Almost Gone

In another of our occasional disappearing world series ..... the dying art of the last of the traditional Spanish castanet makers is being reported on a BBC report.

I say 'traditional', because of course like most things these days, there are factory makers (usually in China), who make them for the tourist trade .... anyone familiar with Spain (or even the Spanish speaking resorts across South America), will have seen the glossy castanets hanging from any tourist knick-knack shop.

Spanish Castanets - Big In The 60's

They lasted five minutes if they were ever used, but normally are the bedrock of the souvenirs hanging in many a working class kitchen, where they act as mute reminders of a holiday on the Costa Del Sol.

Still, its another small part of the world that is fast disappearing, and when gone, they are likely to be gone forever.

Tut Tut ... A Royal Cock Up

Tut Tut another right royal cock up .... it appears that a local plumber or handymen from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo were asked to do a quick fix after Tutankhamun's beard fell off during a bit of mishandling ..... the made a real mess of it. And they wonder why some of don't think we should just 'hand back' the Elgin Marbles, and other antiquities to the third world .... that includes Greece in this context ....  (See this post for other instances of letting the cultural barbarians loose on world culture).

Because of PC considerations we can no longer just say out loud, what we all know to be true about the complete inability of these countries to look after world heritage items, but let us at least be honest, and admit that most museum pieces would be looted or destroyed (as happened in Iraq), if the inhabitants of most of these countries could get away with it .... if we want to preserve anything from the past, its best not handed over to the care of those who value nothing much about it except its tourist value.

Local Plumber Fixes Tutankhamun

No doubt the dummies in Egypt think that the Westerners will come a look at any old broken crap that they stick in a box ... and no doubt they are right.
   
You have to wonder how backward the employees are at the Museum in Cairo, if they thought a bit of plumbers silicon would be a good way to 'fix' Tutankhamun ... disgraceful. Have they never heard of joiners PVC glue .... white, dries clear, and would have re fixed the wooden dowels in a jiffy!

When all that's left if a pile of kindling and wood rot, will the 'multi-culturalists' finally admit they were wrong?

I very much doubt it because they are ignorant as the nonsense ideas they espouse.

Korean Kontrasts

If anything ever showed the sheer decline of North Korea relative to the rest of the world and its capitalist twin, its these NASA images .... where the The Hermit Kingdom lives up to the name.
 

Korean Kontrasts .... From Space.

 
..... it has no power, so only its capital is even partially lit at night These differences are illustrated in per capita power consumption in the two countries, with the South at 10,162 kilowatt hours, and the North at 739 kilowatt hours.

Korean Contrasts Since 1953.

Since they split as one nation and ended fighting in 1953, one state has gone forward and the other state gone backwards .... the GDP per capita figures tell you all you need to know as to why North Korea has not lights at night, and never will while the madmen are in charge.

It has to be said though, that an acquaintance who is a stargazer, said he would love to go there because of its lack of ambient light .... but he's not so keen on the idea of the lack of ambient heating though.

Scum Of The Earth

Asim Qureshi describes himself as a research director and human rights activist (see what you ushered in Tony Blair?), for a 'prisoner rights group', CAGE, which in its own words is a Muslim organisation,  carrying out 'cutting edge research, regularly documenting abuses of due process in the context of the War on terror' .... helping the 'survivors of the war on terror', and 'challenging the dominant narrative of suspect communities and the perceived threat of terrorism'. which seems to mean that they are not terribly keen on anyone tackling Muslim terrorism .... but hey, just Google them, and make up your own minds.

Qureshi And A 'Beautiful Young Man'
 .... I'd Call Him Something Else.

He is also according to the counter extremism think tank, the Quilliam Foundation, not much more than a 'propagandist for the Islamist ideological narrative'.  While describing his dealings with human dirt bag Mohammed Emwazi aka 'Jihadi John' (the Kuwaiti born British passport holder and barbaric killer of many people in ISIS territory), he called him 'a beautiful young man'.

The Naming Of Things

Why things are named just so, can, for food and drinks be a social history lesson, as they often carry names linked to the then famous, and now not so famous people of that era ..... nothing brings home the fleeting nature of fame, than the fact that many of these foods or drinks have out lived the fame of those they were named after, or in one famous case, denied they were ever named after.
 

The 'Baby Ruth' ... Not Named After Who You Think.

Here's a few I thought of, but there are no doubt countless others .... many even more obscure than these.

