 
Page 9
The ramblings of a sleezy old git
Bloggoth Mission Statement:
We aim to never raise our sights above the gutter and preferably to stay much lower
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Cats and a broken promise
I MOSTLY like animals and would like a decent dog, a proper big bitey sort, but as me and the missus
both work it's not practical.
There was a stringy old cat in a shared house which I usually chased out if I found it in my room but
one evening I left it on my bed because it was already asleep. It disappeared the next day, never to be seen
again. "Funny how it went missing the day after being in your room" said another tenant. I resented the
implication that the cat had such a traumatic experience in the xoggoth bedroom that it should run off in
shame and commit suicide.
My point is, the only animals I don't like are parasites like mosquitos and
horrible creepy take-what-they-can-get bird-killing lawn-fouling boring sexually unattractive cats. Not a typical
view maybe; look around on the blog scene and you will soon find several that are obsessed with cats, posting pictures of
"cute" kittens at every opportunity.
So to the broken promise. I said I would not post any pictures of my holiday in Ireland but I felt that
such sacharin kitten obsessions needed an antidote. Eire is so like England in many ways but beneath the surface
there are deep differences and under the Catholicism is a rich pagan tradition.
You might think this ceremony would be illegal but apparently it is protected by
an ancient law and repeal has been hampered by those who put preservation of Irish traditions above everything else.
The ár sléacht na neo-chiontach (roughly, the slaughter of the innocents) has nothing to do with the new testament
story of the same name although originally the subjects would have been the same, the children of a conquered tribe.
39 kittens are slaughtered over the three day period of the festival.
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About face
Some time ago I used to belong to a debating society and argued for the Palestinian case.
I quite convinced myself and until a few years back would bore the pants off people ranting about
the injustice of the Balfour Declaration and how the Jews were hypocrites since they themselves
gained their land by terrorism.
That fundamental injustice has become increasingly irrelevent because time itself has changed the issue.
It has long ceased to be a case of a dispossessed people wanting their land back but of
those who were never born there wanting to dispossess those who were. I also found the Palestinians' failure
to accept reality exasperating.
In Northern Ireland and other places, armed groups have had the sense to use the power that past
conflict has won them and get a good deal rather than carry on a war they cannot win.
The news item on the box the other week was the last straw. We saw Palestinian children, not just the odd
few but many, who were being brought up with no other ambition than to strap on bombs
and kill a few Israelis. If they actually believed it would acheive something one might
view it differently but not one of these children parroting the words of their mentors talked about
regaining a Palestinian homeland, it was the martydom itself that was the main goal.
I would say, what the hell is wrong with these people? but from the childrens' words what is wrong with them is
so clearly Islam - take away wordly considerations and substitute a dogma that promises reward for pointless
acts and rational thinking is the inevitable casualty.
A Palestinian chap the program found to talk by phone with an Israeli did not seem devoid of reason and they
have a sensible president so maybe there is still some hope but I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the
Palestinians are a total waste of anyone's support or sympathy.
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Stop their pocket money
In the blogging world it makes a change to see somebody actually mustering some facts to back up their
assertions. Not necessarily the most entertaining as they don't rant and swear, but a couple of the
best political blogs around for well argued articles are:
- Politalog -
the flat tax article is especially good
- Burning Your Money
- the
latest item is on the NHS computer scheme
It seems from the latter, the article is here,
that the sane person's natural assumption that this was just another back of an envelope government scheme embarked
on with no proper analysis of costs and benefits is a gross misjudgement of our government. There was a proper
analysis - which showed that the costs of the scheme would far outweigh the benefits and the government went ahead with it anyway!
Isn't it time we stopped their pocket money? Preferably by stopping them breathing!!
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Ireland
xoggoth is on holiday in Ireland, so to all my millions of readers looking here for the usual distilled brilliance
and the many women who mail me each week wanting to have xoggoth babies, I have to say, tough luck, you will have to wait.
The modem is now saying Vodophone Roaming instead of Vodaphone but I bet the roaming bit ain't free, do
you think I am made of money??
Back next week for more of the xoggoth three Rs, Rude, Rant and Rubbish, not a boring
holiday tale or snap (apart from that one) in sight.
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Eeuurgh that's disgusting!
A News In Brief item in the Times reports that
vetinary surgeons have been asked to look out for sexual abuse of animals. It says that by identifying cases vets
could halt other possible abuses of wives and children. That's disgusting that is! have some people no control
at all?
Personally I always found the budgerigar and my sons' gerbils quite enough for one man.
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Solid explosives are so last year
Fashion pervades everything from, erm, fashion, right up to the major issues of our day. Certainly there are those
controlling these things who will take advantage of it, but to what extent is Islamic fundamentalism among
young Muslim men merely a fad? No different from the Hippie movement or any other crazes that grab this sheep-like
generation. Except that unlike other forms of young male koolness it doesn't seem attract any birds as they mostly
seem to end up married to their first cousins* What a miserable bloody religion!
Suddenly it's cool to use liquid explosives! Using a white powder like tricycloacetone peroxide** is so, you
know, like, last year.
The suicide bomber who turned up for a mission with solid explosive
*PS: Last time I saw my female first cousin she looked bloody nice!. And as she was adopted we would not
have been been producing any
rat people.
**PPS: I checked on the net to see how to make tricycloacetone peroxide as I thought perhaps it might BE a
liquid explosive. Expect xoggoth to be among the next round of police detainees.
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About time
The realities of mental illness in general and shell shock in particular have been understood for decades.
This is the way it should have gone at least 30 years back:
- Supplicant: Mr Defence Secretary, my husband/father/grandfather/brother was not a coward, he was mentally ill, he and others
like him should get a pardon.
- Defence secretary: Ok then.
But as usual we have had umpteen years of expensive legal processes during which many have died
without seeing the stain on the character of their own soldier lifted.
Why for Christ's sake? What a bloody waste of space
governments and lawyers are! In my view the whole damn lot above the rank of office boy should be shot at dawn by firing squad.
Then we could have a great debate for the next 90 years over whether they really deserved it.
I have already written my blog entry for 16/8/2096 (I will be 32) - Of course they did! I know! let's dig the bastards up and
SHOOT THEM AGAIN!
Update. I see various commentators disagree saying that as it was a perfectly proper decision by the standards of
the time and should therefore be upheld. Why? Not as though it opens the gates to soldiers deserting as shell-shock
is already recognised as a real valid illness.
These are "the law's the law" brigade. Law does not have any intrinsic value in itelf, it exists for a purpose, and if
in any particular instance it not serving that purpose, why uphold it?
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If this is war, expect all the trappings of war
If many of those arrested last week are released because it turns out there was no evidence we will
get the usual conspiracy theory nutters crying, "Told you so! the government made it all up deflect attention from
their support for Israel, cash for honours, Prescot being a useless fat git etc. etc"
But the missus made a good point last week. Maybe it is the terrorists who are creating these errors.
Since this is a war, and I no longer doubt that it is, surely we are going get espionage and counter-espionage,
agents and double agents and the deliberate feeding of misinformation.
Did the informants in the Forest Gate case make a mistake or could they have deliberately set up a couple of
innocent young men to stir up resentment against the authorities and hamper future actions?
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Simple Solomon
Sometimes issues are such a mess of gray that the only course is to stick your hand into the fog and feel around for a little
black and white.
