Birther Movement For Boris

With the Conservative Party doing a great job here, it is with some surprise that the Party members are jockeying for position to replace David Cameron when he is removed from his job at the next election.
Home Secretary, Theresa May, has been the first to break ranks and has been slapped down by her fellow Tories and made to sit at the side in the commons which is not a bad thing, there are enough scary things to look at on the Conservative front bench already without her grinning face peering out from behind David Cameron's shoulder as he defends yet another cut in public spending.
In reality, when Cameron goes, Theresa May was never going to be in the running for the top job as Boris Johnson seems to have that place sewn up.
Or does he because although there are very few legal restraints on who can be Prime Minister, the three musts are they MUST be an elected Member of Parliament, they MUST be at least 18 years old and they MUST be a citizen of the UK, Republic of Ireland or one of the 52 other Commonwealth member countries.
Last time i looked America was not in the Commonwealth and as Boris was born in New York, he should be ruled out of being PM on account of being American.
I don't deny that as a sideshow, Boris is great fun and very amusing, but then so was George W Bush who played the same game of appearing as dumb as a post which had the effect of  deflecting some of the attention from his awful policies.
Boris and Cameron are cut from the same cloth, both old Etonians, both ex-members of the Bullingdon Club and both with an unhealthy friendship with the Murdoch press who joined forces recently to berate the EU for suggesting that banker's bonuses should be capped.
I like Boris on a personal level, he is extremely charming, funny and likable but that is precisely what makes him so dangerous because while he is appearing as host on TV game shows he isn't doing any harm, but in a real position of power, the consequences would be a train wreck.
As an American, let him try his luck there, as the country that gave us Dubya, there may be enough Republican voters left that hanker after another dunderheaded right wing politician.
Meanwhile, maybe we should borrow another leaf from the American election process and introduce our own birther movement, show us your Birth Certfiicate Boris!

Euro Defence Plan Quietly Shelved

Considering that it has caused much heated debate over the past few years, the fact that America is abandoning the Eastern European missile defence plan hasn't made many headlines here.
Secretary of Defence, Chuck Hagel, announced that due to development problems and lack of funding, plans to scrap interceptor missiles in Poland and Romania have been shelved and the focus will be shifted to adding 14 new interceptors to the 26 existing ones in Alaska designed to counter perceived threats from North Korea.
Washington claimed that its decision was prompted by the recent belligerence emanating from North
Korea's the Asian countries quicker than expected progress in nuclear weapons development. The changes to the program will free up the money to do so, Hagel said.
Explaining the rationale behind the shift, Hagel said, 'The time line for deploying this program had been delayed to at least 2022 due to cuts in Congressional funding'.
The Kremlin has long argued that the American system was aimed at countering Russian missiles and undermining its nuclear deterrent and the missile shield faced strong opposition in Poland and Romania.
I have never really understood why we needed a missile defence system in Europe, especially from Iran who was often mentioned, when Iran isn't threatening anyone and doesn't have any missiles that can attack us and isn't building any either but Hagel stressed that Washington's commitment in Europe 'remains ironclad'.
Cheers Chucky but you can keep your defence systems over there, we will take our chances thanks but it is nice to see that despite despite the budget cuts there, you are not using the $1 bn savings from not going through with the Eastern Europe defence missiles to build any more schools or hospitals there but are instead handing it to the Defence department to build missiles anyway.
Those budget cuts to the Defence department won't last long i suspect.

Super, Smashing, Great

While it is nice to know that my advice is listened to inside the Vatican, i don't think they quite understand my point in my previous post when i told them to choose an old, white male famous person because the man who got the call from the Cardinals was obviously Jim Bowen. 
While i am sure that Jim would do a great job when it come to Ecumenical matters, everytime i see him i just hear him in my head him saying 'super, smashing, great' and telling people what they could have won which was usually a speedboat.
I'm not sure what the Catholic Church needs most at this moment in time is a Northern Comedian but he's catchphrase 'Nothing in this game for two in a bed' would be handy for dealing with some of those less than celibate Catholic priests.
I would   

