the climate crisis.
Last week, Greta Thunberg spoke at the United Nations and inspired tens of millions of people to join her in her crusade to save the planet, a planet which the generations before her had done so much to wreck. 
For her success of inspiring her generation to fight climate change, she has drawn much criticism and abuse from adults ranging from frightening children who fear the end of the world to attacking her Asperger’s diagnosis to imply that she is deeply disturbed and mentally unwell.
It is quite simple why some adults, almost entirely men, feel threatened by her, this is a teenage girl telling them not only what they don't want to hear but she makes them uncomfortable for being the model of leadership they would like to be.
World leaders dance around the subject, they hold meetings and promise to do something, the more ignorant leaders refuse to even accept it as their land is struck by extreme weather but Greta cuts through because she doesn't use diplomatic language or dress up the imminent threat, she just speaks from the heart.
Summing it up in 22 perfectly chosen words which should shame the World's Governments, Greta said: ‘This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean'.
Very true and it has humiliatingly for our leaders, taken a 15 year old autistic Swedish girl to show more sense and dedication to our fragile Planet than they have ever done and Adults everywhere should be thanking her for caring enough to want to do something about it.

Media Tightrope For Harry & Meghan

While i am no fan of the Royals, i do have some sympathy with Prince Harry and his wife regarding the press and the Daily Mail in particular.
The Daily Mail has always seemed to have it in for Meghan Markle which plays very well with the Daily Mail right wing audience, her being non-British, outspoken and not as white as the usual stock of British Royals which ticks all the boxes for hate figure for the readership.
Over the past few months we have been treated to the Mail's headlines concerning multiple embarrassing stories involving the duchess’s father, their use of private jets, the refusal to allow media coverage of the christening of their son and the cost of renovations at their home but the straw that seems to have broken the camels back is the publication of a personal letter Meghan sent to her father.
With Harry tying the treatment of his wife to that of his mother is where my sympathy starts to wane because Princess Diana, whilst complaining about press intrusion, would go out of her way to make sure that journalists just happened to be present when she 'secretly' visited a hospital or, as in that famous photo of her checking to make sure the press was outside, before making her exit from a gym.  
Harry's slandering of 'parts of the media' is squarely aimed at the Tabloid Press as he took his complaint initially to the Associated Press which rules over acceptable practise for newspapers but as it is self-regulating, unlike the Broadcast media, found the Mail's actions acceptable.
I am right behind Harry and Meghan's court action against The Mail newspaper over the publishing of the handwritten letter she had sent to her father, the tabloid press is a stain on journalism and needs to be bought to heel and regulated, but it is a very taut tightrope they are treading because the media is a very sharp double edged sword and if they want the good publicity, they had better not throw too much mud too widely because when it comes to the publicity they crave, they need the media including the 'gutter press' like the Mail.  

Hide The Wag The Dog DVD

At the time starting this post, Donald Trump is still the American President but with the way the impeachment evidence is piling up against him he may not be by the time i get to the end.
The point of this post is that in 1993 the was a film called Wag The Dog where a war is fabricated to distract voters from a Presidential sex scandal.
A few months later, while the Monika Lewsiky scandal was raging, Bill Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack on a Sudanese factory accused of manufacturing and supplying Osama Bin Laden with chemical weapons.
Obvious comparisons were drawn to the actions and the film that Clinton ordered the attacks as a diversion, especially as it was later revealed that the factory was not only not manufacturing chemical weapons but was actually making medicine and had no connections whatsoever to Bin Laden.
That the factory was targeted only hours before and that the majority of Clinton's advisors opposed attacking the plant only made it more obvious that the whole thing was a charade to try and make people look away from what Clinton had been up to in the Oval Office with his cigar collection.
Now that Trump is wading through the latest of a long line of scandals, and one that has momentum to actually remove his rather large body from the White House, my mind switches back to the 90's De Nero film.
With Iran and Venezuela firmly in his sights, could we be seeing a re-run of the mocked up charges in order to distract the world from his soliciting help from Ukraine to discredit a political rival and the following cover-up from being made public.    
With the infirm Trump nothing should surprise us, but if i was one of his advisors i would certainly make sure that film is blocked on the White House movie channels subscription.