What was the judgement of Solomon about? Establishing which of the two women was really the child's mother? But perhaps the
loving woman only cared for it. Perhaps the uncaring woman was the real mother who had rejected the child
and only wanted it back out of spite or to sell to a slave trader. To establish parentage, Solomon should have had the child examined
for resemblance to either woman or called for the midwife and others to be brought as witnesses. Solomon's test went straight to the
important issue - which of the two really loved the child.
Suppose you gave tiny pieces of paper to the Israeli government and to Hezbollah/Hamas and their backers and asked them to write
in just three words what they desired above all else in the Middle East. I would geuss the Israelis would write something like
"Security from attack". It would be nice to think that the other side would write something like "A Palestinian nation"; in which
case we would have to hand out bigger pieces of paper. But we know from everything they say that they would write
"Elimination of Israel"
And those positions have absolutely no moral equivalence. Until such time as Hezbollah and their backers move from that black
position and move forward into the foggy gray there is only one side that deserves our support.
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Of Wasps And Men
Came out to sit in the garden with the missus yesterday and found that three wasps has drowned
in the empty beer bottle I had left on the garden seat.
HEINEKEN!!! You are a bunch of wasp murdering bastards!
It is not my fault I left the bottle out! If your product had not made me have to go
in for a piss I would not have forgotten about it! Anyway, Wasps would never drown in FOSTERS!
I love Wasps me, and I am really so sorry they died in a bottle of a crappy Danish product, through no fault
of my own, may I add. I hope wasps and flying insects generally boycott Danish products, it serves you right for
publishing offensive cartoons of Hover Flies. It was not my fault.
But Wasps are so intelligent. If you don't scare them, look how they tackle a window pane.
They don't just bang themselves against it like flies, they hover calmy and methodically across
the surface, you can see the intelligence in their little Chinese faces. They are thinking, "Hmmm. this appears to
be some sort of light transmitting surface of unnatural origin. Logically, the creators of the aforesaid
artifice (probably those big ugly things that are always flapping at us and drinking Heineken instead of Fosters)
must have left some aperture for the ingress and egress of air and water vapour. Ergo, I only need to
traverse the surface in a systematic and thorough manner and I will gain my freedom."
And xoggoth is never stung by wasps because xoggoth likes wasps and wasps like xoggoth. They at least have
taste. And we never flap at them. "Hello waspy" we go and in their own little way (although I do not profess
to understand as they speak in Chinese) they greet me back. I would rather they did not nibble my garden
furniture though as there will be almost nothing left of my garden seat in less than 1400 years! Do they think I
am made of money?
Which leads me to Steinbeck. Probably my favourite author. Unfortunately, all my books are currently in
the attic and I cannot be bothered to go up and look for it and have forgotten the title of the story.
Anything brought down from the attic always smells of old ladies.
The one I am thinking of is about an incredibly lazy chap
who inherits a thriving farm and lets it go to rack and ruin. He sits on the fence most days
talking about everything under the sun with his farmhand. His son is brought up in the same way and
attends school in rags. He is horrified when some well meaning ladies bring him some secondhand clothes as
until that point he had no idea that he was poor. The father finds a sense of responsibility and we last
see them at the bus stop with the father in suit and tie taking his son to live in a drab apartment in a
grim city to work at a dull job.
This bloody round of work. I loathe it and cannot wait to get out. Weekdays, weekends, weekdays,
weekends. And the weekend is ruined because the weekday so surely follows. Why does time go so quickly?
Because we mark it out, we subdivide it and therefore we measure it. Imagine a clock face with no figures.
What time is it? You have no idea. Look from any angle and it looks the same.
Here endeth the lesson. Wasps like Fosters.
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Of Liberation And Murdered Children
Liberation
Way back, soon after I started this bloggoth crap, god knows when, as I have never bothered
to date anything, I almost stopped doing it
as I did not feel there was anything I wanted to say.
Nothing that fascinating happens to me, not that I can mention anyway, that anyone sane would want to read about.
Hey! many readers! we went to a party, had some conversation, mostly about work and holidays, with some 40+ people
and I drank two pints of Fosters 'cos the Missus was driving. Nah! not very gripping is it? and that was a social
highlight of the month as we don't exactly go to a lot of parties anymore. Some do have the knack of making
fairly ordinary lives interesting, I don't. Actually, most bloggers don't either - there is some deathly dull
crap out there.
Or one could be yet another single issue blog. If I try to do anything political in a serious manner it shows
that my writing evolved from years of doing technical engineering reports. Lots of references from what I always call "reputable" sources (i.e. better liars than the others but people are easily fooled) like the Sunday Times or BBC
or Washington Post as evidence, and everything honed down to the minimum of words. They end up reading like user
manuals for a Hotpoint washing machine.
I was thinking too when I got up this morning how miserable some of the writers appear to be. All those
very right of centre blogs out there for example. Vastly entertaining, but how many different ways can you suggest
of nuking Iran or machine gunning Mexicans? And some look like obsession. I may be wrong, perhaps they really have sunny
dispositions and are doing millions of other great things with their lives but I can't help feeling that when you
spend so much time and effort railing against things that you can actually do sweet FA about the only real loser
is yourself.
I know that some blogs even duller than this one get more comments and that improving hits
is not just about writing what people want to read, before you even get to that point you actually have to make
people aware that you have actually said something they might want to read in the first place.
I know about ways of moving up the search lists - right keywords and header tags, registering with search engines,
getting links from other sites etc. as I have gone all through that with my business site.
This is not technically even a blog, just a hand coded page on a website. No XML feeds here, so no entry on any
of the many blog searches. Can't be bothered! This is supposed to be
fun not work. It is enough for me that when I type "xoggoth" into Google, every single entry is by or about me!
As you can imagine I frequently spend all day typing "xoggoth" into search engines.
So then the real liberation. As nobody ever reads this I can say whatever I bloody
want! I can confess to long unsolved child murders, sticking in a bit of research to make it clear it really
was me, and the CID will not turn up. I can put up complete pages (100mb is quite a lot of html) advocating
the bombing of parliament (oh yeh, I do that already, I forgot). I can post long descriptions of how some
famous person who irritates me has embezzled £300k from Save The Children and has gay sex with lobsters
and not get sued.
Best of all, I can stick up whatever my vodka-befuddled brain thinks is significant and not give a toss
about whether it means anything to anyone else or whether it is original or clever or funny. Starting with
dead wasps and Steinbeck. Who gives a toss about any of you, dear reader! you do not exist!
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Here come the fossils
Just to show that we do not single out Islam here on bloggoth. We loathe EVERY poxy religion that
attempts to impose its views on the rest of us.
I have never shared the obsession some atheists have with defending evolution. In common with 99.9999%
of the population I expect, I have got through life without my views on this issue having any relevance to anything
whatever. So if Christian schools want to teach creationism, what exactly is the problem? It's one of those
total non-issues which the unreligious make a fuss about for no obvious reason whatever.
But in Kenya it seems, Evangelical churches are trying to force the national museum to hide away the
famous fossil hominid finds from the Valley of Bones, including those discovered by Professor Richard Leakey.
Why exactly? If the church does not believe in evolution then presumably it must have some alternative
explanation for the fossils. This looks like an admission that they know they are talking bollox.
All in favour of tolerating
belief in creationism as that in itself is harmless but tolerance has to be both ways and forcing removal
of any evidence that supports the opposing view is hardly tolerance.
Unfortunately this most backward and crappy version of Christianity appears to be growing in the UK too
and seeking to shape society according to its own irrational ideas.
