Translate

Friday 30 August 2013

Taking The Diplomatic Mickey

Everyone knows that the diplomats from third world countries often commit abuses under the cover of diplomatic immunity (sometimes terrible crimes such as child abuse, rape and murder) .....

Diplomatic Abuse Is Rife In The UK and USA
Diplomatic Abuse Is Rife In The UK and USA

...... but usually its parking offences, shoplifting and espionage.
 

A Million Dreams

Have you ever seen what a million pounds looks like?

A Million Pounds
A Million Pounds
 
Well neither have I until now ...... 

Popular Blog Postings

When you are a Blogger, its sometimes a good idea to look to see which of your posts have been the most popular.

SEO Is A "Dark Art" Few Have Mastered!
SEO Is A "Dark Art" Few Have Mastered!
 
Now, like most Bloggers, I don't fool myself that I am going to get big viewing figures for most posts, and indeed I am grateful if I even get two or three views.
 

Western Folly

With Britain surprisingly having rejected being pushed once again into the boiling cauldron that is Middle East politics (ostensibly, not to change the regime, but to back the US desire to punish the use of chemical weapons, which crossed Pres. Obama's 'red line'), it seems a timely occasion to remind ourselves that it is not just the Assad regime who act like animals.

We were effectively being pushed to be on the same side as al-Qaeda and those who fight under its banner .... for instance there are large groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who have cooperated with al-Qaeda in many attacks against Israel and the Israeli security forces. The Israel intelligence services believe that Hamas, in cooperation with al-Qaeda, have managed to infiltrate operatives from the Gaza into Israel in preparation for attacks.

So its also likely that Hamas elements are already in Syria fighting alongside their allies, who will now include the US / France and the United Kingdom .... if that doesn't tell you that our inept leaders are completely out of their depths, then nothing does. But just in case there are any doubts as to the sort of allies we would be fighting alongside (in aims at least), here is a picture from the 21st of November 2012 which was issued by Reuters.

Our Animal Palestinian 'Allies' In The Middle East
Our 'Allies' In The Middle East

It shows how much the technical 'allies' of the US and France (assuming we stay out), Hamas and al-Qaeda, value human rights, the rule of law and international norms .... these Hamas gunmen had just publicly executed six suspected 'Israeli spies', who they had accused of telling the Israeli defence forces about rocket launch sites and other information. 
 
So after being tortured, and 'confessing', they had been publicly shot .... then one of the corpses was tied behind a motorcycle and dragged around the streets of Gaza, to the cheers of an approving mob who chanted "Spy!, Spy!" .... in all, this little bit of 'justice' cost the lives of eight men (one was shot in the street, and another was found dead in a communal wheelie bin).

Pity the poor Christians who live in Syria, they will face the final ethnic cleansing in the region when these Jihadists get full control of the country .... Our politicians, particularly those on the European left-wing (France is currently both socialist, and playing an influence game in a country they once ruled), just don't understand what kind of animals are fighting in these middle east conflicts, and how while they use us and beg our help to fight their 'enemies' (Israel), they remain implacably opposed to us, our religion, and our values.

Friday 23 August 2013

Two Old Farts Meet A Legend

While wandering around the 'Pleasance Courtyards' (a major venue area), my mate Kenny and I were approached by a jocular old fellow handing out flyers (along with hundreds of others)

Henry Blofeld - A Living Legend Walked Amongst Us.
A Living Legend Walked Amongst Us.

He described his show as "two old farts talking about cricket" and "Jolly Good Fun" ..... but as soon he opened his voice I knew who he was.

Festival Pig Outs

Food is everywhere at the Edinburgh festival ...... of course there is a lot of rip off going on - I saw a portion of Chips (French Fries in US), being offered at £6.50. That's close to criminal! But most food was at city centre prices. However with competition so fierce, there are some attention grabbers about .... here's a few.

Porks a real standard this year ..... the benchmark for all the pork rolls is something like this one.

The Crackling Pig Edinburgh Festival
The Crackling Pig
So the competition came up with this ..... catchy legend as well.

The Hog Hut ... "Its only Pork 'n' Roll, but I like it"
The Hog Hut ... "Its only Pork 'n' Roll, but I like it"
 
There was also International Cuisine from around the globe ...... then there was this one from Australia.

Aussies Don't Do Cuisine - Crags Barbie
Aussies Don't Do Cuisine .....
 
But you can never beat the Scots at their own game ...... Yes its not myth, this is the latest advert for the legend of Scottish cooking ....

