Not Giving Up On Nelson Mandela

In the excellent Full Metal Jacket, as the smoke billows across the fields of Vietnam at the end of the field, Private Joker poignantly says the line: 'The dead only know one thing. It is better to be alive'. 
In the great scheme of things we are only here for a blip which so when i hear people saying things like the supposed friend of Nelson Mandela it really grates with me.
'It’s Time To Let him Go' said Mr Mandela's friend, Andrew Mlangeni 'The family must release him so that God may have his own way. They must put their faith in the hands of God'.
Why, and it is almost almost those with a religious bent, do people want other to die instead of hoping that they get better?
It is something i have never managed to get straight in my head, probably because to me once you go you are gone so instead of 'letting them go', i hope they get better and want to hold on to them for as long as possible.
What if the believers are wrong because they have absolutely no evidence that they are right but they are willing others to shuffle off the mortal coil and go to God, a God they can have no idea is there waiting or not.
What if the doctors held the same view and stopped treating him and 'let him go', there would rightly be outrage. There is a reason why people are not taken to Churches when they fall ill especially when there view is to let people go to God rather than try everything in their power to heal them.
We should be wishing him a speedy recovery and hope that he gets well as i would fully expect if a dead person was given the choice of more time on earth they would take it, as would there friends and relatives so to call for someone to die rather than get better is badly misguided because it is ALWAYS better to be alive and for all your religious beliefs, you don't know so stop trying to hurry up someone else's demise just because of what you believe.

Christmas Countdown

To those of us who get paid our meagre salary monthly, it is 6 more pay days to Christmas which may seem a strange thought when the sun is beaming down and the smell of barbeque's and after-sun fill the air. The last thing many people want to think about while gingerly moving about due to sun-burn is turkey and tinsel but in some parts of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa they have been holding Christmas in July events to get that wintry feeling which we in the Northern Hemisphere have when it comes time to open our presents and stuff our faces with Quality Street. To confuse things slightly, some of the Christmas in August events were moved to July and this year were held in April which proves that Australians should not be left in charge of booking your camping trip, your two weeks in Exmoor in mid-summer will see you trying to light your barbecue on a rainswept day in January. Anyone with any sense of organisation will have already made a start on buying presents and saving with the supermarkets to spread the cost of the festive period by most of us will do the usual and panic around the 10th December and promise to be better organised next year as we stand in a long queue in Marks and Spencer's holding a pair of socks and a sorry looking box of mince pies. As we walk around in shorts and flip-flops, our thoughts will not be turning to reindeer wrapping paper, snow globes and laughing Santa teapots unless you are Australian celebrating Christmas in August in which case Merry Christmas and i hope you don't get eaten by a crocodile on the way home from the Office Party.

Words To Avoid On The Internet

The American Government isn't spying on the US (and UK) citizens, it's carrying out counter terrorism efforts by collecting and storing virtually every Internet phone call, email, text message, Internet searches, social media communications and virtually all other electronic information. That's okay then.
Obama is arguing that the surveillance programs have helped in the fight against terrorism and pointed to a specific plot against New York's subways which ruffled a few feathers at Scotland Yard because they said that it was them who passed on the information to the American Authorities that prevented the subway attack and not Internet snooping.
Obviously there are some words and phrases that if typed into Google will bring you to the attention of the authorities such as Assassination, Dirty Bomb, Militia, Terrorism, Anthrax, Ammonium nitrate or How To Assassinate a World Leaders but there are a host of innocent words that could also see you bundled onto an aeroplane and landing in Cuba wearing a fetching orange jumpsuit.
Luckily the Department of Homeland Security has released a list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats.
The more of the 'alert' words the shadowy types find in an email or electronic communication, the further up the list of potential evil-doers you rise but some of the words on the list are seemingly Innocent but hide evil intentions, such as Drill, Authorities, Stuck, Recruitment, Aid, Watch, Blizzard, Salmonella, Cancelled, Agriculture, Exercise, Subway, Recovery, Southwest, Landing, Cloud, Pork, Wave, Electric and Worm and the mention of North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, El Paso, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, China, Colombia, Mexico and San Diego which much play havoc with the San Diego Cloud Authorities email system.
I don't understand why the number 2600 attracts unwanted attention but if you are STUCK in the SUBWAY with a bad case of SALMONELLA from a PORK chop whilst on the way to a RECRUITMENT Day in the SOUTHWEST during a BLIZZARD, you may want to rethink sending that text or email.