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Is Islam really the new fascism? Let the facts speak for themselves
It seems that a new book is planned making the case that it is. You can read
the synposis here.. I agree with almost everything
the author says. Substitute National Socialism with Shariah and Jews with non-Muslims
and the parallel is good. So would I buy it? Assuming the author knows what the word synopsis means, no.
It looks like a long rant of the sort you get on so many blogs. Where is the substance?
Where are the detailed facts to back up the case?
Some bloggers are very good at ranting. If you believe some, every single Muslim is an evil slave of the prophet
trained in the art of deceit, just biding their time, pretending to be moderate and tolerant until they can
sieze the chance to behead you and enslave and rape your unbeliever daughters.
There is no need for such idiotic demonisation because the thoughts and feeling of the average Muslim are
irrelevant, it is the creed that is the problem. You only have to look at history to see that the basic
decency of most people has never been any defence against extreme ideas.
The main point about that sort of propoganda is that, with Islam, it's completely unecessary and will
anyway never convince the nice but dim "I know several Muslims and they are really nice people" sorts.
One thing you need to look at are the tenets of the faith itself. Yes, there are many branches of Islam
and the teachings of some do look very reasonable. But it is not democracy and freedom as we know it.
The theist state is fundamentally incompatible with democracy since democracy is by definition about the rule
of man not god. Since they are not merely tiny splinter groups, you cannot ignore the more extreme views of
the Wahibists and some other sects either. Do we really want to trust to luck that if an Islamic government
takes power in the UK it will be the more tolerant form of Islam that wins out in the power struggle?
Most of all, the argument is about facts. Forget the extreme anti-Islamic sites, don't bother with people's
opinions at all, just check what is actually happening in the Islamic world and just how real that religion's
supposed tolerance REALLY is. None of the links below are to blogs or websites with an anti-islamic agenda
that I could discover, they are to what appear to be bona-fide institutions or pages from the more responsible
parts of the media. And this is just a small sample of the links I could make. I have not even
mentioned terrorism or the genocidal diatribes against the Jews because those are so mixed up with
other issues that they are not necessarily all attributable to Islam.
How apostates are
threatened and abused in the UK
How, of the ten states in the world
where male homosexuality is punishable by death, every one is a member of the
Organisation of the Islamic Conference
How Saudi Aarabia spends a great deal of money
financing mosques and promoting the most
extreme Wahibist form of Islam elsewhere in the world but itself allows
no freedom
whatever to other religions.
What freedom there is for non Muslims
even in a state like Malaysia
about which Wikipedia says "Islam in Malaysia is relatively liberal".
How
freedom is disappearing even in the World's most tolerant Islamic society, Indonesia.
How, even in that most tolerant of Islamic societies, Christians and others are being attacked and murdered
by Islamic extremists as here or
here.
Then there's those
barbaric punishments prescribed by Sharia law which are not confined to Iran and Saudi Arabia.
It is time that liberals stopped being so politically correct and recognised the truth about the threat
this creed represents to our own values. But the fight against Islam does not need rants or insults or
arguments about the character of the Prophet or what Muslims supposedly did centuries ago or demonisation
of ordinary Muslims.
Its deeds here in the present speak for themselves.
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Now that's inflation!
Much as I hate to comment adversely on those marvellous dedicated people in the public sector, perish the
thought, I just have to remark on the way one statistic has changed. At the beginning of summer I reported on
news about public sector absenteeeism and strikes.
The figure reported by the CBI / AXA Absence Survey had public
sector sick days at 8.5 compared to the private sector average of 6.
Now a new report by BUPA Healthcare has put the
public sector figure at 11 days a year.
Up 2.5 days in four months! That's an extra 0.625 extra sick days every month!
These figures show, quite conclusively, that in 10.9 years from now, public sector workers will
actually not be turning up for work at all but be retiring early on disability grounds before they have even
attended an interview for the job.
And after that? Well, clearly they will have to start taking all YOUR sick days off as well! Better watch out!
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Green Helmet Man again
The latest video showing the cynical manipulation
of the Western media (or perhaps that should be the cynical manipulation of us by Hezbollah AND the Western media).
Looks pretty convincing to me.
Plague of conspiracy theories
Much scepticism about the latest foiled bomb plot.
There's the rational scepticism expressed by sensible sorts on the BBC news tonight as to whether this
would turn into another groundless scare based on dodgy information like the Forest Gate affair.
Then there's the healthy tongue-in-cheek sort of scepticism as expressed on
CUK. It's all a plot by
He-Who-Must-Be-Stabbed & Co to scare us into accepting draconian limits on our freedom leading to a New Labour
Fourth Reich. None of us who contribute there is daft enough to actually believe that exactly (but I do,
I do! shut up Lance! or I'll start taking the medication again!) although we certainly think them quite
capable of talking up the threat to suit their purposes on ID cards etc.
But there are some who really think the entire state apparatus in the UK is capable of conspiring
to totally fabricate these threats. Some have vested interests in doing so, like many Muslims. The rest are the
usual bunch of loonies. One can never be totally sure of course, but I can't quite see the logic of a state
hell bent on convincing us of a non-existent plot being QUITE SO F* INCOMPETENT and then owning up to its
mistakes.
Imagine Hitler in the 30s "discovering" a huge plot by the Jews to blow up the Reichstag and then
getting up on the podium a week later to tell the enthralled masses that actually it had been found that there was
no Jewish bomb plot, it had turned out to be a Jewish Ladies' WI meeting and the bombs were only ApfelStruddles
but that did not mean the Jewish threat was not very real!
If our own state apparatus had such designs it would have shot both of those guys at Forest Gate and
bloody well planted the evidence! Same with the Ricin plot last year! Sometimes it is reassuring that our
state apparatus is so incompetent.
PS. But hang on, maybe that's what they WANT me to think!
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Glib solutions surge by 73%
"Knife attacks have surged by 73% as amnesty fails". No shit! Wasn't an amnesty on something you can get
absolutely anywhere just the biggest piece of gimmicky crap you could imagine?
But some criticism of the government by The British Crime Survey makes the amnesty idea look almost sensible.
The BCS say that increased sentence length is unlikely to have a deterrent effect. So far so good, the limited
usefulness of prison as a deterrent has been reported on for decades. It's the next sentence that is drivel.
Apparently, the government should deal with the "underlying causes of violence, fear and insecurity"
What a completely vaccuous and meaningless statement! What are these underlying causes exactly? Poverty?
But then, with the exception of a few who slip through the social security net, the sort of "poverty"
you get in this country is what some would probably give their eye teeth for in less violent countries like
Romania, so it isn't that simple. The plain truth is that even if those in authority could agree on the
causes there is probably not a damn thing they could do about most of them. Not every problem can be solved by
government action.
So for a change I agree with the government. Not that stiffer sentences will have much of a deterrent effect,
the BCS is probably right about that, but there is one absolutely gauranteed way, beyond dispute, that prison reduces
crime. While the perpetrators are in there they can't inflict any more damage on the rest of us outside. In
the absence of any real solutions most of us will settle for that.
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Hey, a "debate" on immigration
Reid says we should a debate on immigration. Great!
But hang on, didn't He-Who-Must-Be-Stabbed say just a while ago that we had had a debate on immigration?
Can't say I noticed, was that before or after the great lie of 2004? When most of this country's citizens had
grave concerns about allowing the new EU entrants to work in the UK but had those concerns completely ignored
by the government with the bland assurances that only about 13,000 a year would come. That 13,000 a year that has
turned into 600,000 so far.