Choosing The Next Pope

The Catholics are rubbing their rosary beads in excitement as all eyes are on the Vatican's chimney waiting for the white smoke to show that yet another old, white guy has been chosen to be the voice of God on Earth but i can't help think that the Catholics have missed an opportunity here. 
From what i can see, the only criteria to be the Pope is being old, male, Catholic and be able to cope with the heavy workload of walking to a balcony and waving a lot but instead of choosing someone nobody has ever heard of, the World is teeming with old male Catholics that would bring a bit of glamour to the role of the head primate. 
If the Cardinals had bothered to look at the big list of Catholics they could have offered the job to Dan Aykroyd, Alan Alda, any of the Baldwin, Nicholas Cage, Bono, Sean Connery, Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Arnold Schwarzenegger or had a choice from the Sheen family although i might have had to have fitted an extra strength lock to the nuns quarters if Charlie accepted.
Mel Gibson is a Catholic as is David Hasselhoff although their communal wine bill would have probably bankrupt the Church but other options are Bruce Springsteen, Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas, Billy Connolly, Johnny Rotton, Bob Geldof, Colin Farrell, Dave Grohl, David Boreanaz, Elvis Costello, Eminem, Engelbert Humperdinck, Fidel Castro, Harrison Ford, the Gallagher brothers, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Michael Flately, Mick Jagger, Nick Nolte and Sting.
Personally, i think there are two Catholics that the Vatican should be offering the funny hat to, George Clooney or Robert De Niro.
George because he would look damn cute and Robert De Niro because he made a fine Catholic priest in Sleepers and he would have lots of quotes from him movies to fall back on like 'You're a fu***ing criminal and you deserve to go where you're going and I'm gonna take you there and if I hear anymore s**t outta you. I'm gonna fu***ing bust your head and I'm gonna put you back in that fu***ing hole and I'm gonna stick your head in that fu***ing toilet bowl, and I'm gonna make it stay there'.
That would put the Archbishop of Canterbury off his steamed vegetables at the World Religions Summit.

Turning Japanese or Canadian or Swedish or...

The votes are in and the people of the Falklands Islands have overwhelmingly chosen to be British.
Good for them but I didn't even know we had a choice of nationality but as our Government is offering out nationalities i will have a Canadian one please because everyone likes Canadians.
Well, i would but then i would have to castigate myself over the way us Canadians barbarically murder tens of thousands of baby seals each year so they can keep that Canadian passport and i will take an Australian one instead.
Or rather i would but i can't drink that much and the English would be making bad cricket jokes at me all day so sorry Bruce it's going to have to be an American one but then everyone would just think i was Canadian anyway and castigate me over killing tens of thousands of baby seals each year.
I could become French but that would mean having to be French so that's out the window but i have narrowed it down to either becoming Japanese, Swedish, a New Zealander or staying British.
I have often heard that the Japanese are most like the British but i would be expected to learn Japanese and that language gives me a headache just looking at it.
Everyone likes Sweden and nobody seems to have a bad word to say about the New Zealanders but i always associate New Zealand with the legs of lamb in the butchers window so thank you Mr Cameron but you can stick your country and please forward me the details of where to send my passport and who i have to call in Stockholm.
Failing that i will stay British and arrogantly tell everyone else what to do, i'm easy either way.

Bye Hugo

My dad has a simple equation to judge how well anyone in any position of power has done, are we better off for having them in that position.
If it is the head of his Bowling Club or the manager of the local football team, if the people who use the facilities are in a better position now than when they took over, he is a success.
When it comes to politicians he applies the same criteria, are the citizens of the country better off for having this particular person running things, if so then he can be deemed a success.
This brings me to the passing of Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela who died last week.
Between the time of his election in 1998 and his death in 2013, has the lot of the people he ruled over improved?       
Under Chavez, Venezuelans’ quality of life improved according to the UN Index and the poverty rate fell from 54% when he took office to 29% in 2011 according to the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America.
Using income derived from oil, minimum wages were increased sharply and Chavas created 'missions',
dedicated to improving access to health, education, social security, food and farming land for the poorest sectors of his society. Over 1 million Venezuelans now participate in free adult literacy classes, leading to Venezuela eradicating illiteracy by UN standards. Malnutrition related deaths fell by 50% during the Chavas Presidency but it wasn't just his own country that benefited from Chavas taking control of his own countries resources, he set up deals with his neighbours under a bartering scheme called Petrocaribe where cheap oil was provided in exchange for free medical care and subsidised food for the poor. Cuba received 90,000 barrels of oil a day in exchange for 40,000 Cuban medics and teachers.
Don't expect those who ignore what Chavez achieved during his time in power to applaud these impressive achievements but the rest of us can agree that he set about solving the problems of the most vulnerable in his society.
In 14 years he brought hope to millions of those who, without him, would have had nothing but more of the grinding poverty and despair of the previous Governments so at the end of his time, apllying my fathers crietria, was the lot of the people he ruled over improved?
I wonder just how willfully ignorant or ignorantly blind you have to be to claim  it was anything but improved.
Well done Hugo, a life well lived.