The Deep Fried Mars Bar - Alive & Thriving
The Deep Fried Mars Bar - Alive & Thriving

The stuff of infamy wherever gastronomes gather, proudly advertised by the Cafe Piccante on Broughton Street Edinburgh.

Piccante Cafe - The Fried Mars Bar
The Fried Mars Bar

Sights And Scenes From Fringe 2013

As usual, a few pictures from a week in the festival ......

Pleasance Dome Twilight
Spiegeltent George Street
Udder Belly Tent
Castle In Twilight
Here Be Dragons ....

I think you'll agree, not the usual High Street pictures.

The Best Of Our Fest Reviews

Well we at PC towers are back ..... and slowly recovering .... so as usual, here are the personal *ratings / the 'Best Of Our Fest' from the shows we personally saw:

Slightly Fat Features. (5 Star)
Described as 'Monty Python, meets Cirque du Soleil', and that's about right - but very very funny, and a very polished act. Laughter guaranteed and given from start to finish.


The Play That Goes Wrong. (5 Star)
A play goes wrong with multiple problems, with the players gamely trying to bring it to a successful completion, or in the case of the girls, pursuing an increasingly violent personal duel ..... a joy to watch and with great timing and humour.


Its Me Dayne. (4 Star)
A strange weird psychopathic socio-path up on the stage ..... its a slow burner, but slowly it hits you that all is not as it might seem.


The Thinking Drinkers Guide To Alcohol. (4 Star)
Good pro act, says what it is on the label, and the 'free drinks' were a hit with Kenny, who was fairly 'pished' later in the evening ....


Farce Noir Presents: The Big Sheep at The Wee Coo. (3 Star)
Dark detective tail from the Big City ..... good cast performances (especially the femme fatal and the baron), but the miniscule stage and the irritating side story about the actors and an imaginary 'film agent' meant the mark is lower.


The Beta Males in Superopolis. (3 Star).
A large cast and stage, well performed but a little bit hit and miss on the laugh front.



Mat Ricardo: Showman. (3 Star).
Essentially a juggling act, tied together by some neat patter. Might have benefited from a higher ceiling in the venue, but nothing really new in terms of juggling tricks. Felt a bit like a street act transferred to a venue, but that was just an impression.


Ian Fox: Shutter Monkey (free). (3 Star).
A free show about photography and the back story pictures tell, which we took in that was surprisingly good. Not sure if Mr Fox has another trick for a show next year, but the show we saw was entertaining, and in a nice air conditioned venue as well.


Casual Violence Presents: House of Nostril. (3 Star).
Another sketch team with and extended play. However the story was disjointed and again a bit hit and miss (e.g. the plays best laughs came with a lady in the audience, who laughed at some strange times). The lack of decent props, and a suitable venue may have impacted the otherwise energetic performance.


Terry Clement: Din Times 8. (1 Star).
Described on one bill poster as "You'll be amazed at the energy he brings to his performance" Toronto Star (or another Canadian paper). The winter nights must be long in Canada if he's considered funny. We were 'amazed' all right .... that he didn't get booed off the stage. There was once probably an act in there, but its long gone, and what's left shouldn't be a paid for show. Barely a laugh from the eight who turned up (and if you can't get a laugh out of people who want to laugh, then you are a bad act).  Other reviewers have apparently thought much the same thing.


Other Peoples Recommendations:

A staff member in 'Smithies Ale House' very strongly recommended "Captain Morgan And The Sands Of Time" which is playing from the "The Fiddler's Elbow" pub which is at 4 Picardy Place. I understand from her description that its a fast-paced comedy with two actors playing over 30 characters in a tale of life on the open seas to rave reviews.

And a follower of this blog, highly recommended a play to us (but sadly I may have misheard the title / subject - it was a long festival), so hopefully I am quoting the correct play "That is All You Need to Know" .... not a comedy, but a drama about the untold stories of Bletchley Park - the code breakers.

The reviews expressed on this post represent the 'personal opinion' of this blogger or those who expressed an opinion about shows to this blog only, and do not necessarily agree with other reviewers opinions. Similarly, the review stars are based on the criteria described below.

*The personal ratings system on this page are:
5 star - Exceptional
4 star - Very Good
3 star - Good or Better
2 star - Average to Good
1 star - Poor
0 star - Shouldn't be at Festival

Tuesday 13 August 2013

If Its August, It Must Be Edinburgh

Yes, there will be no other posts this week, as we at PC towers are off on our annual jaunt to Edinburgh to take in the sights and sounds of the festival and fringe.