Next year the Romanians and Bulgarians will join and people have even more concerns about those. In the Sunday Times
at the weekend was an interview with Tsar Kiro,
the leader of Bulgaria's gypsy community, who forecasts "...a crime wave engulfing Britain and the rest of Europe when his
country joins the European Union next year."
The downsides of immigration, whether crime or competition for unskilled jobs, are most felt by the ordinary people of
society, rarely the ruling elite like Reid, so I have little doubt that the grand idea of Europe will once again win over
the former's needs and desires.
According to the DT, Reid has given no indication that he will block the rights of Bulgarians and Romanians to work
in Britain next year.
It looks like this "debate" is following the usual pattern already.
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The channel 4 program on Muslim attitudes
I loathe Islam. I despise it from its most fundamental principle upwards, that fundamental principle being that our
society should be governed by the supposed word of god instead of by rational and pragmatic principles and the needs and
desires of the populace. Allowing so many of these people with their alien creed into our country against
the wishes of the populace is likely to bring us nothing but trouble in the future.
So I geuss I should be railing against everything they said. Not really. If only life was quite so black
and white.
For a start, most seemed decent enough and even the more extreme seemed human. That in itself is no great surprise,
the vast majority of people of any culture would just sooner just get on with their own lives if only others would leave
them alone and extreme views are hardly unique to Islam.
Some things there can be no compromise on, especially free speech. I see no reason for unecessary abuse of anyone's
religion, but unfortunately it is not quite as simple as banning cartoons of the prophet with a bomb in his turban.
I can see no way a law can be suitably framed that would not prohibit opposition by secularists.
If you cannot state your belief that Allah does not exist, that Muhammed was no prophet and was a violent man
who was totally unfit to be a role model for modern society then we may as proclaim Shariah law tomorrow.
Some things are total hypocricy. Sure, British society has a lot of failings like alcohol abuse and mindless vandalism
and these need to be tackled by rational laws and education but do we really have much to learn from a violent society
like Pakistan? Maybe Islam should put some of its own societies in order before being too critical of other
peoples'
Some things I am fairly neutral on. 9/11 was something concocted by Bush and the Israelis? The only "evidence" I
have seen looks like crap.
However, given the Christian loonies behind Bush who seem to see a major conflict in the Middle East
as the necessary pre-requisite to the "Rapture" I would not totally rule it out. Princess Di was killed because of her association with
a Muslim? Hmmmm! Possibly, I never put anything past the British establishment, my real doubts are about the technicalites
of being able to engineer a road accident in that way. Muslim women wearing the veil? If they are not coerced, none of our business.
Some common ground too.
I believe in the importance of a national culture
that gives people a sense of belonging and I refuse to compromise our secular society and permissive ethos for Islam. But belief
in nationalism works both ways. By the same token, we should not seek to impose our own principles on other cultures.
Over and over again in this program we heard that British foreign policy was one of the the major issues. I hope that
bastard "Iraq has nothing to do with 7/7" Blair was watching. Unfortunately, our appalling government, by which
I mean essentially the Bush's arse-sucking monstrous ego of Blair, insists on meddling in the affairs of
other countries. It really is absolutely none of our business if some countries prefer Islam to democracy!
So would I sympathise with suicide bombings if the boot was on the other foot? Hell yes!
But don't get me wrong, empathising with how Muslims feel is not the same as being on their side. If innocent British civilians
are punished again for the appalling actions of their government in more incidents like 7/7, I doubt that I could
summon up much sympathy if every Mosque from Lands End to John O Groats was blown apart by British Nationalists.
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Hate British society? Never mind, you can still claim benefits
Item in The Sunday Times today about Zacarius Mouussaoui, the only man convicted in connection with 9/11.
It appears he arrived from his home in Southern France and was put up in a hostel by English Churches Housing.
Later he was given benefits and a two bedroom housing association flat. He also got a one year study grant.
The article does not say where from but we can all geuss.
Why are we such damn fools?
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Salvation in a jar
The missus has just got back from a week on the Rhine. It seems that a French cathedral she stopped at
has John The Baptist's head. I am sure that it must be genuine, just like the other two in Europe.
To actually have something like that in their town must be a great source of spiritual inspiration to
those who live there.
Now you too can have a far greater relic of your very own. Unfortunately financial difficulties impel
me to part with it and try and recoup the money I paid on Ebay. If I could
find a way of keeping it I would.
Your one chance to own Jesus Christ's foreskin, saved by St Peter's older brother after Jesus's
circumcision and brought to England by Joseph Of Aramethea. It has a certificate to show it is 100% genuine.
The highest bid over £5000 secures. AND I will throw in a free signed pair of Muhammed's bedsocks.
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Night Of The Attack Of All Sorts Of Horrible Things For No Obvious Reason With Gratuitous Beaver Shots
Watched "League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen" the other night. Very entertaining, a typical film of
superheros and X-men defeating the forces of evil except that it was set in 1899 and the heros and X-men
in question were all characters from Victorian novels. Haggard's Alan Quatermain, Well's Invisible Man,
Stoker's vampiress Meenha Harker, Vernes' Captain Nemo, Stevenson's Jeckyl/Hyde and Wilde's Dorian Grey.
The villain turned out to be Dr. Moriarty.
Naturally, as I watched it with no 1 son who is a typical product of a modern education it was an added
bonus to annoy him by smugly pointing out the origin of all the characters he'd never heard of.
But it was almost my sort of action film in getting into the action very quickly.
Not quick enough in my view. Who needs a plot? Why do we need characterisation? I aim to rectify
these shortcomings by writing my own film script for an action/horror movie that will satisfy the
needs of all us shallow sorts who just want to cut to the chase and get lots of monsters and zombies eating
people, preferably with some gratuitous arse shots thrown in.
Scene 1
The scene opens in the dining room of a typically wholesome house in Middle America where Mom, Dad and
the two children are enjoying breakfast. The childen are both from The Nauseating American Child Actors
Agency, being a sandy headed boy of ten with freckles and an eight year old girl with a ponytail and
a cute little turned up nose.
Dad. Pass the jelly please honey
Mom. Here you are dear. (Authors note: I may cut this line as being superfluous to the plot)
Neighbour. (Bursting in through kitchen door) Run! run! A passing meteor or something has made all the
world's dead come alive and they are stalking about eating peoples' brains! Too late! Aaaaaargh!!!!
Numerous decayed zombies burst in and devour neighbour and wholesome family with lots of gore and loud
disgusting slurping sounds. All except the freckles and the cute turned up nose. Some things will turn
even a zomby's stomach.
Scene 2
Global warming has driven Godzilla northwards and about 15,000 miles further West. He is doing what we would
all like to do, stalking Basingstoke demolishing the town with swings of his huge tail. We focus in on one
small flat in town where Lottie and Julie, who work as models for the Gigantic Panties Company are cowering
under the table.
Lottie: Oh Julie, I'm sure I read somewhere that gigantic lizards are frightened of ladies with enormous bottoms,
shall we take all our clothes off? It may deter him.
Julie: I read that too, Lottie. I think it may frighten him even more if we waggle our bottoms provocatively
with our cheeks spread open for a better view and do unnatural things with household appliances.
Unfortunately, by keeping his eyes half shut and thinking about horribly skinny Japanese women, the
monster succeeds in devouring them anyway. But our brave heroines manage to keep the foul reptilian monster
at bay for a whole twenty minutes, which is just long enough for us ageing perves to knock one off.
