Journey To The Earths Core ... Kinda

Scientists are hoping that they can retrieve the deepest types of rock ever extracted, from beneath the seabed ..... now only a scientist could be excited about the samples that they hope to return from the mantle under the Earths crust, and that are thought predominantly to be peridotites, which comprise magnesium-rich, silicon-poor minerals such as olivine and pyroxene (see, boring).

But the distance that they hope to drill down to are awesome .... some 2km under the ocean floor, which will be a record for a water drilling. They have drilled deeper wells on the land, but as the crust is up to 30 - 60 km thick there, they have not reached the mantle, so that's why the coast off Costa Rica, has been chosen.

The ship from which this will be done is the giant Japanese Chikyu vessel, which is capable of carrying 10km of drilling pipes and even so they will need to find new drilling techniques and technologies technologies, such as new types of drill bit to make coring into the mantle manageable.

We are a very clever species, but one can't help thinking that we may eventually become the cleverest extinct species on the planet fairly soon ..... the age of the 'Intelligent Ape' may be coming to an end.

Impossible Dream?

Nuhu Ribadu is a man who most of us have never heard of, but he may become one of the most important men in African history ..... but only if two things happen to come about.

1. He has to turn out to be what no one before him has has proved to be ..... an honest Nigerian politician, and
2. He has to win the Presidents Office in the 9 April elections.

Now these are 'Big Ifs' in Nigeria ..... but imagine if Black Africa's largest state suddenly became less corrupt, and its politicians started working for the common good and not their own enrichment?

Africa could be transformed ..... in case you are wondering, Mr Ribadu is the former head of Nigeria's anti-fraud police, and he bought more than a thousand cases against politicians and tycoons accused of corruption.

I won't hold my breath, but as a regular critic of African politics and the corruption that blights the continent, I would be churlish not to support any possible hope for a change. So lets hope that 'Two Big Ifs'come true!

Democracy Hijacked - The Rise Of 'Professional' Protesters

In the UK in the last thirty years or so, there has a developed  a sub group of "protesters", who turn up at every "peaceful demonstration" and commit acts of vandalism, violence and mayhem. They rarely, if ever have any affiliation to the cause being marched for, or against, and usually come from one section of  our society ....... the clues are often in the banners that they parade under - many of which are produced by the same organisation that has been producing these banners since the 1980's (and probably before that).

Banners Produced By Communists

These thugs, are often identifiable to anyone who attends one or two of these events ..... they may describe themselves as 'anti-establishment', and be officially 'unemployed' (or 'students'), and living an 'alternative" lifestyle (meaning that they claim state benefits for food and rent, deal 'a bit of weed', sell fringe 'hippie' produce at all the 'summer music festivals" etc etc etc), and turn up at all major marches on subsidised mini buses, where they can practice 'anarchist' politics i.e. try to maim a police officer, vandalise properties such as McDonalds, or Banks, and set fire to anything that makes a lot of smoke ...... anyone who has been near these demo's will instantly recognise the types.

The modus operandi of these thugs, is usually to organise via a network of small groups or cells, under the umbrella of any 'organising' group such as the TUC. These days it will be via social web based networks, but there is probably still use of texts and personal contacts, in order to evade the police and other security operatives, as they believe that they are under surveillance with police infiltrators ..... which is probably true.

Any demonstration where these groups turns up invariably ends in violence, with much physical and human damage, but more importantly the cause of the original march is effectively 'hijacked', with the press discussing only the violence and the police 'tactics' and ignoring the merits (or otherwise) of the demonstration.

Yesterdays TUC run Anti-Cuts march, ended in much the same way as all the other 'peaceful' protests of the last thirty years ..... Trafalgar Square was daubed in graffiti and paint with slogans including 'Tory scum' and 'fight back' scrawled on the statues, shop windows daubed or smashed, and red paint hurled at the 2012 Olympic countdown clock .... many businesses were closed, people frightened, and damage done to properties. All of which has to be paid for by the tax payers ..... so more public money we can't afford (but the TUC and Labour Party think money grows on trees), so more job cuts to pay for the damage.

Public Statues Defaced

By a strange 'coincidence', its those sorts of abusive terms that appear on the front of the Socialist Workers newspaper ....