Note To Self: Back Up Files

I think it was Monday when i heard what had happened but the full implication didn't hit me until a bit later when i considered what had gone. That's the problem with computers, they eventually give up the ghost and unless you are one of the sensible people who back things up, which i am not, you lose everything.
I seem to be remembering things almost hourly and cursing that i can't get at them again, not ultra-important things but things i have put effort into over the past five years since the last computer when belly-up.  
Then there was the hassle of choosing a new one and the wide range of choice on offer and the salesman trying to sell one of a number of maintenance packages or extended warranties or virus protection or trying to tell me that this one with the extra RAM would run my applications much faster and it is only an extra £50 and a much better piece of equipment despite me telling him a million times this was the one i wanted as recommended by someone who has probably forgotten more about computers than i have ever known.
On top of that there is the problem of going from Windows Vista to Windows 8, the latest Operating System moving on so far from the systems i have used before that it doesn't even have a start button anymore!
Firefox doesn't have any of my bookmarks anymore so i will have to spend hours going back around sites and bookmarking them again and as i always use the 'remember me' box, heaven knows what the passwords are which i am going to have to dig out again.
The moral of the story for me is to back up my files onto a DVD but i know i won't and in four or five years time i will be moaning about how I wish i had backed up all my files onto a DVD.

Stuff The Poor, We Need More Bombs

The Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, has said that will resist further cuts to the armed forces and any more cuts should come from the welfare budget to protect the armed forces. Hammond said the first priority for any government should be defending the country.
I'm sure all the bleeding hearts liberals and tree huggers will be up in arms, bleating about how it is wrong to spend more money on bombs and less for people who already can't afford to heat their homes or feed their families but they will be completely, and utterly wrong because as Dwight D. Eisenhower almost said, 'every hungry person that is fed, every cold person that is clothed signifies, in the final sense, a theft from every fighter-bomber without a munition to drop, every destroyer without a Cruise missile to aim'.
What these pacifists and anti-war demonstrators don't understand is that maintaining the capability to go into another country and tell them how to do things while dividing up their natural resources is what the British do best, it's how we had an empire that the sun never set on. Afghanistan wedding parties don't just blow themselves up you know.
When we give the unemployed money to feed themselves they take ammunition off a tired and weary British serviceman.
Without our brave boys going halfway around the World to remove leaders we don't like and create havoc and shoot them down on their own streets, those tyrants will be here on our shores to slaughter us all in our beds.
The do-gooders will point out that since the 1940s the British defence has been more attack and aggression but remember the Nazis was only 70 short years ago, it could happen again anytime so we have to be ready to defend what makes Britain great and if that means a few thousand pensioners die because their fuel allowance has been cut, then it is a price that we should all be willing to pay to make sure that we have a nuclear deterrent.
Going back to Dwight and his Chance for Peace speech, this world in welfare is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of the infantrymen, the genius of its drone fliers , the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern brick school is this: a heavy- bomber capable of destroying a city. It is two aircraft carriers, each serving 30 jet fighters. It is two fine, fully equipped green zones in an oil filled country. It is some fifty 18-year-old boys with no other prospects. We pay for a single hospital with a half-million rounds of ammunition. We pay for a single disabled centre with air conditioning units for more than 8,000 troops in the desert. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of an imminent invasion of our country, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Don't despair poor and hungry people, this will only continue on this round of austerity until we run out of countries with the natural resources we require or the economy picks up, whichever comes first.
Oh, and vote for your Conservative member of Parliament in 2015, we are all in this together remember.

NB...Just in case some right wing war monger who agrees with the above and has been bravely urging Britain get's involved in more wars from the safety of their sofa stumbles across this post, your an idiot.