Scene 3
Excavation for a housing development has torn away the Seal Of Doom placed by St Mathew and the Knights Templar
to seal in Ragric, Carnath and Applefritters, the demons of Nether Hell and their evil is let
loose upon the world. The demons roam the world taking their revenge on the spirital decendants of St Mathew,
i.e. taxmen, (author's note: It wasn't Judas who was the tax collector, although everyone thinks
that for some reason) causing them to melt with lots of detailed close-ups of their hideously bubbling
faces before dragging their souls back to nether hell.
Ragric: (A huge deep echoing bubbling voice) Fee, fy fo fum! I smell corporation tax!
Tax inspector 1: Aaaagh! no! no! please! (face bubbles for ten minutes)
Carnath: (A wailing banshee like shriek) Doom! doom! I smell inheritance tax!
Tax inspector 2: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! (face drips off for a good twenty minutes)
Applefritters: (By far the most evil of the three. Voice like Cilla Black) Eeeee luv! I smell Employer's NI!
Tax inspector 3: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! (face etc.)
etc.
etc.
etc.
Meanwhile, governments around the world are desperately trying to stop the evil and save their tax
inspectors. Dedicated government scientists work until a bit after 5pm every weekday, not counting strike and
sick days. One scientist stumbles on a solution. It will take almost three months and a budget of £3 million
to develop it but well worth it to save most of the inspectors. Unfortunately, it takes five years and a
budget of £36 billion by which time all the tax inspectors are dead. Oh dear, what a shame.
To be continued.
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Those pictures
Was tragedy cynically turned into propoganda?
Make up your own mind
The dangers(?) of heroin addiction
There was an interesting article in the
Times recently about heroin use.
It challenges the assumption that it is extremely addictive, pointing out that many young men used it
to help cope with stress during the Vietnam war (as they are
now doing in Iraq) and kicked the habit
without help as soon as they returned home. It also challenges the idea that it is not possible to lead
a productive and normal life while taking it and this is
supported by research.
According to the Times article there is no firm evidence that taking it leads to criminality, the small
reduction in crime by addicts supplied with methadone being explained by the tranquilising effects of the
latter.
I really have no idea and I daresay some experts would disagree with the article but I think
views contrary to the perceived wisdom by those who have real knowledge are always worth remarking on,
not least because it challenges the way we react to other issues.
Like many I have always assumed that heroin leads to criminality to pay for the habit. Is the truth the
other way round? namely, that some young men are criminals anyhow and that the addiction is just
another aspect of a worthless lifestyle or a prop for mental illness?
Like many too I have always felt the war in Afghanistan to be justified not only by the Taliban's
hosting of terrorist training camps but also by the fact that the heroin poppies grown there were causing enormous
social problems for us in the UK. If these farmers really are only growing a crop which is not a major
cause of criminality in the UK but merely an excuse for the failures of our own underclass it puts
an entirely different complexion on it.
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Joining those dots
I don't usually but yesterday I brought The Independent. The front page is one of those that,
15 years on, will feature in another TV program about the greatest front pages, along with "Freddie Star
Ate My Hamster".
The quote by He-Who-Must-Be-Stabbed "It is time we joined up the dots around the world" is surrounded by
five pictures of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon. According to HWMBS these all have to be seen
as part of a bigger picture and there is an arc of extremism across the Middle East. His wider war on terror
includes Afghanistan.
There is a link between all these issues and it is one that is drawn by Islamists themselves, you only need
to search on the web. Any conflict that involves Muslims is one that involves them all. Anyone who thinks
that every terrorist attack is entirely about some local conflict and that there is no concerted threat
from Islamic extremism is living in a dream world.
On the other hand, tackling the real fanatics might be a great deal easier if we did not drum up
support for them from among ordinary people by invading sovereign countries on trumped up pretexts
and pursuing a continually biased pro-Israel policy in the UN on issues such as the West Bank and the
security wall.
I geuss what I am saying is that HWMBS is right about the dots, you can join them up and the other side
certainly does. I just fail to see the need to run over the lines with a BLOODY GREAT BLACK FELT TIP PEN!
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Oh for a proper party
Sons are having their 24th birthday party tomorrow so us old farts are not wanted. Fortunately, we
have been invited to a party ourselves. Yawn! I hate parties these days. Don't drink more than a pint
'cos you have to drive home which makes lots of dull conversation with similarly middle aged people
even harder to endure.
24 year old sort of parties now, those used to be worth going to. See what you could pick up. I used
to have a few successes in that area once when I was young and incredibly sexy instead of old and incredibly sexy.
If you failed you could always get legless.
And in those days before the breathaliser, you could STILL drive home! I found the booze used to take my
mind off the fact that my old van's brakes didn't work. Ah, happy days!
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xoggoth decimates more wildlife
I am feeling guilty again.
We are very pro wildlife here on bloggoth. To be honest I vastly prefer animals to people
and am all in favour of bulldozing villages to make room for Great Crested Newts, having
foxhunters hung drawn and quartered and fishermen soundly flogged and given 50 hours
community service polishing frogs.
With just one exception now, I have a totally Buddhist attitude to the smallest creatures,
even shooing houseflies and blubottles out rather that reaching for the rolled up Times. (At least
I used to accord them the dignity of being squashed by a proper posh person's publication)
The only exception is the mosquito, damned if I'm
going to let myself get bitten
especially living just a short distance from Gatwick but the way things are going I shall be
indulging that too soon. Redirecting them onto the missus anyhow.
So I am afraid to report that the unwitting carnage continues. Setting up a bird table in the garden has
seen a big increase in the number of birds hitting our windows. Loud bonks of a strike are common.
I probably remove 2 corpses a week on average.
A few weeks back no 1 son went to put the bin bag out and found a young fox upright and stone dead
at the dustbin. It seems while it was looking for something in the bin it choked on a piece of plastic.
Probably something I chucked out when I tidied the shed.
Then today a buck deer shot out of the woods in broad daylight right in front of my van. Fortunately
it was virtually killed outright, about a minute after being hit it was quite still. Nothing I could have
done. I suppose it's a relief that despite liking wildlife I am not actually one of these terrible
sentimentalists. My first thought was "shit! what has it done to my van?" (just a crack in the perspex
number plate) My second was "Christ! I wish I had a pair of bollocks like that!"
Oddly, when I drove by less than an hour later it was gone. Perhaps somebody took it for venison. Or maybe, maybe,
a gay man who had read my cheapskate's guide to sex aids, had decided that
they looked like a magnificent pair of bollocks too.
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Against the tide
Little on the TV news lately apart from the war in Lebananon. Plenty of harrowing pictures of
crying women and injured children leading many to the conclusion that those
appalling Iraelis are going totally over the top and indulging in indiscrimate killing.
Not me. As the action goes on I am coming more and more around to support for the Israelis.
Look at the facts. Nine weeks after the initial invasion of Iraq started
5 to 10 thousand civilians.
were dead. That's 550 a week based on the lower figure. Three weeks into the war in Lebanon and
Israel had killed 900, i.e.
a rate of 300 a week.
Now any US or British military man will assure you, and I see no reason to doubt it, that
their armies do their utmost to avoid civilian casualties. So how is it that Israel is deliberately
targetting civilians and killing far fewer? Sure, maybe the scale of the conflict is different,
but however you look at it, this is nothing like the body count that the world's third military
power with total air supremacy could be inflicting if it had a mind to. Look around at any office
complex, market, shopping centre or residential tower block area. Is it really likely that if such places
were deliberately targetted by an advanced war machine, it's just the occasional bomb that would
kill as many as 50?
