Australian Elections 2013 Winner Is...

As Australia is one of Britain's children, we really should take notice of it more but as it is so far away and when we are eating breakfast they are getting on their pyjamas, we tend to forget about it and lavish attention on our other well behaved children such as Canada instead.
Apart from England handing out the occasional shallacking to them at sport, the Australians go about their merry way without any guidance or instruction from the Mother country especially now that the British born Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has been dumped and the country get to choose their next Prime Minister.
The race is between Labor's Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott of the Liberal Party of Australia but as the election isn't until Saturday 7 September our Australian cousins will have to wait to decide whether the Australian born Rudd or England born Abbott will get their hands on power.
Or will they because there is a system that has chosen every single winner of the major elections for the last few years, Google Trends.  
If you want it to be a surprise then look away now but with a fortnight to go, and barring any scandalous pictures of him wearing a New Zealand top, it's currently Rudd but if a week is a long time in politics then a fortnight is twice as long and a few days ago Abbott had a pretty decent lead over his opponent so keep your money under your mattress for now because it's a close one.

Leakers From Wrong Department

I have just been reading about how Bradley Manning now wants to be called Chelsea and treated as a woman. As he is embarking on a 35 year prison sentence, i think his 'think of me as woman' wish may well be repeatedly granted.
The other big news from the past few weeks was the admission by the Americans that Area 51 exists and it has been where the American Government have been performing aerial surveillance programs for decades which is why strange lights have been in that area of Nevada.
Obviously it is important that whisltleblowers like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden continue to expose what dubious things our Governments are up to but with all these secrets being let out the bag, it is worrying that none of them are concerned with our Governments hushing up alien contact.
The Occam's Razor principle that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one means we should accept that the reason why amongst all the dirty washing being aired we are not hearing about contact from little green men is because the little green men haven't contacted us, but what sort of conspiracy theory is that?
The Snowden and Manning leaks seem to centre around foreign policy and what our military departments have been up to so maybe the reason why we are hearing nothing is because the leaker's have not been from the right area of Government.
The documents we need will have to come from the whatever Government department controls the information on these things which is the US Department of Defence so until a leaker turns up in Moscow airport from that department with a CD full of Alien footage, the wait continues and we will have to entertain ourselves with news of how the Government is reading everything you write and listen to everything you say to protect your freedoms to write and say what you want for now.

Sounds Of Summer 2013

When i was a kid the fairground was the place to go and as we ran around between the rides with our hands sticky from candy floss and our parents telling us to be careful as we ganged up on my younger brother on the bumper cars, the rickety old speakers would be pumping out music and it would always be 50's rock n roll music.
Ever since, whenever i hear the likes of 'At The Hop' or 'Johnny B Goode' i am transported back to my carefree childhood summers of the 70s.
Most years there seems to be a particular song that conjures up memories of summers past and this year i have been followed around by Daft Punk and their 'Get Lucky' song.
Not a bad song but it seems everywhere i have been since June someone has been playing it on the radio, in shops and lifts and i even saw a street entertainer doing some strange robotic dancing to it so by the weight of sheer bombardment, it has officially become my summer of 2013 song so now that we are in the dog days of summer and the long summer nights are fading into memory, PLEASE STOP PLAYING IT ALL THE TIME!!!

Guess Who's Back, Back Again

As usual when you are away, you take your phone or laptop and read the newspapers so this year we took nothing or the things we did take wouldn't work so no phone signal in the middle of Exmoor then inhibiting costs on the continent meant that for 2 weeks i haven't known what was going on and as i can't read or speak French, the TV and newspapers never gave it away.
It was actually quite nice and remarkably easy to switch off but the problem is now i am desperately trying to not catch up with what is happening in Syria or Egypt or how the peace talks are going or if Edward Snowden is still hiding in a Russian airport or why we are sending warships to the coast of Spain.
I know at some point i will have to find out the answer to all these things but for now i am blissfully ignorant and while that was okay while sitting in a field watching the pheasants and deers, i do feel the urge to pick up the thread again which i am resisting for now.     
I have emails and texts to reply to, a suntan to protect and a massive Tolblerone to eat but as i'm not back to work until Tuesday and the faint smell of suntan lotion is still in my nostrils, they can all wait.
I am kinda curious about Bradley Manning and that blonde wig though.

On Holiday

It's August and as previously promised i am leaving the keyboard alone for most of the month as we spend the next three weeks not understanding what people are saying.
It's asking people to talk slower in Scotland followed by obliviously smiling and nodding at people in Devon and then trying to get by just knowing how to say 'Hello' and 'Goodbye' in France which makes for short conversations.
Officially the highlight is the quality time spent with my family, unofficially it is the Perseid Meteor Shower    around the 11th and 12th of the month for which we will be sat in a dark field looking in the wrong direction as everything goes on behind our heads. 
So as they say in France, 'Konnichiwa' and see you at the other end of the month.

About Me

It has probably been noted that i am a tree hugging, bleeding heart lefty type and i would put my hands up to that but what i hope comes across is that what i want most is fairness.
I never set out to be a lefty, it sort of found me and our ideals seemed to mesh but overall, the one thing that i hope comes across from my blog writings is i want things to be fair.