A chance to catch up with old friends, get a few beers inside me, and dodge rain ..... yes as per usual, the forecast is for cold and rain in August, so I will be wrapped up for a Winter in Summer. The festival acts may change, but the weather never seems to from one festival to the next .... my mate Kenny will no doubt describe the weather (i.e. non stop rain), in that typical Edinburgh manner, as 'Mixed'.

Edinburgh Has 'Mixed' Weather

Ah well, despite all this, I am looking forward to my week tremendously, and will not be in any fit state to post again until next Friday.

Friday 9 August 2013

15 Minutes Of Extra Fame

Andy Warhol once famously said in 1968 that "In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes." ....

Warhol Having The Last Laugh With Jagger and Yorick
Warhol Having The Last Laugh With Jagger and Yorick
 
well it seems that the '15 minutes' he had in his lifetime wasn't long enough for him .... as his Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh, broadcast a live webcam feed from his grave there, to mark what would have been the artist's 85th birthday on Tuesday the 6th of August 2013 ...
 

Hero To Traitor In One Move

Is it just me or is everyone who into sport / football (a modern opiate of the masses, if ever there was one) ......

Club Loyalty - Easily Demonstrated - Easily Faked
Club Loyalty - Easily Demonstrated - Easily Faked

.... not thoroughly fed up of the names Gareth Bale, Wayne Rooney, and Luis Suarez?

Opium Of The Masses

"Religion is the opium of the people" said Communism's philosopher Karl Marx (German original, "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes"), and the Communists spent 70 years trying to throttle the Orthodox religion to death across much of Eastern Europe, to prove that the Bolshevik revolution was a historical imperative.

Many Ex-Communists Now Attend Church
Many Ex-Communists Now Attend Church

Which makes what has happened in the old Soviet Blocks since the fall of the communist regimes somewhat ironic ..... religion has boomed. In Russia millions, including the ex communist leaders of the state such as President Putin, regularly attend masses on national religious days such as Easter Sunday.

No Big Surprise

According to press reports, Tamerlan Tsarnaev one of the Boston Bombers (the dead one), was a subscriber to publications espousing ‘white supremacy’ and ‘government conspiracy theories’ …. Why this is any sort of surprise is beyond me.

As far as I can see, any sort of extremist will find succour in other extreme groups ideas. The Far Right nationalist groups and those Far Left internationalist groups are very close to each other in methods, aims and ideas … just from different angles so to speak.

Political Circles

For example Adolf Hitler welcomed converts from the communist party saying “There is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separates us from it”, so he allowed converts from Communist parties to join the Nazi party because  ‘they didn’t have so far to leap', whereas he mistrusted the liberal middle-cases.  So the fact that a couple of self-styled radical Jihadists would be influenced by far right US conspiracy groups can hardly be a surprise.

  • The US far right believe that 9/11 was a government plot and that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was also a government conspiracy.
  • Apparently reading about Hitler's views on German Aryan supremacy Tsarnaev commented that "Hitler had a point".
Both these ideas are not unpopular in the Muslim world:

  1. If 9/11 was a secret US government conspiracy or plot, then obviously Muslims were innocent and the ‘War on Terror’ illegal. In fact it would amount to a blood libel against Muslims (oddly like the one believed by many anti Jewish propagandists in the Muslim worlds and beyond e.g. Hitler).
  2. Hitler’s book Mein Kampf is sold openly in the Muslim world where it’s something of a slow burning best seller in Bangladesh and Palestine. Its anti Jewish thoughts (and Hitler’s attempts to enact those thoughts) make it a popular work with those who share that belief.

So why it should be any kind of surprise that a white Chechen Jihadist who hated the US for its pro Israeli stance, would not find succour in the writings of those who agreed that the US government was in conspiracy to defame Muslims, or that Hitler’s views on the supremacy of Aryans over the Jews wouldn’t also evoke some agreement from him, is the mystery that only PC multiculturalists can answer.

Friday 2 August 2013

Taking Culture To The People

It seems that Shakespeare's Globe Theatre Company is a group on a mission:

Firstly to take his play Hamlet to every nation on earth (including the Vatican), and others not known for their love of the West, or even their love of the theatre - including some which have never before seen a professional production of a Shakespeare play. I am talking about countries like North Korea and Afghanistan (not confirmed as venue but do able).

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre Company
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre Company

Apparently the aim is to knock off 200 countries in a two year cycle starting in 2014 and ending 23 April 2016 - with the aim of covering the 450th anniversary of the playwright's birth next April and the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death in 2016.
 

