Something quite dramatic happened after 9/11. Not just the understandable anger that followed the terrorist atrocity, and the human desire for revenge. What also died on that tragic day was the reputation of the US media. Blinded by grief perhaps, the US media, the champion of free press the world over rolled over and bared its throat to the top dog, the President of the United States. Unlike most dogs, Bush then tore out its throat. In the build up to the war and during&n...
This week in Camodia, a judge heard the case of a woman accused of murdering her two nieces. When arrested she was found in possession of the gold earrings of one of her nieces. The prosecution argued that the woman had lured her two nieces into the jungle on a pretence of having a picnic, whereupon she murdered the young pair for the earrings. A novel twist on babes in the wood perhaps. In her defence, the Cambodian woman argued that while in the jungle, a demon spirit possessed...
President Musharraf of Pakistan has today called on religeous clerics to review of both the Blasphemy law and the strict Hudood law. The Hudood law covers crimes of adultery and rape. Under this law, a rape victim has to produce four witnesses in court to confirm her assault, otherwise she can be tried on charges of wilful adultery while the rapist goes free. Presumably a woman that has been gang-raped by ten men needs up to forty witnesses otherwise she has commited ten counts o...
As many commentators supsected before a bullet was fired the US never had an exit strategy for leaving Iraq. This was for the simple reason that they intended to stay. The stationing of US troops in Saudi that so affronted Osama were to be withdrawn and stationed instead in Iraq. The oil produced in the compliant, stable and grateful Iraq would pay for the war, feed the guzzling, obese US economy and reward handsomely those US construction companies that ha...
Dear all, Those that have read me in the past will know that I thoroughly disapprove of the poorly planned, immoral and criminally incompetent schoolboy adventure in Iraq. Sadly everything that I predicted has come to pass, as any half-witted poorly educated idiot with just enough brain cells to scrape over a very thin wafered water biscuit could see from the beginning. I have been furious at the systematic torture and murder of helpless detainees in US custody. I have been a...
In the first part of this series I examined how the deliberate disregard for the law in the US was directly responsible for the abuse, humiliation, torture and murder of helpless prisoners in its charge, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Guatanamo. I had originally decided to extend this theme to consider events away from Iraq to see how decisions mad by both the Bush administration and earlier governements had further undermined the US claim to moral legitmacy and its sta...
'Okay there General Fuckup.' 'Morning Mr.President sir!' 'At ease soldier, now what's all this ah hear about our boys in Eye-rack having a little well deserved R&R?' 'Uh, you probably mean the torturing sir' 'Torture General? What's that then Fuckup?' 'Uh, when we attach electrodes to someones genitals sir, or beat them to death, or make them wear womens panties.' 'Wearing womens panties eh General? That's torture? Ah kinda like to wear womens....' 'Er, that's perhaps as ...
The horrific photographs released over the last few days that have stunned the entire world mark a new depth to which the reputation of the US has sunk. With promises of more and worse evidence of systematic abuse, torture and murder to come , it is no exaggeration to say that the war which the US was always struggling to win has now irredeemably been lost.. As if this wasn't bad enough, with all the focus on these dreadful pictures of jubilant US soldiers revelling in their sick humili...
We're all stuck in a hierarchy where the strongest rules, right? Might is right, ignorance is strength and if you disagree I'll punch your lights out. For millennia people have lives in a subservient way bowing down to some superior or other. People need to be ruled, they cannot imagine a life without it, force is good. Violence protects, people respect violence - that's why we should all carry guns, the ultimate leveller. Now every noodle armed choirboy can be as violent as ...
In the post 'Vietnam and Iraq - a comparison, Daginol stated the following: 'Uh, do you even know why we're in Iraq ? Why we invaded? To remove Saddam Hussein. He's gone. Victory has long been achieved. The mission as accomplished a year ago . The US can't "lose " because we have Saddam in costody' I would like to quote the US president back to Daginol: When asked about his apparently premature 'Mission accomplished' speech of May 1st 2003, Bush replied...
'General Fuckup with the latest sitrep from Eye-rack Mr President Sir!' ‘Hey, Fuckup! Don’t stand on ceremony call me Chimp, everybody else does! Can’t think why. Eeeek! ‘Er, begging your pardon sir?’ ‘What’s that General? ‘Um, I thought you just thought you went, sorta, kinda, well Eeeeek! Sir begging your pardon sir!’ ‘What me? No sir! Have you got any bananas by the way General? ‘No, sir Mr.President, I have no bananas.’ ‘Right then, that’s okay, what ha...
Bluetooth is a way of getting computer devices to talk with each other over small distances using a short range radio frequency. Sounds complicated, but it really is simple to use. Basically, you simply turn on the blutooth 'radio' on say your hand held device, be it a palm pilot, mobile phone or perhaps if you're particularly sad, your portable printer. When another device in the area comes into range, a little icon pops up and with a simple click or tap of a stylus, the two ...
It is 1978. The cargo ship Munchen set sail to cross the Atlantic. Munchen was a state-of-the-art cargo ship. The December storms predicted when she set out to cross the Atlantic did not concern her German crew. The voyage was perfectly routine until at 3am on 12 December she sent out a garbled mayday message from the mid-Atlantic. Rescue attempts began immediately with over a hundred ships combing the ocean. The ship was never found. She went down with all 27 hands. An exhaustive...
April fools day used to be known as All Fool's day, but where did it come from and why is it celebrated? There are many theories, the preponderant one claiming that the day has its origins in the late sixteenth century, when the Gregorian calendar was reformed. The start of the New Year used to be April 1st, but this was shifted back to January 1st. The reforms were slow to catch on however, and some people still continued to celebrate the New Year on April 1st. The mo...
It sounds like a good excuse for a piss up, 19,000 people downing 16,000 litres of ale. Its the fifteenth annual wild-food festival at Hokitika, a small community perched on the West coast of the South Island of Aotearea. But apart from the copious amounts of ale being consumed, there is something more sinister to the menu than traditional wild fare of boar, rabbit, hare or deer. Wandering around the food stalls, I was unfortunate to have m...