I hear of some people dying through lack of food while others are dying through obesity and i think that's not fair.
A small portion of society have bank accounts with numbers like telephone numbers in the balance column and  then see people who can't afford to turn on a single bar of their electric fire in winter and think that's not fair.
I read about big corporations being let off billions in tax and then other people having their meagre possessions taken and sold by the tax-man and I think that's not fair.
We hear about austerity and pensioners and the disabled having their grants slashed while the bankers who caused the problems carry on getting millions in bonuses and that isn't fair.
We see Wars and terrorist attacks where hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians die and that isn't fair.
The changing climate at mans foolish hand brings floods and droughts and extreme weather that wrecks lives but those responsible deny it and continue churning out their poison and that isn't fair.       
I read about big business buying influence with Worlds Governments and that isn't fair.
We see some oppressive regimes and tyrants armed and funded as long as they sell us what we want and removed from power if they don't, and that isn't fair.
I see people killing animals for sport and think thats' not fair.
I hear of people being persecuted for their religion, race, skin colour, sex or because they love someone of their own sex and that isn't fair.

The regular cry is that life isn't fair, deal with it but why should we have to deal with it? Why can't we strive to make things fairer for every single one of us? 
The cry should be 'Life isn't fair, so let's make it fairer' and that is the driving force behind the vast majority of the posts on this blog.

Rouhani Demonised For Words He Didn't Say

A quote attributed to Mark Twain is that 'A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes'.
The outgoing Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, found out that once you have a quote filed against your name, even a wrong one, if it can be used to bash you over the head and make you look bad, it will be.
Not wasting any time at all, the incoming Iranian president Rouhani's has had his words misquoted and can expect to have them used as a justification of portraying him as the bad guy when the time comes.
At a pro-Palestinian rally in Tehran, Rouhani has been quoted as saying Israel is: 'a wound that should be removed' which were then widely disseminated by western news agencies and prompted Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to say that: 'The real face of Rouhani has been exposed earlier than expected. A country that threatens to destroy Israel must not be allowed weapons of mass destruction" in response to words that the Iranian president never spoke.
In fact, Rouhani said: "In our region, a sore has been on the body of the Islamic world for many years in the shadow of the occupation of the holy land of Palestine and the dear Quds."
Rouhani did not mention the word Israel, nor that it should be removed. Press TV and Reuters have amended their articles to reflect the true quotes but the falsified ones have already done the rounds.
Ahmadinejad would sympathise with his new ruler, his often misquoted speech about 'wiping Israel from the map' were used to demonise him although he never said anything of the sort and i am sure that the words Rouhani never said will still be used against him by his enemies and the truth won't be so much putting on it's shoes as not even bothered to be taken out of the wardrobe.

Cost Of Becoming An MP

Everyone thinks that they would do a better job as a Politician than the present mob we have but not many people have what it takes to become a politician, a minimum of £41,000.
The process of becoming an MP is long and expensive and even after spending the £41,000 on campaigns to get yourself on the centrally-approved candidates list of your chosen party and then fight for the local constituents to put their cross in the box next to your name on the ballot paper, you are not guaranteed to get enough votes to get the right to park yourself in the House of Commons so you may have to do it all over again and another £41,000.
When you look at the current Government, over three quarters of them are millionaires and although the Government keep saying they need to attract a wider representation of the public, not many of the public earn the sort of money to be able to take a gamble on becoming an MP so for the foreseeable future, it is only going to be the high earners and millionaires running things, the people who have no idea how the vast majority of the country live.

Texas Running Out Of Lethal Drugs

Since 1982, Texas has executed 503 inmates, five times more than Virginia who have executed the second highest number of inmates, 110.
Apart from suggest that as the deterrent it has obviously failed, it takes a lot of the drug Pentobarbita to keep 'em falling and Texas is running out as it only has enough left for seven executions and it has two pencilled in for this month.
Texas switched to the single-dose option last year after one of the drugs used in its three-drug execution process became difficult to obtain and the state's supply expired.
Other death penalty states have encountered similar problems after drug suppliers, most in Europe, have refused to sell the drug to the States if it is used for executions.
The US state's Department of Criminal Justice said its remaining supply of Pentobarbital expires in September and that no alternatives have yet been found but they are exploring all options at this time.
I was reading only yesterday that a woman in the US Justice system was sacked because she helped an inmate convicted for rape 30 ago fill in the forms to request DNA testing. He was proved innocent, and she lost her job so maybe DNA testing kits should be ordered first before they are strapped to the trolley then possibly they won't need quite so much Pentobarbita.

Pressure On Israel In Peace Talks

I have lost count of the amount of peace talks that have taken place between the Israeli's and Palestinians and we are at the start of another one but before they have even taken their seats the Israelis announce a further 4000 houses are to be built on occupied Palestinian territory.
To some this may seem another Israeli ploy to scupper another round of talks, forcing the Palestinians to walk away and leave Israel to shrug and explain that they turned up willing to talk but the Palestinians never. 
Israel are in no rush to set up a Palestinian state, they are more than happy with the status quo which seems them slice off parts of the Palestinian land.
What has happened recently though is that Israel has become more and more isolated Internationally with the recent EU decision which forbid any financial support of Israeli institutions and individuals in the occupied territories. 
More and more people with a public profile are boycotting Israel, Stephen Hawking just the latest on a growing list, and the Palestinians won a huge vote at the UN General Assembly last year, recognising the Palestinians as a non-member observer state.
Hopefully it has dawned upon the Israeli's that if these talks fall through, Israel's diplomatic and economic isolation will only get worse.
Israel has not got many friends around the World but all the time America props it up with aid, it won't be forced to 'play nice' with the neighbours so America has a pivotal role to play especially as Israel is looking to torpedo any talks of peace before they even start.
In previous talks Israel have not offered a workable peace deal and they will have to make painful concessions this time but events at the UN and on the International stage over the past twelve months has weakened Israel's position and even they must look around at the rapidly dwindling amount of support they have Internationally and realise that the status quo is no longer acceptable.