 

Political Media Bias In Britain

Nobody with any brains has ever really claimed that the lefties in the TV media are truly unbiased, and we have seen examples of the fact that the Labour Party has long ago infiltrated it.

Could This Man Ever Have Been Impartial?

Gordon Brown for example, was a reporter for Scottish TV current affairs. .... he can hardly have been unbiased, and others in the party have been caught campaigning for them, while still exerting control over media coverage.

BBC Bear, Bombs Opposition

The BBC is obviously intending to up the ratings war stakes, by taking the fight directly to the right-wing opposition. The RAF intercepted this plane, known as a Bear Bomber, in the English Channel, possibly heading out across the Atlantic to 1211, Avenue of the Americas (aka the News Corp. Building).
 

BBC Bear Bomber ....

That of course is Fox TV News headquarters in the USA ..... and the MOD issued this picture. So how come I am claiming that this the BBC using its allies planes to attack?

Well look more carefully at the tail fin ....

BBC Bear Bomber Tail Fin Markings

I know there is some prosaic reason, why a MOD picture of a Russian Bear Bomber has 'BBC' on the tail fin, but I still prefer my explanation.

The Apocalypse Clock Is Ticking Louder

2050 is the watershed for much of what's going to happen next .... We have mentioned this date in a number of posts as being the moment when the way we live will change for ever.

The Clock Is At Ten To 2050

The latest forecast to make the headlines is that after 2050, the South-west and the Central Plains of the USA would likely shift to drought conditions that exceed even the great drought epochs of the so-called "Medieval Climate Anomaly" in the 12th and 13th Centuries.

 

Mobile Annoyances

One of life's more modern annoyances are ring tones.

We have all experienced that modern phenomena of the 'mobile' phone that is now immobile, and that is seemingly now permanently attached to its umbilical cord of a charger, and lying on an office desk. Its owner never takes it with them, so when the owners of these devices are away, the phone rings through its cycle until the caller gives up, only to retry 30 seconds or less later.

Modern Mobile Annoyances

But its not actually the ring tones themselves, which are often more embarrassing than annoying (speaking as a man who has had the Darth Vader tune as his phone ring for 20 yrs or so .... eek), but the other incidental alarm, keypad and alert tones, that some people seem determined to keep, or are too lazy to remove.

Recently I was sat next to a woman who was standing in the train aisles and who was texting repeated messages. She had her phone on full volume, and every press of the keypad produced a loud clicking sound. As she was a double finger speed texter, this meant that all around her were subjected to a loud cacophony of clicks and clacks. These were only interrupted by brief pauses while she awaited responses from her mails, and these were announced by a loud message alert, following which, another loud burst of the cacophony of clicks and clacks would ensue.

This lasted for about 30 minutes before either she ran out of people to text, or replies to respond to. It was, incredibly annoying and made book reading almost impossible unless wearing ear plugs ..... who would have guessed 30 yrs ago that I would be writing about this as an aggravation?

How the world has changed in my lifetime ......

Re-animated Kremlin

The two Russian artists who were arrested after throwing holy water and shouting "rise up and leave" at the mausoleum containing Vladimir Lenin's tomb were taking a chance ....

Raising Lenin

... I don't mean from their inevitable spell in a Russian police cell or worse prison, where defending themselves from night crawlers of a different kind may take on a new meaning for them.

 

Too Sexy For My Shirt

The PC Fascist Feminist trolls of the 'Guardianista' left were out in force, as once again they found an innocent victim and tore into him for not following their standards of 'acceptable behaviour'.

Never Mind The Science, Just Criticise The Shirt.

I felt sick, as a fine scientist was forced into a public recantation of a 'wrong', he had inadvertently performed against the women and sisters, who had been offended by ...... his shirt.

 

Sanitary Creed

Not too long ago we reported on Alfredo Moser, the bottle light inventor of Brazil, whose fame deserved greater recognition, as he fundamentally improved the lot of the poor in may parts of the globe .....

Arunachalam Muruganantham - Third World Hero

.... well here's another name to add to that unsung hall of fame. Arunachalam Muruganantham, and that's a real mouthful in any language, is probably not known to you or many others (although he has had some publicity recently), but he has also come up with something that has fundamentally improved the lives of millions of women in the third world.

 

Wee Went Potty Over This Idea

The non story of last year had to be when the students at the University of East Anglia were urged to save water by taking their first 'wee of the day', while having their morning shower.

The 'Go With The Flow' campaign was urged by two of the students, who said that if the 15,000 students carried out this idea, they would save enough water to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool 26 times over. Its also been calculated that if an average flush costs 2p, then each participants could save £7.30 per year,by spending their first morning penny in the shower.