I should also apologise to Eisenhower who actually said: 'Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron'.

A Plea From Mr. Krabs

My brother is a keen fisherman and not the nice kind who does it for fun or relaxation and throws the fish back in the river again when he has finished.
He brings them home, guts them and sticks them in a frying pan, which has led to a few discussions between us about the cruelty of dragging a living thing out of its natural environment and then bashing its head against the side of the boat until it is dead.
He patiently explains to me that fish don't feel pain, that they don't have the necessary parts of the brain to process it to which I reply if they don't, then they do a pretty good impression of something in pain as they contort and frantically flip around in the bottom of the boat.
The same argument has been made of crabs and lobsters which are dropped alive into a pot of boiling water before putting in an appearance on a dinner plate. Apparently, the scream I heard coming from the pot in my grandad's kitchen when I was a kid was the air escaping from the shell, not a scream because crabs don't feel pain and it wasn't frantically rattling around trying to get out, it was just the movement of the boiling water.
I have never bought my brother's explanation about fish or my grandad's on crabs and science may be proving that I was right to because a study by the Queen's University Belfast may have solved the question. Crabs do indeed feel pain.
In the experiment, 90 crabs were placed in a brightly lit area and were given the option of scuttling to one of two dark shelters. Once they'd made their choice, the crabs in one of the shelters were given an electric shock. The crabs were then returned to the lit area and allowed to scuttle off again and once again, an electric shock was given to the crabs in the same dark area as before.
When they were placed back into the lit area for a third time, the majority of the shocked crabs instead went to the alternative dark shelter, avoiding the one where they had received the shocks.
The professor in charge of the experiment concluded: "Having experienced two rounds of shocks, the crabs learned to avoid the shelter where they received the shock. They were willing to give up their hideaway in order to avoid the source of their probable pain."
Not being able to ask the crustaceans if that was actually the reason, because they realised if they went one way it hurt so they went the other way instead, we cannot be certain but it sounds more plausible then them not possessing the necessary bit of brain that detects pain.
Of course, another explanation could be that they worked out that both times they ran to the dark place on the left, a massive hand would come down and put them back into the brightly lit part so they ran to the alternative dark area instead. But until Queen's University straps some more electrodes to a bunch of crabs and let them run free we won't know. Until then I will be secretly hoping that all the crabs and lobsters that get dropped into boiling water get to have one last nip at the chef's fingers on their final trip into the pot. 

The UKIP Manifesto

Well done to the United Kingdom Independent Party for a great result in the Eastleigh by-election last night, finishing above the Tories in second place is quite an achievement but of course with success comes a spotlight on exactly what you stand for.
Obviously a right wing party, UKIP have had their share of problems with the UKIP councillor saying it was dangerous to allow those who do not work to vote and the 'eggnog for nig-nogs' joke that was 'taken out of context' of course.
We also know about their leader, the very smiley Nigel Farage, being vice-president of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) which includes far-right groups such as the Danish People’s Party, the True Finns Party, the Dutch SGP and Lega Nord.
As their profile grows, i'm sure UKIP will get around to updating their website where the current manifesto resides, so let's take a look at what UKIP stand for.

First up on their list is is gay marriage and UKIP are opposed to it, just as they are burquas which they would ban along with Working Tax Credits and obviously the European Union which they would withdraw from even before the removal men have finished moving in the sofa.
Maternity and sick pay would be removed, replaced with a weekly parental allowance of £64 per week and employees who have been at the job for less than two years would lose the right to challenge unfair dismissal or discrimination. 
The higher rate of income tax would be scrapped and Income tax and National Insurance would be rolled into one basic rate tax of 31% for everyone and there would be a spending rise of 40% on the countries armed forces as well as maintaining Britain’s nuclear deterrent. 
They would introduce an American style ‘three strikes’ sentencing policy and embark upon a 25-year programme of building nuclear power stations while opposing wind farms and call  a halt to funding the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change and reduce the public service by another 2 million jobs.
Vivisection would be banned on medical and ethical grounds, as would inhumane slaughter of animals on religious grounds and they would introduce proportional representation in national and local elections along with a right of recall whereby electors can force a by-election.

Thanks Nigel, while i find myself nodding in agreement with the last four items in your manifesto, i scowled at the rest so i think i will put my X elsewhere the next time i am in an election booth.