Headlines Match Graffiti

Of course, that's just, as I said, a 'coincidence' ............... and these black clad 'peaceful protester' are just exercising their right to peaceful protest .....

Anarchist Thugs Smash Windows

Of course, they are either too stupid, or don't care that, by their violence they destroy any chance that the protesters have of forcing the Government of the day to back down ..... a recent example of this is the students march against tuition fee rises ..... the same groups who hijacked the TUC march, also hijacked the student march, with much the same result .....

..... pictures of the violence went around the world, a student went to prison for throwing a fire extinguisher from a building roof, and the students haven't felt able to march again. Personally I would make the organisers of any protest take out insurance to pay for damages and business losses attached to the protest and rally. If they can't get insurance, and still proceed with the the march, then the organisers can be sued for the damages.

A Culture Of Denial

This Blog has remarked in the past on the supine acceptance by women commentators in the UK, of what creeping Islamization and the introduction of Sharia, in any form, could mean for the women of the UK, and indeed Europe.

The "Wimmin" of the Left, who don't hold back in their vilification of any perceived form of "Sexism" by "White Males" ... say nothing, while some men who are largely of Pakistani descent, carry out a series of activities (under the guise of "freedom of speech, multiculturalism, and 'Human rights') ... that are contrary to, and  in many instances working actively against, all the value systems that have given Western women, the most freedom, rights and safety, of any women, at any time in human history.

So it was with no great surprise that I read and then followed, the fallout from the story of the mass sexual assault and beating, of US female reporter Lara Logan in Egypt's Tahrir square.

The first thing that struck me, was the silence, the incredible long silence. Instead of a condemnation of the attack on one of their own, by the men of a culture, that has a history of violence to, and subjugation of, women and their rights, and which is on the rise in the UK and elsewhere, there was simply embarrassed silence. There was no radio or TV debate on how or why this could happen in any culture, nor whether the attempts to appease this same culture in the West, needs to be reconsidered.

Now it should be pointed out that sexual harassment of women in public places, is not solely the preserve of Muslim / Arab societies - and indeed it wasn't so very long ago that it was an issue in the West, albeit, it was not usually at the level of anything more than propositioning women, or verbal comments ....

• Public sexual harassment known as "eve teasing" in India.
• In the US, 'Reclaim the Night' campaign started in the 1970s with marches against sexual violence and pornography.
• In Japan, groping on the subway has been a problem for many years.
• In Pakistan, and other Asian countries, Christian and Hindu girls are occasionally kidnapped, raped and then forced to marry their Muslim rapist by Sharia courts.
• Many African conflicts are characterised by mass rape of women as a part of the armed struggles.

However the mass sexual assault on reporter Lara Logan, and other incidents in that part of the world, have highlighted the particularly public, nasty, violent and gang rape element of any such events in the Islamic world.

The other thing that followed this terrible event, and that was a surprise, was the vitriol poured down on the head of Ms Logan by commentators of the Left and Right, who fearful of any Muslim response to criticism of their culture, and of the violence to women that it engenders, turned instead  on the messenger of their discomfort.

At first, there was the attempt to De-Muslimise the event by suggesting that all men everywhere are sexual predators and therefore by inference that mass. two hundred strong gangs of rapists are capable of springing up in every culture ...

Then there was the suggestion that being a woman reporter was somehow "asking for it" in many parts of the world and therefore, the risk of being publicly gang raped and beaten to death was just one of the risks a woman took ..... just like the risk of being shot, or tortured.

But when that didn't run, they simply attacked Ms Logan (in a move which is remarkably similar, in a symbolic way, to an an 'honour killing') for causing the attack by 'being there'. The attack took the form of  a media onslaught, rife with the typical blame-the-victim accusations (ironically like the rape victim as instigator in Muslim honor killings), many from other journalists and commentators.

Perhaps the worst of these attacks was led by left-wing journalist Nir Rosen, who had also worked in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, and who started a series of tweets which began with: "[She] was probably just groped like thousands of other women", continued with: "Lara had to outdo Anderson" [referring to the attack on CNN's reporter Anderson Cooper and his crew the day before], and ended with: "Jesus Christ, at a moment when she is going to become a martyr and glorified we should at least remember her role as a major warmonger."