Nationally, if we all carried this out, then there could be significant savings of 720 million litres

annually if everybody in the UK took part, and financially.

• £42.5m per year if population of East Anglia backed campaign.
• £125k per year if all the UEA students accepted challenge. 

Peeing In The Shower ~ Its The Green Yellow Way

Now I have a few thoughts on this ....

Firstly; Since when did male (and probably some female) students ever not pee in the shower? I suspect that the savings might turn out to be a lot less than the organisers suspect for the student body.

Secondly; Given the fact that many of the future generation of students may be avoiding public showers, its perhaps for the best. What if this practise caught on for public second or third showers!

Finally; the other idea for students and the rest of us to save water and money, was sharing a shower .... something student couples already do ..... but .....  

..... I don't see how these two ideas are compatible, unless you quickly want to be a single student again.

Smelly Students

According to a study, more than half of secondary school boys and two-thirds of girls never shower after physical education (PE) lessons. Questioning children produced the surprising finding that showering routinely after PE is extremely rare. I say surprising because when I was in that age group, showering was not an optional decision ... the games master made everyone go under the water.

The only exceptions were medical conditions e.g. bandages or those odd looking boys whose body shapes were, well how shall I put this, 'feminine', and displayed an androgynous presentation of gender. Boys being boys, these were bullied, so excusing them the shower was a mercy ... there was one such lad in our games lessons and he had a torrid time of it.

The report apparently gives no reason why going to the showers caused children to hold back in lessons and thus gain no benefit from the physical exercise. The researchers believe that showering may be a hindrance towards children getting fitter but couldn't reach a conclusion as to what the problem is.

But where angels fear to tread and all that .....  I suggest that it could be cultural. So many children in the UK come from immigrant families, that religious modesty, which prohibits exposing naked bodies to anyone, could be the reason (or a major factor) why showering levels have dropped off.

PC policies in schools facilitate this by saying its multi-cultural for one group to not shower, and then the rot sets in and the lazy, or just dirty amongst the main population follow suit, and pretty soon it becomes the majority not showering ... the report is likely to be just as PC as well i.e. it makes no distinction between attitudes to showering in different ethnicities or religions ... Many Muslims refuse to strip in front of others, even of the same sex (its one of the signs of those who are adopting fundamentalist attitudes).

The Bane Of Many Teachers .....

So a lot of smelly students wander about (or students who make no physical effort during games, which is what the report fears).

Just a theory I know, but I do know that if big Arther Seddon was still a games master now, showering rates amongst boys would still be 100%  .... cultural issues or not. 

Selfish Hostages

There has been an increasing phenomena of westerners heading to war-zones as 'humanitarian' aid workers, where Jihadist's are operating, and knowing full well that they are primary targets for kidnap, ransom or beheading. They put themselves deliberately in harms way, with no regard for the welfare of the others working with them .... their self justifying raison d'être seems to be, that if they don't do it, no Muslims will aid other Muslims. So its up to some Westerner to do it, or perhaps they do it just to gain admiration from family and friends back home ... who knows?  

In any event, these people should be considered a menace to both us and the people they are 'helping', and the question we should be asking is, when European 'humanitarian workers' go to war zones where they are known targets for hostage taking, should we risk lives, or pay huge ransoms, to 'save them'?

Are they not in fact just a little bit mentally unstable, or simply 'attention seekers', going to a place like Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan, knowing that the IS, or Taliban, or Al Queda (e.g. al-Nusra Front), want to capture them, parade them on propaganda video's, and then either get huge ransoms for their lives, or kill them?

If a person willingly puts themselves in harms way, then surely they should willingly accept the consequences of their action. After all, they are actually very selfishly putting their co-aid workers at greater risk of being killed, when the nasty men inevitably come a calling (a fact which apparently bothers them little, or not at all), and often their capture comes with a butchers bill of dead security men, and the other native helpers.

But instead of accepting that they are paying the price for their own stupidity, they come on TV and 'plead for their lives', demanding that 'someone do something', or spouting Islamist propaganda on behalf of their captors.

When and if a ransom is paid (and seemingly only the USA and UK regularly resist doing so ~ although prisoner swaps for soldiers by the US, have sullied that record), by the governments, such as those paid by France and Italy, who have done so on a number of occasions ... the money paid over is used to finance the killings of hundreds, or thousands, of locals. So any good the captives could remotely claim they did by going to the trouble spot, is far outweighed by the blood on their hands, created by their capture and eventual ransoming, or even troops killed in failed rescue attempts.