Why Are UFO's Round?

As i have stated previously, it would be mad to not think that life has only developed on this single planet and not on any of the other billions of billions of other planets in the Universe and it isn't unfeasible to assume that at some point they have not only found us but come and had a look, it's exactly what we are doing.
Now three passenger jets have reported sightings of UFOs above Britain in December and confirmed by Gatwick Air Traffic who spotted six objects they could not identify on their radars before they suddenly disappeared.
The pilots each saw 'two flat, silver discs', flying within 100ft of their aircraft with which makes me wonder why are UFO's almost always round?
All of our aircraft are a bulky shape with wings or rotor blades so if the Aliens have the technology and know-how to come all this way to peek at us and they are using round disk shaped ships, why are we still making our aircraft and rockets the same old shape?
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see that in terms of any aerodynamic advantage, the best shape is the one we are using so being circular doesn't give any real advantage but a round surface, with no edges would mean it could evade our radar although that theory is shot to bits earlier on in the post when the Air Traffic control radar picked up six of them.
Not being a rocket scientist is another disadvantage when you come to consider does a ship need to be aerodynamic once it is out of the planets atmosphere so is a spinning disc more streamline for travelling through nothing but in that direction lays nothing but a headache.
My own conclusion is that they travel the vast areas of interplanetary space in a rocket shaped craft and then when they get to our doorstep, they send out the reconnaissance ships which are small and round to avoid being detected by Earth radar.  
The other conclusion is that the Aliens may have an immense technological advantage but the concept of aerodynamics has gone over their little green heads.

Heckling

Michelle Obama was halfway through a speech at a Democrat fundraiser this week when an audience member started shouting about gay rights.
'One of the things I don't do well is this' the first lady said moving towards the protester and said the person could either, 'listen to me or you can take the mic, but I'm leaving'.
The crowd started shouting for Mrs Obama to stay and the protester was then escorted out of the event.
Not the best reply i have ever heard to a heckler and i have heard of some crackers.
During a particularly poor theatrical version of Ann Franks Diary, when the Nazi's turned up at her door someone in the audience shouted out 'she's in the attic'.
Frank Skinner tells a funny story of how a blind man shouted at him: Your crap Skinner, Get off, you bastard! and then seconds later, 'Has he gone yet?'
Not really a heckle but i once saw a footballer hand his shin pads to a wheelchair fan sat in the crowd at the end of the game. Not sure of he realised it was the opposition fans end but as he turned to walk back to the changing rooms, the shin pads flew through the air and whacked him on the back of the head.
The funniest heckle i have ever heard about was attributed to a fan at a U2 concert and between songs Bono asked the audience for some quiet. Then in the silence, began slowly clapping his hands.
'Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies'. he said solemnly.
A voice from the audience pierces the silence: Stop clapping your f***ing hands then!'
Don't know if it is true but it should be, makes me laugh every time.

Why Not Decimal Time?

The Earth spins around the Sun every 365 days to give us the year while the Earth rotates around itself every 24 hours to give us the days and 7 days mark a week and 24 hours make a day and 60 minutes make an hour and 60 seconds make a minute.
At some point between us humans climbing down from the tree's and today, some bright spark decided on the measurement that we have for time and we have just carried on using the clunky system that we have to add days to every time the date is divisible by 4 so that it doesn't all go horribly wrong.
We realised at some point in the 70s that the system we were using for measurement was unnecessarily complicated and introduced the metric system so why have we not done the same with time and decimalised it?  
Using the system already used by computers, a decimal day would be divided into 10 equal parts and a decimal year would split the year into 10 equal parts which is much simpler to understand than all this imperial nonsense although it would mean losing two months. I opt for July and August, too damned warm for my fair skin.
The Romans used a 10 month calendar, the Ancient Egyptian calendar had a week as 10 days and the French used the same system right up until Napoleon stuck his big nose into things and abolished it.
This is the digital age and everything from your alarm clock to your computer is using decimal time so why are we persisting with such outdated methods when it comes to marking how long it takes for the Earth to go around?
Of course it would mean losing songs such as 1.0 hours to Tulsa, .03 Minutes to Midnight and Working 9.0 to 17.0 but i think it's worth it.