He tried to back-track, as the exact nature of the attack on her, and the nastiness of his tweet attack, went viral, but denials that he really understood the nature of the attack on her rang as a bit hollow, as he had posted his initial tweet on the CBS statement about her injuries, and the details of the attack. He then reverted to the "some of my best friends are ....." type of defence with the statement that he was a "staunch supporter of women's rights". He was eventually forced him to resign from his position at New York University.

But it wasn't just from the 'Left' that Logan was attacked .... Ultra-conservative columnist, and female commentator Debbie Schlussel stated that: "Lara Logan was among the chief cheerleaders of this 'revolution' by animals. Now she knows what Islamic revolution is really all about." She then said that it was "So sad, too bad, Lara. No-one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows ... How fitting that Lara Logan was 'liberated' by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the 'liberation'. Hope you're enjoying the revolution, Lara! Alhamdilllullah [praise Allah]."

I find it strange and sad, that fear of reprisals if making negative comments about one foreign culture, makes us attack those who should be defended by our own one ..... strange days.

The Thirteen MP's

Thirteen Names: John Baron, Graham Allen, Ronnie Campbell, Jeremy Corbyn, Barry Gardiner, Roger Godsiff, John McDonnell, Linda Riordan, Dennis Skinner, Mike Wood, Caroline Lucas, Mark Durkan, Margaret Ritchie ...... nothing unusual in them, so what have these thirteen names got in common?

Well, these are the thirteen Members of the British Parliament who voted against the imposition of a "No Fly Zone" over Libya, and presumably therefore to allow Gaddafi and his mercenaries / militia's to march into Benghazi and exact a terrible retribution (I don't think any right minded person would deny that the torture cells would be in full swing once Gaddafi got a firm grip).

None of these MP's is accountable to the public for their parliamentary votes, because UK Democracy isn't actually very democratic in reality, and they are only accountable once every 4/5 years or so, to a public that has short memories and tends to vote tribally. This contrasts to the US, where Congressmen and Senators are often held accountable by pressure groups e.g. the "Tea Party" or interest other groups.

Who Knows Why 13 UK MP's Voted
Against Stopping This Tyrant?



So the only way to determine what made thirteen UK MP's vote to sit back and allow Gaddafi's mercenaries a free rein in East Libya, is to look at their records as posted on a Public Website:

Conservative: John Baron (Basildon & Billericay)

Ex Army then Merchant Banker and apparently consistently 'anti-war' ..... John Baron was a member of Iain Duncan Smith's Frontbench team, but resigned in March 2003 in protest at Duncan Smith's support of the Iraq War. So although his motivations are not entirely clear, it is at least a consistent stance.

Labour: Graham Allen (Nottingham North)

Ex Warehouse Worker and Labour Party Researcher whose alleged radicalism prevented his ministerial career rising further than  Labour government whip. He was at the forefront of a successful campaign to recall Parliament to discuss Iraq in September 2002, attempting to organise an unofficial recall if the House would not formally sit. His constituency, has one of the lowest rates of educational attainment in the country, sending the fewest number of children to university of any constituency, and has high unemployment.

Labour: Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley)

Ex Coal Miner and an outspoken 'Socialist'. He has often voted against the government on issues such as the Iraq War. Campbell 'accidentally supported' the first 'National Fetish Day', due apparently to him not understanding the meaning of the word "Fetish". Campbell said in an interview, "I thought a fetish was a worry, like worrying about backing the right horse." When the government nationalised Northern Rock in 2008, Campbell declared it the 'People's Bank' and opened an account ... In May 2009, during the MPs expenses scandal, Campbell agreed to give back over £6,000 he had claimed for furnishings in his London home.

Labour: Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North)

Considered to be one of the most 'left-wing' or socialist members of the Labour Party and is in the Socialist Campaign Group. He has a weekly column in The Morning Star and is a long-time supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), for whom he is one of its three Vice-Chairs. He was fiercely opposed to the Iraq War and has spoken at many anti-war rallies in Britain and abroad. He is an elected member of the Stop the War Coalition steering committee.