Another big difference is that while the Iraq war was an unjustifiable assault on a sovereign country
that had nothing to do with the "war on terror" and has done everything to set it back, the Israelis
are doing what it is the absolute duty of every government to do, defend its people.
The
comment by the Iranian president sums up what many Arab and Islamic groups like Hezbollah and Hamas believe.
Now if he had said there can be no recognition of Isreal until
it releases all prisoners, withdraws from all land taken in 1967 including Jerusalem, ends its discriminatory
laws against Arabs in Israel and paid £10,000 compensation to every Palestine one might have agreed that was at least
a sensible opening bargaining position. But declaring that Isreal cannot exist no matter what makes any idea
of talks totally pointless. Why on earth would Israel negotiate if their existence is
a non-negotiable position?
Then there is the nature of the participants. Some might have noticed that there are some rather extreme
anti-Islamic blogs on the net including this one. Have a look at
the item "Milk It To Death, You Left-Wing Sons Of Bitches" Just below the suggestion that the Israelis should
nuke Lebanon into a glowing dust cloud you will find the suggestion that that building that collapsed killing 50
kids was actually blown up by Hezbollah for propoganda purposes. How on earth can you possibly believe anything
on such an extreme site? I hear you cry. (Or I would if anybody actually read this blog). I'm not saying I do,
but my point is, given everything we know about extremist Islam, one cannot immediately assign it to the
bin marked obvious propoganda along with the Jews eating babies and Bosch raping nuns either.
The extremists of this faith appear to have
no problem with blowing up trains or crowded markets or taking theatre goers or schoolkids hostage or
beheading elderly or female aid workers so what exactly makes this story completely unbelievable?
One scarcely needs propoganda where Islam is concerned. Never mind terrorists, the barbarism of mutilations
of thieves and public stonings or hanging of adulterers or homosexuals carried out or sanctioned by states
are real, not fantasies of the Christian right.
I no longer believe that Islamic extremism will go away if we could somehow enforce a peace in Palestine,
rather it will continue to pursue the other target which is Western democracy. "My enemy's enemy is my
friend" runs the old adage. Maybe in the Middle East we should start to recognise more clearly
which is our enemy and which is therefore our friend.
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And stay out
I see that
staff at Her Majesty's Revenue And Customs are to go on strike because 12000 jobs may be cut.
Nothing new there then, the public sector generally have
more days on strike
than Prescott eats pies.
Welcome to the real world that those of us in the private sector have been inhabiting since the 1970s! What is
the point of merging the Inland Revenue with HM Customs if no job reductions are going to result from the merger?
The PCS general secretary has said that "dedicated staff" face their work being "de-skilled" and being
"reduced to nothing more than robots". Good. Tax-collection as a process, unlike busking
or clipping dogs or running funfairs for example, has no intrinsic worth and the more it can be automated and made
cheaper, the more can be spent on the intended targets. Who knows? A tiny percentage of those may
even be a good use of our money although I doubt it.
I am sure I am not alone in wishing to assure these lovely people that if this issue turns into a prolonged
strike we will be behind them all the way and stoically put up with all the inconvenience of not having them around.
PS Please take the rest of the feather-bedded parasitic pen-pushing Civil Service with you!
PPS You will note from that link that the inverted commas in "dedicated staff" is the BBC's not mine.
The BBC clearly think they are a feather-bedded parasitic useless bunch of idlers too.
PPPS Not that that feathered-bedded parasitic useless bunch of idlers at the BBC have any right to criticise.
Go out and earn your audience you licence fee addicted shower!
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Stupid White Men revisited
We never bother about topicality on bloggoth, we range far and wide in time and space. Next week, the
bloggoth report on efforts to repeal the Corn Laws. Those high bread prices are a disgrace!
But there were a couple of things on blogs that happened to remind me of it, so, armed with a a vodka and a
warm afternoon in the garden, I went back to Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men" and had another go at reading it.
He is very much hated in US right wing circles and if that means Bush supporters and those Christian nuts he can't be all
bad. I didn't get very far. There are one or two things he makes sense on but generally, if the guy is at all
serious in the things he writes I have to agree with
his detractors
he isn't very bright or to be more exact, since intelligence is a very difficult thing to judge, he isn't very logical.
Take the chapter "Kill Whitey" when he appears to draw on a comment by Martin Luther King and states that he
feel unsafe when he sees white men coming because everyone who has ever done him harm in his life has been white.
Really? I see no reason to doubt the statement as I can state exactly the same thing but:
- One is always more likely to be affected by those who are the majority and hold the most power in any country.
It's a matter of statistics and control, not complexion
- After adjusting for numbers and power, one is always most likely to affected by those of your own culture since
we all mostly find our friends, acquaintances, business partners AND enemies within it. Again,
race or complexion has nothing to do with it
Another piece of idiocy is his catalogue of terrible things the white man has done like
build the H Bomb, start all the US' wars, make thousands redundant etc. But if you look at
anywhere in the third world there is not the slightest evidence that things would have been any different
or followed a more enlightened path if they had been the leading nations, or that things will improve if they overtake
us in the future, it's simply that:
- We whites happened to be first to reach the level of technological acheivement to make these things possible
- We were first in the queque to grab the power and influence that allowed us to do them
So nothing one can factually disagree with, just statements of the obvious and therefore pointless verbiage
from which incorrect conclusions are inferred. "Stupid White Men" is destined for the bin, two years late.
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Soho
Interesting London news tonight. Those Soho sex joints, once so numerous, are now down to two as a result
of police activity. The remaining two now have policemen outside with signs "It will cost you £3 to get in. It
may cost you £300 to get out"
EXCELLENT NEWS! Well done to the police! You have gone up (a bit) in my estimation!
What???? I hear you all cry! (or would if anyone actually read this guff) xoggoth? the arch pervert? approving
of less vice? Damn right! Soho used to be ok a few decades back when I went to stripjoints or night
clubs two or three times with mates but in the last ten years or so it has become an Albanian gangland dominated rippoff.
I went in one to drown my sorrows about five years back after an interview in London which (most unusually,
you will be surprised to learn) I did not pass. I didn't mind the £8 for a pint of lager, it was always thus
in Soho clubs and was expected, it was the demand for £35 for sitting at a formica table in a gloomy cellar
with absolutely nothing going on I objected to.
xoggoth courage is entirely digital. Near zero at most times, bobbing along at abject cowardice level,
but rising instantly to full supply voltage when I blow my top and that does not take a lot. I stormed out without
paying. Luckily, the manager on duty at the time, who had been informed of my intransigent attitude and came out
to try to to stop me from leaving, turned out to be a lady of about 5 feet nothing rather than a 15 stone
Alabanian male and responded with alacrity to a mere snarled "Get out of my way". As I had no idea that that
would be the case it does not alter the fact of my extreme courage in my view!! So there!
Anyway! Soho sex joints? good riddance. Now, how about a few decent massage parlours in my village?
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Stranger danger
Nothing on the net today so no link. I assume it will be in tomorrow's news. On BBC News 24 today,
the story of a Canadian paedophile who groomed underage girls in Kent to post him obscene images
of themselves. Also, a case this week of an underage girl who has voluntarily run off to be with a man
in his 50s. No link here either cos' I have forgotten the details.
Then there was the case a couple of months back
where a paedophile gang was convicted after advertising in graffiti on a train for young girls between 8 and 13.
I am sure I was not the only one who, on first seeing the headlines, assumed that the graffiti was directed
at males of similar bent willing to coerce young girls of their acqauaintance. Apparently not, as the gang were blown
by a female reporter pretending to be 11. Underage girls were responding themselves!