Are These 'Humanitarians' Or 'Selfish Egoists'?

The latest of these selfish people, were *two Japanese hostages for whom an unprecedented $200m (£130m) was being demanded (Japan has paid $6m (£4m) to the Red Army Faction in the past), and two Italian women, Greta Ramelli, 20, and Vanessa Marzullo, 21, who were 'freed' by the al-Nusra Front after being held captive for 6 months in Syria. What were they doing risking their lives there? Why were they going to the IS captured province of Aleppo? .... Apparently its all covered by the term doing 'humanitarian projects' for the aid group 'Horryaty' (a small medical charity).

Yet as as non-Muslims, and Europeans to boot, they were obviously prime targets, so why go? Needless to say, they were captured and on Jihadi videos, faster than you can shout Allahu Akbar, and putting the pressure on the Italian government.

"We are in big danger and we could be killed," said one of the women, speaking in English. "The government and its militaries are responsible [for] our lives."

What about their responsibility? What about the lives of the local aid workers they risked by going? How many were killed when they were kidnapped? .... its not being reported, but you can bet there was a human blood price.

In the end they were mysteriously freed, but as usual there is a story that a ransom worth up to $15m (£9.9m) was paid via Qatari middlemen. How many bullets bombs and deaths will $15m buy? Well probably only the Syrians will know, but you can bet your live that it will be a lot more than two Italian 'do gooders' ever saved by doing doing 'humanitarian projects'.

The Italian government should at least charge the two women and their families for the full cost of negotiations, ransom and air fare of their release. Maybe that will finally bring home to the do gooders that that there is a price to pay for their reckless behaviours.

*Sadly, both the Japanese hostages were brutally murdered, because the Japanese don't pay ransoms ... unlike the French and Italians who do.

They Don't Do Contradiction Do They?

Prior to the horrific murder of the Jordanian Air Force pilot Lt Kasasbeh by IS, about a month before they released the video of his immolation in a cage (and their barbarity plumbed new depths), his father had issued a message “I call on the brothers from ISIL to consider him their son and their colleague in prayer to treat him well and consider him as their son and a guest on this, the anniversary of the birth of the Prophet Mohammad.”

Their response was about we expect from the animals ..... his murder, duly filmed and put out on to the web, for its sicko fans in the West .... these self proclaimed 'warriors' covered their faces, against being identified. 

Lt Kasasbeh - Had Been Beaten and Humiliated Before His Death

But following it..... Jordan vowed an "earth-shattering" response ... which was the hanging of two old terrorists, who had been on death row for so many years that they had not been in IS.They have resumed bombings in Syria (But the UAE has ceased).

Now, Safi al-Kasasbeh, the pilot's father, has called for the Jordanian government to do "more than just executing prisoners". The blood of his son was the blood of the nation, he said, "and the blood of the nation must be avenged. I call for [ISIL] to be eliminated completely." .... which is a little bit different from his message of a week or so ago, when he wanted them to be his 'brothers from ISIL'.

Strangely, a leading authority on Sunni Islam also condemned the killing, but not the killing itself, just the method of it, by saying the burning to death of Lt Kasasbeh violated Islam's prohibition on the mutilation of bodies .... so no problem with killing him, just the burning that was wrong then?

Oh and to top it off, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar University in Egypt, also called for the "killing, crucifixion of IS terrorists" .... so atrocity for atrocity, and barbarism for barbarism, in yet another orgy of violent celebration by the death cult. This is know as "Qisas" in Sharia Law, which, in its broadest terms, is the law of equal retaliation which is the Islamic equivalent of "Lex Talionis", or the doctrine of an eye for an eye.

There is an inherent contradiction inside this religion, between its constant use of violence to settle every question, and its constant proclamation that its a religion of peace and that it worships a most merciful god .... but if the followers of Islam haven't spotted it after 1400 years, then  I guess they never will.

And to those apologists within and without Islam, who say its not the religion, but just a few bad apples   ..... Islamic State (ISIL), Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Mujahideen, Hamas, Hizballah, Laskar-e-toiba, Al-Shabab, Haqqani network, al-nusrah, Taliban, Ansar Allah, Ansar al-Sharia ....... the list just goes on and on, with more heads sprouting up than the legendary hydra.

But that is too many bad apples from just one orchard, to dismiss as anachronisms, and means there's something fundamentally wrong with the orchard they grow in.