Dopey Drug Policy

That man strikes again ....  President Jose Mujica, possibly the coolest politician on the planet, wins yet another vote from this blog for daring to think the unthinkable and starting the process of making  pot in Uruguay legal.

He's thought it through, decided that the current drug laws for Marijuana, only make criminals of the users, billionaires out of the smugglers, and have corrupted the state, and has asked his parliament to pass a law that would allow the state to assume "the control and regulation of the importation, exportation, plantation, cultivation, the harvest, the production, the acquisition, the storage, the commercialisation and the distribution of cannabis and its by-products".

President Jose Mujica - Doesn't Smoke Joints

Buyers would have to be registered on a database and be over the age of 18. They would be able to buy up to 40g (1.4oz) per month in specially licensed pharmacies or grow up to six plants at home.

Good on him, I don't take these kind of drugs anymore (just the legal ones), but may have risked it when younger .... its something most of us grow out of. There would have to be safeguards against driving or flying etc while out of their heads (like alcohol in fact), but other than that, why not try another way?

Portugal is trying something similar right now with some success .... but we in the Anglo Saxon world sure as hell ain't winning the current war on drugs as we are right now .....

Supping With Shaitans Children

US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl holds something of an unwanted unique distinction. He is the only US soldier held by the Taliban (well the Haqqani network, an insurgent group affiliated with the Taliban), in Afghanistan.

Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl
Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl with Taliban Captor.

The circumstances surrounding his capture are somewhat hazy, certainly his claim to have been captured whilst out on patrol are not considered really credible, and haven’t been backed by up his unit, but what he was doing off base has never been fully established. And of course as John Lindh (aka John 'Walker' Lindh) showed, not all Americans fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq have been prisoners of the Taliban.

John 'Walker' Lindh
John 'Walker' Lindh

Sergeant Bergdahlis father has grown a bottom chin beard and taught himself Pashtun in an effort to try and appeal to the captors directly …. One of his lines was very Churchill like .... "I will not leave you on the battlefield. Your country will not leave you on the battlefield. You are not forgotten.”

As far as anyone can tell he’s still ‘alive’ (although I won’t say ‘well’), his captors have occasionally posted videos and posted letters to his parents on his behalf.

Of course they do this so that they can ratchet up the most emotional pressure on the US via his parents, friends, and family, who would do almost anything to get him back. This is all a bit like Gilad Shalit, the Israeli sergeant who was kidnapped by Hamas, and who was exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners (including some convicted of multiple murders and carrying out terror attacks against Israeli civilians - according to Israeli government sources, the prisoners released were collectively responsible for 569 Israeli deaths), a decision that many Israeli's saw as surrender. Oddly it also says that just one Israeli soldier, is worth over a thousand Palestinians .... the terrorists don't always get the more subtle messages.

And so the fact that only a couple of weeks ago the Taliban offered a prisoner exchange, to build confidence between the US and Taliban negotiating teams is probably only the first step (certainly the US are unlikely to offer anything like the number of prisoners that the Israeli's did) – currently the offer is said to be for the release of five Taliban from Guantanamo Bay.

It's a controversial idea, and the US may not be politically able to accept even this idea … time will tell, but in the meantime the pressure on the US to do something about their missing soldier will only grow more intense as the date for their withdrawal approaches.

President Obama may yet have to face up to supping with the devils children .... 
 
Update:  

He was released on May 31, 2014, as part of a prisoner exchange for five high ranking Taliban members. On October 16, 2017, he entered a guilty plea on charges of desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy to a military judge at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was sentenced to be dishonourably discharged, reduced in rank to private and fined $1,000 per month from his pay for ten months, with no prison time .... oddly, despite pleading guilty to desertion, he has appealed against being dishonourably discharged. He need a security detail to protect him from his fellow soldiers after his release by the Taliban.

The Path To Servitude

It says a lot about the UK's possible path to Dhimmitude, that two US bloggers who campaign against the creeping Islamisation of the world (but particularly against it in the USA), are banned from entering the country by the UK's Home Office.

Mr Spencer - 'Jihad Watch' and Ms Geller - 'Atlas Shrugs' blog.
Mr Spencer - 'Jihad Watch' and Ms Geller - 'Atlas Shrugs' blog.

The reasons given are that that their presence "is not conducive to the public good" and that "we condemn all those whose behaviours and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form", and therefore they could be excluded by the home secretary.
 

Followers

Blog Archive

Its a Pucking World

Its a Pucking World
Dreamberry Wine Cover

About Me

My photo
A middle aged orange male ... So 'un' PC it's not true....