Now, I do not for a minute question the necessity for current age limits on sexual activity, especially when involvement
or more usually, exploitation, by those much older is concerned. We all know there are both physical and emotional
consequences of sex that the young and immature cannot cope with, but it does make you wonder, when children so
often appear to be completely willing participants, about the conventional view of their total innocence.
I could well be wrong about the approach taken by professionals, but the emphasis I keep seeing is on teaching
children about "stranger danger" on the streets or about men posing as other children on the internet, as though
these things that happen are always imposed upon them against their will or by deception. If that really is the case,
should we be taking a more realistic view and perhaps warning them also of the dangers and risks inherent in their
own curiosity and developing needs, whether for money, adventure or even, with the older kids, sex?
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The Occasional Truth
I keep looking at all the differing opinions on the current Middle East conflict. Nice when among all the
opinions you get the odd fact that appears to be true. At least, from everything I have seen or read on the news
including the BBC and the main British newspapers, this one appears to be.
Maybe the obvious conclusion from these facts is not always drawn. This
Blog article by Brigitte Gabriel draws one
of them.
Israel has launched 3000 air strikes on Lebanon since the
beginning of the Operation and inflicted only 122 casualties.
If Israel's intention was to kill civilians you would have seen
many more civilian deaths than only 122. They are being extremely
careful, even dropping flyers and urging civilians to leave before
they bomb. These casualties are "terrorists" and terrorist families
and sympathizers.
Apart from the now out of date number* and the last sentence perhaps (no innocent civilians at all?) she is right.
Maybe many do not appreciate just what Israel is on the world stage militarily, it's only a little country after all.
So where does it figure in the list of the world's military powers?
THIRD! Even leaving aside the nuclear
option, Israel could have killed many thousands by now if its sole desire was to punish Lebanese and inflict
indiscriminate damage as its opponents claim.
Maybe it is these little bits of truth and nothing else that should form our opinions.
* now 458 according to this
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The Innovations Catalogue
I have not seen one for ages and it was with great sadness that I learned that
The Innovations Catalogue is no more.
How can they make such a fuss about that monstrous Henry Moore statue going missing last year when the passing
of a real British icon is allowed to go almost unnoticed?
Never fear. xoggoth is here to plug this gaping hole in our heritage with a brand news series -
The xoggoth DIY Innovations Catalogue
Lighting strikes
What did we ever do without the internet? Last w/e we were going to book a hotel in Italy for the wedding,
look for a short break in Ireland, missus was planning to book her ferry for a few days in Germany next week, we were
going to order a decent computer and I had my boring VAT submissions to do.
The sodding phone line got struck by lightning! Fried the ADSL modem and PSU, completely wrecked no 1 son's
computer, killed the network card in mine and very likely ruined all three phone extensions and the answering machine
but not sure yet as the line is still not working! Going to claim on the insurance. Had to look in the policy 'cos we
both had this vague idea that lightning might have counted as an act of god and not be covered.
Act of god! There's an idea! Maybe it's a punishment for my nasty uncharitable comments about our lovely
government who is only doing de best for us and those sinful pages bout shaggin dead badgers an such an
all dem hours pleasurin de flesh in looking at dem cream pie and pissing videos on xnxx. Ah's a sorry laud for
ma sinnin ways, agin.
N now we back in stone age wid no internet, but I done care none cos I feel dat once agin de lawd seen fit t
send me a message an I been saved agin. Oh sinner man! wh' yo gonna run to, Oh sinner man! wh'yo gonna run to,
Oh sinner man! wh' yo gonna run to, all on dat day? Praise de Lawd!
PS Hallelujah!
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Life swap
Plenty of crap programs on TV about people swapping lifestyles but maybe we should have an international
exchange scheme to swap for real, not just for student exchanges or Voluntary Service Overseas but real swaps
for several months for all ages and walks of life. It might change a few attitudes.
Got to thinking about it because missus is going to take younger kids next year and she remarked on the
ridulous extent to which 8 years old are babied. Just to walk the short distance between lower and upper school
they are expected to pair up and hold hands. In the paper this week, an article on the extent to which even much
older children have so little freedom due to all the terrors, sometimes real but usually greatly exagerrated, of
the modern world.
Wouldn't it do them and their parents a world of good, to teach them what a dangerous life really was, to send
them on swaps that involved them picking over rubbish tips in India just to survive or carrying enormous buckers
of ore up the steep slopes of illegal Columbian emerald mines?
Not that it would only be kids and parents who could benefit as plenty of other adults could do with a
few lessons in life too. Not me of course, as I am already as near perfect as anyone could be. So when I
suggested the idea I know the wife was only joking when she said I could really use a spell in the North
Korean army. Bloody cheek!
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Worthy advice but oh so vague
Lest anyone should think I am going soft let me preface the next paragraph with the remarks that all taxation
is theft and that anyone who works for the HMRC deserves to be stabbed, shot, poisoned, boiled alive, poisoned (again)
and torn apart by rabid Hyenas and preferably all six at the same time. Twice.
But I have to admit that in terms of routine tax collection they have greatly improved. Their online submissions
and payments systems work pretty well now and their technical support, in my experience, is brilliant. Best of all their
publications now mostly make sense. When I started contracting in 1992 I looked at their booklets to see what expenses
I could claim and was none the wiser as my situation seemed to be covered in three different paragraphs and they all said
something different. Then in 1997 (ish) the rules changed and we got Booklet 490. Not only was it pretty clear but it
had neat little boxes with examples.
I was reminded of all this on reading Wolfy's blog where the headline news has prompted him to post the
part of the Geneva Convention dealing with treatment of civilian
populations. Quite what relevance that has to Prescott's breeches of the ministerial rules I am not sure but
he has always been a bit wierd.
On browsing through it did strike me that the words were very worthy but all rather vague and possibly
difficult to apply to real situations. Maybe these international lawyers should take a leaf out of HMRC's book
and give some proper examples.
Sergeant Christina Unkali is serving with the 31st Disabled Black Women's Fusilier Regiment fighting Islamic
terrorists who are being most unreasonable in wanting their own country back. She finds her plattoon pinned down
by insurgents and waiting for relief. Some of the terrorists have occupied the third floor of a children's hospital
overlooking her position and the plattoon is taking casualties. If they fire back there is a serious risk of
casualties among the innocent young occupants of the ward.
Relief will be available for the cost of Geoffrey's travel between his home and the other places he attends
for the performance of other duties of the same employment*
Sorry for the lapse back into booklet 490 but after reading that righteous Geneva Conventions guff, I really
still have no idea what the correct course of action would be.
*Copyright HMRC
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Fiddlers on the roof
So many opinions on the Mid-East conflict and some very strong one on some blogs, for example the
always entertaining Ant-Idiotarian Rottweiler.
You won't find one here.
I suspect that the great majority, especially those of us who have watched this going on for many decades,
have long ceased to think it worth thinking anything at all except "Not again!" or "What the FUCK is wrong
with these people?"
Yeh, yeh, creation of Israel was terrible and all that, a major injustice among many injustices of previous
centuries when world powers disposed of others' countries as they wished with little regard to the inhabitants.
Had this conflict happened in the early 1950s when most Israelis were immigrants I would have totally supported
the Arabs in removing them by any means possible and I mean any.
But on the other hand, this is 2006 and the great majority of Israelis in Israel were born there. Would Muslims
or Arabs think it ok to expel Muslims from Kosovo because it was taken by force or from the UK because few of
us ever wanted them here? Of course not, they would see it as unjust and rightly so. Without the starting point
of recognising Israel there is no point in any dialog.
