Voodoo Murders

In the past I have frequently attacked the members of Islamic societies such as Saudi Arabia, for believing in 'Witchcraft', and killing people for no crime at except upsetting their religious superstitions, so it would be wrong not to continue to point out when Christians, and other Non Muslims do exactly the same thing ......

Belief In Voodoo Is Strong In Brazil ....

.... I won't even try to publish the pictures as they are sickening.

 

Modesty Forbids

We have seen Iranians complaining that Western women's dress appearances are too rude for Iranian male religious sensibilities on a number of occasions, mostly around sports such as the Winter Olympics, and the World Cup. We have even seen them altering pictures that showed too much contact between an Iranian male, and the non Muslim widow of a family friend, when he offered the simple hand of comfort during her grieving.

However what I hadn't realised until recently, was that there is in fact apparently an entire industry in many arenas of the Iranian media for photo-shop experts, whose sole task is to carefully censor pictures of non Muslim women that have to be shown in the Iranian media, to make them look like Muslims ... or rather, to make them appear to conform to the dress codes of a Muslim woman.

Examples exposed by the press have ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous with the modest Michelle Obama getting the treatment .....

Mrs Obama Before and After the Censorship

Then there was the even more modest and matronly European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton who also offended their dress sensibilities.

Catherine Ashton Before and After Press Censorship

Oh and in case you were wondering how they deal with these issues on TV .... well they either just pan away from shots of Western women (and even their own females in the case of coverage of the country's successful female volleyball team, with complaints over the "un-Islamic" clothes worn by women, in the crowd of a tournament held in Sardinia .... although this probably means the non-muslim women), or they simply blur them out .... Mrs Ashton gets the treatment again.

Mrs Ashton Blurred From History ....

I don't think I really have to add a comment to all of this abnormal behaviour ..... there are almost times when I actually feel sorry for them to live in such a world and with such a sad world view of half of the human race  .... but only almost.

Jolly Tasty Drinkie

Globalisation's down-side can come in unexpected forms as the Chinese are discovering. They seem to  suffer from the French disease of 'language purity' (I understand that the Spanish try it was well via the Real Academia del Idioma), and are finding that in a world full of Anglo-Saxon 'English speakers' who wilfully pick up, create and drop words by the hundreds every year, its near impossible to stop these words invading the Chinese language as well.

So iPad and iTunes and YouTube (all brand names, rather than actual words), have invaded the language untouched by translations, whereas Coca Cola is 'tasty and jolly' in Chinese ... ironically many of the brand terms that are 'translated', are meaningless terms in English.

Jolly Tasty Drinkie!

In the long term, in any battle between a pictographic language and a phonetic language like English, there can only be one eventual winner. Where would English be without other people's words! - taxi, yacht, pyjama, mutton, orthodontist the list is endless ...including bamboo, Ketchup and tea. English wouldn't be the driving force that it is today if it hadn't embraced "foreign" words from just about everywhere.

In Wales, Welsh is force fed to the school population, despite it being all but dead, and they do the same nonsense with Gaelic in the Celtic fringes ... or in England, teaching French to the English. In the real world, Spanish (Americas), German (Europe) or Chinese (Trade) are the only viable alternatives to English, with "Ich bin ein Englander" (I am a monkey wrench) giving us shades of JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a doughnut).

Welcome to 'Globalisation' China ... you can't have your cake and eat it. Top economy, means global influences .... oh and good luck trying to export Chinese phrases or words nowadays, as you are only selling us our own inventions cheaper, not the brand new concepts that create new words.

Heart Of Darkness

James Hall, is a retired colonel and former UK military attaché to Nigeria, and was a UK military officer who has worked closely with the Nigerian military. 

 

Nigerian Army Troop Carrier

So when he gave the  BBC an interview about the hostage situation and Boko Haram, he should be listened to. Firstly he says they are stuck in a 'Catch-22 situation' when dealing with Boko Haram. 

The Price Of Freedom

The French are commemorating and acknowledging, the loss of lives caused by Allied bombings during the Second World War for the first time, during the D Day remembrances this week. The estimated death toll is around 57,000 French civilians (which some unkindly, and untruthfully have said was more than the French army casualties resisting the Germans), which is comparable to the 60,500, that the British lost as a result of Luftwaffe bombing over the same period.

I can almost feel the first stirrings of the legal aid lawyers in the UK, preparing the compensation claims against the British, Canadians and US governments, for carrying out what one commentator, Andrew Knapp, history professor at the UK's University of Reading, has described in the following terms: "It's fairly clear, that on the basis of the treaties we have signed now - not the treaties we had signed then - some of these raids would be eligible for the category of war crimes."

Le Havre - Bombed By Allies 1944

However I would suggest that not only did the allies have a right to bomb (under the conventions of the time), but that the casualty figures demonstrably show that they did take care greater care in their bombing of France than might have normally been the case .... partly because Winston Churchill worried that Anglo-French relations might be soured for decades if the bombing was wilful. See General de Gaulle to understand that worry. The actual figures, are that approx. 75,000 tonnes of German bombs were dropped on the UK (including Hitler's V missiles), during the war, while in France, it's around 518,000 tonnes dropped by the UK and USA while attacking German troops etc.

Now by my simple maths 60,500 / 75,000 = 0.81 civilian deaths per explosive tonne dropped in the UK, by the Germans, who definitely took no care whatsoever.

Whereas 57,000 / 518,000 = 0.11 deaths civilian per explosive tonne in France, from bombs dropped by the allies .... a ratio of nearly 8 times as few deaths caused by the allies per tonne of explosive.

The Price Of Freedom Was Not Cheap For France

However, its a funny thought, that if the second world war was fought today, France would be permanently an occupied country, as the Western powers wouldn't be able to bomb the Germans in France enough to invade under current rules of war .... that’s what PC politics, and Health and Safety concerns have done to us.