Wrong Mask For Turkish Protesters

It started with a protest against the destruction of a park in Istanbul in order to build a shopping centre but has spread out to become a protest against the Turkish Government and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in particular.
Although there are a lot of factors in it, one of the reasons the Turks are rioting is the increasingly authoritarian stance of Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) in trying to impose conservative Islamic values on the secular country.
Last week the government passed legislation curbing the advertising and selling of alcoholic drinks and have introduced rules against display of affection in public.
Five days of rioting have seen more than 1,700 people arrested in 67 Turkish towns and cities and at least one death.
Strange then that many of the protesters who are angry at the Government imposing religion on them are wearing the Guy Fawkes masks that all the best dressed protesters are wearing these days.
A glance at any history book would show that Guy Fawkes was a religious zealot funded by other religious zealots who wanted to blow up Parliament to usher in a monarchy that would impose strict religious values on the population. 
Might want to rethink that Guy Fawkes as hero symbolism thing Turkey protesters unless you are making a statement that Catholic religious tyranny is preferable to the Islamic flavour.

Nice 'Tache Tim

For reasons we best not go into, i was looking up details of the American sit-com Home Improvement which starred comedian Tim Allen. 
This led onto reading about the cheeky chappie Tim Allen himself who progressed from Tim 'The Tool-Man' Taylor onto The Santa Clause and voicing Buzz Lightyear but not after narrowly avoiding a life sentence for drug trafficking by turning supergrass on every drug dealer he knew. 
It was late 1978 and Tim Allen was arrested at Kalamazoo International Airport for possession of over 650 grams (1.4 lb) of cocaine. He subsequently pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges, and provided the names of other dealers in exchange for a sentence of three to seven years rather than a life imprisonment.
He served 2 years and 4 months and then came out to make films about Santa Clause.
If you had asked me which comedian had spent time in prison for drug trafficking it would have been a long time before i got down to Tim Allen but then i would never have said Rolf Harris would have been arrested for sexual offences so proves what i know.
Oh, also turned out that Pamela Anderson WAS in Home Improvement.

Sweet Nazi Child O' Mine

There seems be some gene in the human make-up that makes us want to be more interested in the bad guys than the good guys.
There seems to be a length of time where the bad guys become less bad and move into a strange zone where they are almost celebrated. Scandinavians sport horned helmets at sporting events to celebrate their Viking heritage and Italians don Roman garb while the French turn their hats sideways and stick their arm in their tunic in homage to Napoleon. All murdered tens of thousands but all acceptable to wear to cheer on their football team. 
At some point in the future, nobody will bat an eyelid when German fans turn up wearing a SS Uniform but 2013 probably is a bit soon unless you are Heath Campbell.
Mr Campbell seems to have a fascination of all things Nazi which went as far as naming his children Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, Honzlynn Jeannie Campbell and Heinrich Hons Campbell.
Nice that he has an interest and he proudly showed up at court to win visitation rights to see 18 month old Heinrich wearing a German Nazi uniform.
'I'm going to tell the judge I love my children. I wanna be a father, let me be it," said Mr Campbell.
Asked whether dressing up as a Nazi was likely to help his case, Mr Campbell was confident it would not be held against him: 'If they're good judges and they're good people, they'll look within, not what's on the outside.'
Nope, can't see there being a problem with him being an influence on his children's lives whatsoever.
Oh, wait a sec...

Manning Trial Starts

Finally the Bradley Manning show trial starts today.
I wonder where the helicopter killers he exposed butchering civilians are now?
Maybe in the course of the three months that the trial is expected to last, we may find out.