Yeh, Israel sucks in so many ways and there are major injustices.
Siezure of Palestian land for example
of which that security wall is only the most recent example. If some bastard foreign state siezed my property just
because I was an Arab and it said I had been absent or because it felt like building a wall across it
I would be supporting suicide bombers too.
On the other hand, that wall has not only been
ruled illegal by the world court
but parts running through Palestinian land have been
successfully challenged in Israel's own
supreme court, so there are other avenues. Perhaps what the latter shows is that Israel at least has a legal
system that is prepared to be impartial and is worthier of support by the West than a bunch of disparate
Islamic terrorist groups whose hostility to us is subordinate only to that towards Israel. When the chips are down
we should support those most likely to be on our side.
As regards the current flare up in violence, no real doubt about the culprits there. It was triggered by the
attacks and kidnappings by Hamas and Hezbollah. On the other hand, it had to be said that the immediate response
by Israel was disproportionate and perhaps inadvisable diplomatically.
The case was put rather well by Lord Balfour (not the one of Declaration fame
one assumes) in a letter to the Times
yesterday.
From Palestine, an attack by Hamas on Israel is seen as an attack by the elected Government. In the case of Lebanon one reads of no such suggestion, even if Hezbollah forms a small part of that Government. When Hezbollah fired the first shots, Israel should perhaps have demanded that the Lebanese Government control its citizens or face consequences. This would have bought time and allowed Lebanon to ask for international help to weed out the miscreants. Such a stance would have given Israel the high ground. Hezbollah would have been undermined without Lebanon being razed or fostering yet more anti-Israel hate.
On the other hand, while Lord B's points about taking the high ground are valid, comments I have seen elsewhere
by those who seem better informed than myself suggest that a weak government in Lebanon, faced with intimidation
from a strong well armed faction backed by Syria and others could probably have done nothing. Not sure I would
blame the Lebanese people for not doing more to eject a well armed militia either.
As for negotiations with the likes of Hamas or Hezbollah, surely everything over the past few decades indicates
that to be a complete waste of time.
If Israel released the terrorists in their jails how long would it be before they were carrying out terrorists attacks
on Israel again?
So what else could Israel have done but to go in an try to root out Hezbollah once and for all?
On the other hand, it is quite clear from watching Jeremy Bowen on the BBC news this week that they are
not succeeding. And every day the fight goes on more potential recruits are created. This philosophy
of no compromise and don't stop until the job is done
is an Israeli favourite and one which most of us will have some sympathy with in a wishy washy compromising
world. Problem is, they and the other side have been doing that for decades and here we are in yet another
final push that resembles the one before and the one before that.
So to sum up, I really don't have a clue. Unfortunately neither do those who matter.
That
"Yo Blair" conversation
this week was most telling. While they may not have liked Bush, some had high hopes of that "road map".
It seemed that Bush was the sort of character who could have really made some progress. As with Nixon
and Reagen it isn't always the nice guys who make the most progress on the world stage but those who
know how to be single minded and apply pressure.
So what has been happening before the current conflict to try and ensure it didn't happen? Any attempt
by the Americans to follow a more even handed course at the UN for example? one that might persuade the
Palestinians that there are other options than suicide bombs? It seems not. Any criticism of Israel, over
the wall for example, and the Americans walk out.
So despite all the fine words at election time our vacuous self seeking leaders do nothing to try and
defuse tensions and when another crisis comes we get:
You see, the ... thing is what they need to do is to get Syria, to get Hezbollah to stop doing
this shit and it's over
Of course! why didn't the rest of think of that? Between them and the participants I have little doubt
that this shit will be still be going on in another 60 years.
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Agreed to have a battle
THEY were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other's neck, and Alice knew which was which in a
moment, because one of them had "DUM" embroidered on his collar, and the other "DEE". `I suppose they've each
got "TWEEDLE" round at the back of the collar,' she said to herself.
News that Poland is now controlled by twins. Jaroslaw Kaczynski is the country's new PM and his brother Lech
is already President.
According to the Times they are "Homophobic, intolerant, ultranationalist and ever eager for a scrap
with Poland's neighbors" and "famed for their fractiousness". Lech Walesa has said "...they were always suspecting people,
always involved in intrigue". Of Lech Kaczynski, "His approach is always to destroy and then think about what to build"
It seems they plan to have homosexuals excluded from the teaching profession and are hostile to abortion. In his
inaugaral speech Tweedledee said he wanted to protect Poland's morals against EU liberalisation. In all the undemocratic
money wasting stinking corruption that is the EU, only its socially liberal policies were worth having and it seems
that even those are now to be challenged.
Reaction in the EU, Bush and the lunatic Christian right in America, the growing incursion of Islam into
Europe, the spread of Evangelist Christianity in the UK. What next? In a few decades those of who
believe in personal choice may look back on the last four as the lost golden age.
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Shut the F* up
Bad enough in winter. For some reason those with no absolutely no taste in music - and by NO taste I mean
RAP - feel the most compulsion to share their lack of any culture and braincells with the rest of us and to drive
around with windows open even when its 5 below. But in summer it's ten times worse, every window and sun roof open and
this degenerate auditory criminal fodder on full blast.
During the week I have the misfortune to have a rented flat right on a main road next to a traffic light and
it's too hot at the moment to keep the windows shut so I am frequently disturbed by this sort waiting right outside
my open window. It is most tempting to go to the kitchen cupboard and get rid of that old TV a previous tenant
left there.
Exterminate anyone who listens to RAP music and the UK crime rate should halve, excluding homicides of people
who listen to RAP that is. Justifiable homicide in my view and therefore it should not count. Us classical/blues/
heavy rock sorts are never violent.
So what's the best music to hurl televisions on top of passing cars to? I reckon a bit of Handel should do
nicely.
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What part of a woman does a man find most attractive. Her eyes? her smile? It isn't always a lie
Went with the missus to see Pirates of the Carribean 2 today. Ok, it's a kids' film but we still
enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed Kiera Knightley.
Now I might have let slip on the odd occasion that I like larger women. I think it must run in the family.
A few years back when I decorated the bathroom I found a couple of copies of Big Butt hidden under the
flooring. Number 2 son admitted the heinous deed but the great pleasure I always take in embarassing my
offspring was completely neutered when he said "Anyway, they're yours, I found them the big box in the attic"
So I daresay the little bastard snaffled all my Plumpers and 40 plus too.
So the very skinny and negligibly boobed and butted Kiera is hardly likely to be my erotic fantasy in
theory. Can't say I ever really noticed her body in the film, it's that face, she's gorgeous.
Not the first time I have gone for great faces. I was never a great fan of the BBC comedy "Only Fools And
Horses", it was just ok, but one thing always worth watching was Tessa Peake-Jones who played Raquel.
Can't really say I ever noticed if she had much of a figure either but Dell summed up it once when he said something
about her smile lighting up a room. He was right, it did.
Another face I went for decades back was Marianne Faithful. As I remind her constantly, I only married
the missus because she looked a bit like Marianne and the real one wasn't available.
As she also reminds me constantly she only married me because Brian Ferry and Lou Diamond Phillips weren't
available. Not a patch on myself, but good looking guys I have to admit. Not so sure about her latest
favourite, Rafael Nadal, who admittedly looks good here but frankly looks rather gormless in less
carefully posed pictures.
Maybe it isn't just his face she likes, the shameless hussy. It's a good thing one of us has
a pure mind.
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