Me, Hawking And Depp

I have often wondered the moral implications of packing together all the right wing politicians of this planet, jamming them into a huge rocket and firing them to a faraway planet where they could make as much war and pollution as they wanted.
Then i think, stuff it, they can stay here on the planet they ruined and i will jet off to a nice clean World free of their stupid ideals.
Seems that i may have some company on my trip as Stephen Hawking has been having the same thought.
The World renown cosmologist has said that colonising planets far from Earth is crucial for the human species to survive in the longer-term. The nuclear threat, advanced biological weapons, climate change and dumb leaders are all making our future prospects decidedly iffy.
That's the plan then, lets flesh out the bones with the details.
First, we are going to need some serious transport as with the present vehicles it would take 50,000 years to get to the nearest star.
Hawking has considered this and suggests an antimatter drive that could get us there in six years at close to the speed of light.
Okey dokey, so any destination in mind? The European Space Agency are actively looking for habitable planets by analysing their atmospheres and have discovered s many as 40 billion Earth sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun like stars and red dwarf stars within the Milky Way galaxy.
That's that sorted then. Now we just need some men to help repopulate the new planet. Hmm, how to get hold of Johnny Depp's telephone number.

Clinton And The Aliens

I have often said that if the hackers want to do something decent, they should get into whoever runs Area 51 and have a rummage through those files.
Turns out they don't need to because Hillary Clinton is going to do it anyway if she becomes President.
Mrs Clinton said: 'I would like us to go into those files and hopefully make as much of that public as possible. If there’s nothing there then let’s let people know there’s nothing there. If there is something there, unless it’s a threat to national security, I think we ought to share it with the public'.
Darn tootin' Mrs C, if they have extra-terrestrials stowed away there let's take a peek, aliens like those that crashed a spacecraft in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
Of course it may just have been a weather balloon like they said and this is just a clever ruse by the Clinton team to gain votes but America isn't my country so i don't care who gets to run it or what they do with it, Clinton is promising to show us aliens and i am that shallow to say i'd vote for her now.

Stay There Dave

Britain does have its critics and justifiably so in some cases but nobody can doubt our sense of humour.
A petition has been raised to prevent prime minister David Cameron from re-entering the country following his Easter holiday in Lanzarote and has been signed by over 22,000 people.
Cameron is currently on holiday with wife Samantha on the Spanish island - where on his previous visit two years ago he was hilariously stung by a jellyfish following what he deemed 'a tough week' dealing with the fallout from Iain Duncan Smith's resignation.
However, a Change.org petition to be delivered to home secretary Theresa May, would prefer it if Cameron did not return from his trip.
It reads: 'David Cameron presents a clear and present danger to the short, medium and long term interests of the country. As such, the UK should institute a temporary ban on his return to Britain at the conclusion of his holiday in Lanzarote.'
Great stuff, sorry Spain but you may have to keep him there, just keep him away from any pig farms.

Clocks Go Forward

Today is Easter Sunday. Happy Easter.
It also marked the bi-annual changing of the clocks so this time they went forward and we all lost an hour but in a remarkable error, i accidentally got carried away and put the clocks forward to 2018. Doh!
As i am here i decided to take a look around and buy a newspaper to catch up with what is happening in 2018.

The newspaper headline was 'Record numbers of American's are sneaking into Mexico for jobs. Trump builds wall to keep them in' which answered my question about who won the Presidency race. 
On the inside page was a piece about archaeologists finding the missing final page from the bible which says 'all characters are fictional and any resemblance with anyone living or dead is coincidental'.
The 2018 Helsinki Climate Summit ended with an agreement to sign a pledge to hold another meeting to consider changing course at a date yet to be determined' and in a surprising turn up, Osama Bin Laden sent out a new video to prove he was still alive.
In it he mentions Liverpool's poor run of form which has seen them slip down the league recently but British intelligence dismissed it saying: 'That could have been recorded anytime in the last 8 years'.
I just had time to read that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was excited when the newest British city was to be named after him until someone pointed out that there was already a place called Twatt in the Orkney Islands.

God Given Right To Bear Arms

Our media does like to point at American gun laws and give a sneer of condescension, a 'what are they like' type thing so that's why whenever some gun nut shows up we like to slip it in as a funny bit at the end of the bulletin so this morning there was a man in a cowboy hat and dungarees babbling something about Cleveland, Ohio and how they are being stopped taking guns into a gun free zone.
'We are being denied our God-given rights to carry handguns or assault weapons in public,' mumbled the gentleman doing more than a passing resemblance of Lennie from 'Of Mice and Men'.
The piece ended with the usual grin of 'Americans and their guns, what are they like' type expression before moving onto the weather and Storm Katie that is due to blow down everybodies fence tonight.
Intrigued how the rights to be stupid carry a gun is 'God Given', i googled it and found that far from being a chapter in the Bible that only Americans seem to have, it stems from the American Constitution which gives the 'right to self-defence' which is a natural right which is bestowed upon everyone by God, therefore the right can be said to be God Given as they have chosen automatic weapons to defend themselves. 
Some may say it is another example of religion making the loopy even loopier but even worse it is making the loopy even more loopier but arming them with powerful assault weapons and what would us Europeans we do to fill the final minutes of news programmes if they weren't because Donald Trump latest crackpot musings aren't going to be around forever.