Labour: Barry Gardiner (Brent North)

He worked as a senior partner in shipping insurance and arbitration for the ten years, before his election to parliament. He accused Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown of "vacillation, loss of international credibility and timorous political manoeuvres that the public cannot understand" and has been described by Andrew Roth in The Guardian as "One of the best educated and most internationally experienced MPs" .... its not clear why he has voted against stopping Gaddafi.

Labour: Roger Godsiff (Birmingham Hall Green)

He was a bank clerk for five years from 1965, before becoming  a political officer from 1970 with a banking staff 'trades union' until his election to Parliament in 1992 ... In October 2006, Godsiff was one of 12 Labour MPs to back a call for an inquiry into the Iraq War. He also rebelled against the government in November 2005 on legislation permitting the detention of terrorist suspects for 90 days without trial and his constituency has a large Muslim population and the anti Iraq war "Respect Party" were his chief opponents in the last election. Ahh, that probably explains a lot ... 

Labour: John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington)

Trades Union and Council politics until he entered Parliament in 1997. He voted against government policies such as the 2003 Iraq war, and in October 2006, McDonnell was one of 12 Labour MPs to call for an inquiry into the Iraq War. In May 2003, he praised the IRA, saying, "It's about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA." He later said that the, "deaths of innocent civilians in IRA attacks is a real tragedy, but it was as a result of British occupation in Ireland. Because of the bravery of the IRA and people like Bobby Sands we now have a peace process"...... enough said. There's a word for him that comes to mind ...

Labour: Linda Riordan (Halifax)

She worked as private secretary for the previous Halifax MP, and she was selected as the Labour candidate from an all-women shortlist ..... legalised sexism. No 'previous' on Iraq, but not been a MP long enough .... but is also a member of the Socialist Campaign Group and has often rebelled against the Party leadership.

Labour: Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

Full time politician and known for his 'left-wing' views -  On taking his seat, he undertook publicly to stand down from Parliament at the age of 65 (therefore in 1997), just as he would have retired had he remained as a miner; this was so that he would not be 'taking another man's job' .....four elections later he's still an MP. He is also a member of the Socialist Campaign Group and voted in 2003, against the Iraq War; he later rebelled against the party line when he voted against government policy to allow terror suspects to be detained without trial for 90 days. In March 2007, Skinner with 88 other Labour MPs also voted against government policy to renew the Trident Nuclear Missile System.

Labour: Mike Wood (Batley & Spen)

He was a probation officer and social worker from 1965 to 1997 before becoming an MP and he is a member of the left-wing Socialist Campaign Group. On 31 October 2006, Wood was one of 12 Labour MPs to calls for an inquiry into the Iraq War.

Green Party: Caroline Lucas (Brighton Pavilion)

Began her career as an activist in the anti-nuclear movement with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and has espoused pretty much every 'green' and animal welfare issue since. Worked full time for Oxfam before Parliament in 2010.

SDLP: Mark Durkan (Foyle)

Student organiser, then working for John Hume as his Westminster Assistant ... then mainstream politician .... no record of 'anti-war' voting on his Wiki listing.

SDLP: Margaret Ritchie (Down South)

Parliamentary assistant to Eddie McGrady MP from 1987 to 2003 .... then MP. Despite the SDLP's opposition to "double-jobbing", Ritchie currently retains her seat in the Assembly as well as her seat in the House of Commons .... say one thing, do another..... no record of 'anti-war' voting on her Wiki listing.

The Right Stuff

By a nice chance this post ties in with the one below. "The Right Stuff" in the post title was the term used in the early NASA program to refer to what was needed to get on the space pilots program, which by coincidence was code named the "The Mercury Seven". The Mercury Seven were Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton.

It was also the title of a book by Tom Wolfe about the U.S. manned space program and a 1983 film based on the book ..... However, the term could easily be coined for the soviet Cosmonauts of the same era, who often had very primitive technology to work with, and yet for long period were the leaders in the space race..... it was Fifty years ago when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, when in a metal cannonball, 2m (6ft 6in) across, its centre hollowed out to - just about - allow a man to fit inside, he orbited the Earth for 108 minutes before landing.

The Capsule came down on land not the sea .....

Even in a better picture, its hard to credit what the first man in space went up in.

If you ask me, they were all made of "The Right Stuff" whichever side of the cold war divide they were on .....