Safer From Terrorism In Western Europe Today

At least 34 people were killed and up to 270 others wounded in the terror attacks in Brussels on Tuesday morning, responsibility for which was claimed by Isis.
According to a report from Statista, the frequency and scale of terrorist attacks in Western Europe over the last four and a half decades shows that despite the notable attacks in Europe in the past 12 months, fewer people are killed by terror now than they were in the 1970s and 1980s.
The worst year for terrorist deaths came in 1980 when 420 died, then 1974 with 417 deaths, 1988 with 412 killed, 1972 when 400 died at the hands of terrorists and 1976 when 325 died.
Last year 146 people died, most prominently in the Paris attack in November, but although it is still a despairingly high number, it shows that we are less likely to die from the bombs and weapons of madmen and women today than we were back in the 70s and 80s.
That should be a sobering thought for those calling for more draconian measures and losses of our freedoms.

There Still Could Be A President Sanders

In the weekly Government cabinet meetings the Cabinet discuss International events and a leaked document shows that during a discussion on the US Election, Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary, said that it was a possibility that 'a deeply dysfunctional character could
become the next President of the United States' which could prove a bit embarrassing for the Government if they do have to deal with a Donald Trump President in the future.
The smart money is they will be dealing with the first female American President but the 'It's Clinton's To Lose' crowd have been less vocal on the announcement that the Socialist Bernie Sanders has won overwhelming victories in Washington state and Alaska today, narrowing Hillary Clinton’s still significant lead in the race for delegates to win the Democratic nomination for President.  
Although she is still expected to romp home, albeit with less delegates than she expected, there is still a fly in the Clinton ointment that could see Sanders take on the dysfunctional orange one for the hot seat.
The wild card is that the FBI are in the midst of a full criminal investigation into Clinton over her use of a private email server while Secretary of State which could see her indicted on criminal charges.
If Hillary is indicted and then faces a criminal trial which is a possibility, those delegates that right now support her would be free to change their mind and support Sanders. 
I wouldn't put away that recording of the Red Flag just yet, European style Socialism may still be on it's way Stateside yet and the British Government can breathe easier.

Picking Our War Criminals

The UN Commissioner for Human Rights said that the conviction of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic shows that no one is above the law and 'No matter how powerful they are, no matter how untouchable they imagine themselves to be, no matter what continent they inhabit, the perpetrators of such crimes must know that they will not escape justice'.
If no-one is above the law does that mean that we will finally get to see the likes of George W Bush, Tony Blair, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney in the dock of The Hague?
Not to belittle Karadzic's actions which has rightly seen him jailed for killing thousands, but those
above have a death toll of over a million and started two wars of aggression but remain free to accumulate more wealth and even push for new military conflicts.
If they are not dragged kicking and screaming to trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity then the UN's Human Rights words are mere bluster and show that some perpetrators of such crimes CAN and DO escape justice.
Regardless of who you are, everyone should be treated equally under the law but what the Karadzic prosecution shows is that as long as you are on the side of the West, the people who not only started the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but blatantly lied to do it and which killed a million plus remain immune from prosecution despite what the UN say.

Stones In Havana

As Cuba opens up the first sounds of Western Music the citizens of Havana hear are The Rolling Stones who delivering a free 2 hour concert .
'We know that years back it was hard to hear our music in Cuba' singer Mick Jagger said to a crowd.
To be fair Cubans, i have heard the Rolling Stones music and with the exception of 'Paint It Black' and 'Sympathy For The Devil' you haven't missed much.

The Karadzic Farce

It was a long time in the making but the Bosnian-Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic has been convicted of genocide and sentenced to 40 years in prison but the 13 year hunt for the architect of the wars ethnic cleansing that led to the death of over 100,000 people was a farce.

Knowing defeat for his Bosnian Serbs was looming, Karadzic fled to the city of Srpska, 11 miles away from where Karadzic bought such horror and where 64,000 NATO troops were operating and where he lived for two years before the manhunt become too close for comfort and he fled.
NATO received word that the fleeing Karadzic’s car would be passing along a certain road and planned to use a concussion grenade to halt him but it could only work if the car was going less than 20 mph and the plan the best brains in NATO came up with was to get a soldier dressed in a monkey suit to leap out in front of it.
The idea was that the sight of a gorilla in central Bosnia would so confuse the driver that they would automatically slow to get a good look at it then they would storm the car and capture Karadzic.
Karadzic never showed up that day leaving a monkey suited soldier kicking his heels by the side of the road but we pick him up in Serbia where he next went into hiding and turned his hand to writing. While lying low, he managed to write several volumes of poetry, a novel, and a children’s book which won a a literary prize.
By the mid-2000s, Karadzic had moved on to Belgrade where he renting an apartment, changed his name to 'Dragan Dabic', grew long hair and a long beard.
Karadzic's apartment was directly opposite that of an Interpol employee of Interpol who was involved in the search for their neighbour and later explained during his two year stay there, they would often chat whilst passing in the hallway.
Under his Dragan Dabic guise, Karadzic retrained as a spiritual faith healer and opened a clinic, treated patients, attended medicine conventions, and gave lectures on faith healing. He even had a weekly column in a Serbian health magazine.
In 2008, the former warlords brother Luka accidentally used an old sim card which flagged up Karadzic's position and he was arrested boarding a bus to flee to a new hideout.
Nearly eight years after he was captured, the International Criminal Tribunal passed judgement on the monster who had once been the world’s most wanted man.
Darkly surreal and absurdly comic that one of the most hunted men on the planet managed to defy everyone by growing his hair and changing his name and even more alarming that managed to evade everyone while staying in plain sight and writing novels and a magazine column.