Mercury Rising

In another of those space stories that never cease to amaze me, NASA's Messenger Probe has arrived at Mercury and thus become the first probe to do so. The spacecraft is now some 46 million km (29 million miles) from the Sun, and about 155 million km (96 million miles) from Earth.

How mind blowing is that and what will it find?

Mercury's proximity to the Sun means exposed equator surfaces can reach more than 600C; and yet there may be water-ice at the poles in craters that are in permanent shadow. Mercury also retains a magnetic field, something which is absent on Venus and Mars.

If only we could find away to really travel the Solar System, and the Galaxy to see for ourselves ... maybe to quote the immortal words *"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain .... Time to die."

Ah well, I will just have to feed off photo's and artists impressions .....


Sunrise On Mercury

* Rutger Hauer as the Replicant Roy Batty in Ridley Scott's Cult Film 'Blade Runner'.

Better Late Than Never

It appears that the United Nations was forced by world opinion, in to taking action against Gaddafi's militia and mercenary forces just in time.

Gaddafi's Militia Fighters

According to reports some of his militia and mercenaries had actually got in to the suburbs of Benghazi when the no combat zones were agreed up on by the Security Council, and that's possibly why the Russians and Chinese just abstained.

Only One News Story ...........

Japan Devastated By Tsunami ..... Thousands Killed  ..... Whole Towns Wiped Out ..... Nuclear Disaster Feared ..... ...

There is only one news story this week. I make no apologies for just the one post this weekend ..... I am just not in the mood to look at other subjects.

If ever proof were needed in the truth the old adages of a picture being worth a thousand words, and every picture telling a story, its surely these from Japan  ......

Sadly, these Tsunami are well known in this part of the world, as this famous print illustrates ....

Libya - The Next Bloody Act

Sadly, a week has passed by and the domino effect that appeared to be rolling across Muslim North Africa and the Middle East, appears to have been halted in Libya, where Gaddafi has managed to hang on to about half of the territory, two thirds of the population, and the majority of the economic levers


Gadaffi And His Female Bodyguards

 ..... In a command economy everything goes through Tripoli.

"The King's Speech" or "Blustering Bertie" ?

The 2010 Oscar winner for best film was "The King's Speech" ..... which shows how George VI overcame his speech impediment. I have not watched the film, so I am not commenting on that.

It was the story in the film that reminded me that my 'Nana' (Grandmother) used to do a stuttering impression when I was a little kid ... it used to make my mother and her sister laugh. When I asked who it was, they said it was the previous monarch, King George VI who they called by a less than flattering nickname.

Now try as I might I can't find it on the Internet ... it was something like "Stuttering Sam" or "Stuttering Bertie", or "Blustering Bertie", but possibly something else. The point was that it wasn't a name that they had made up, but one commonly used by working class people during the Kings lifetime, but which wasn't used in the press. I don't think it was meant particularly unkindly but wasn't especially affectionate either and mocked his impediment .... very un PC ....  :)

Voting Lemmings

Once again the voters of a 'heartland' parliamentary constituency have exposed the deep flaw in our system. Despite thirteen years of a Labour Party Government that left our country "bankrupt", and a previous Labour MP who is in prison because of expenses fraud, the Muppet's in the Barnsley Central constituency, proudly gave the Labour Party a ringing endorsement with a slightly increased majority of 11,771.

If Labour can increase its majority in seats like this after virtually destroying the country, then what hope for democracy? The political parties can virtually put up a brick in their "heartlands", and it will get elected, so ingrained is the tribal voting pattern in many places.


The New Harriet Harman selection policies
threw up standardised Labour candidate.  

Talking of "heartlands" ..... "We always vote labour here ... their for us working people" is the refrain you will hear in many total wasteland "Labour" council housing estates across the North of the UK ..... not once do they wonder why the hell holes they live in, where in fact, 'working people' are as rare as snowdrops in hell, are still unchanged after decades of "voting labour" and long spells of Labour Government?

Could it be that Labour MP's must keep these "heartland" constituencies like this, because if they fixed them, these 'brick voters' might start to vote with some recognition of which party has actually tried to meet their growing aspirations, rather than just for some political party who throw more public money at the welfare benefit system?