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TALLRITE BLOG You can write to me at blog2-at-tallrite-dot-com |
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“Ill-informed and
objectionable”;
“You poisonous, bigoted, ignorant, verbose little wa*ker.” (except I'm not little - 1.97m) Reader comments |
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Myspace Clocks, Video Clocks, Flash Clocks, Fun Clocks at WishAFriend.com |
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ISSUE #214 - July 2011 [328+982=1310] |
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Daily poll on President Obama’s
popularity; date is
on the charts.
(Click to get the latest version.)
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Change of modus operandi. As of June 2011, I am posting blogs as and when I write them (ie like every other blogger does) instead of storing them up for one big bang. They will however continue to be grouped together per month for archiving purposes. |
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Flotilla Nbr 2 - Some Thoughts - 8th July 2011
The Gaza Flotilla is a pointless exercise designed
solely The Flotilla stories of 2010 and 2011 begin with Hamas which runs Gaza. Without Hamas there would be no blockade of Gaza and hence no excuse for Western liberal posturing with Mediterranean boat cruises. The name “Hamas” is the acronym of an Arabic expression meaning “Islamic Resistance Movement”. An offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas is a terrorist organization, sponsored by Iran, which is sworn in its charter to the destruction of Israel – “Israel will exist only until Islam will obliterate it”. Every action of Hamas since winning power in Gaza in 2005 has been directed at this objective, the thousands of rockets fired indiscriminately into Israel being only the most visible. Israel therefore has no option but to resist this by every means. This includes imposing an air-land-and-sea arms embargo, which means all imports must be intercepted to ensure no armaments are included. It's not watertight since plenty of such matériel is smuggled in anyway, whether hidden amongst permitted cargos or smuggled in via the tunnels under the Rafah crossing with Egypt. In any case there is no siege in Gaza. Since last year, 250 trucks a day have been bringing in supplies of food and medicines and building materials from Israel. The border with Egypt is moreover now open (jeopardising the livelihood of many tunnel smugglers). The markets and bazaars are flourishing with fresh produce. Of course some people live in poverty just as they do everywhere else in the Middle East but this is mainly due to the statist economic policies of Hamas. Meanwhile there are also several luxury restaurants, two huge marble-clad shopping malls, a brand new five-star hotel just opened. Gaza is the world’s only concentration camp where refugees drive around in Mercedes cars. Its life expectancy at 73.4 years is higher than that in Turkey, Egypt, Iran or Pakistan. But if people do want to send aid to Gaza, they can send it to Israel or to Egypt where it can be checked for weapons and then trucked in. Because this is much cheaper than a flotilla, they can send more aid for the same money. But the Gazans say they don’t need aid anyway; there is no humanitarian crisis; Gaza is a much more agreeable place for its inhabitants than, for example, North Korea. What they want is to be able to reach wider markets than Gaza alone by exporting their produce – fruit, vegetables, textiles etc. Perhaps the flotilla should offer to export this for them. [That was a joke - Ed] Meantime, of course, Israel has learnt from its public-relations disaster of last year when they shot nine activists who were using iron bars to attack commandos as they abseiled down from helicopters on to Mavi Mamara. So Israel has been engaged in a remarkably successful campaign of non-violent “lawfare”, which has been having a real chilling effect on the Flotilla. An Israeli law firm has been:
The flotillistas should be praising the Israelis for adopting such non-violent methods of resistance to the flotilla. But I doubt they will see it that way. The whole exercise has been shambolic and pointless – unless the point is to provoke another violent confrontation in order to titillate the world’s media and terrorist-lovers. Happily it has now collapsed in ignominy.
Arctic Warming - 8th July 2011 Yes, the Arctic is warming up - time to panic This report in the Washington Post illustrates that the Arctic is indeed in terminal decline thanks to global warming. Those damn oil companies and the carbon dioxide their customers emit have a lot to answer for.
Wait a minute, I have to apologize. I neglected to mention that the report was actually issued on 2nd November 1922. As reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post - 89 years ago. Today, it is verified by snopes.
Wee Rory McIlroy
and his Mum's Washing Machine - 9th July
2011 This boy has always been champion material. Rory McIlroy, just 22, record-smashing winner of the 2011 US Open Golf Competition, the world's premier such event, has been working towards this pinnacle of achievement since a very early age ...
As the interviewer Gerry Kelly concludes way back in 1998, “the Americans have Tiger Woods; we [in Northern Ireland] have young Rory and believe you me this boy can hit a ball”. Prescient or what? Hattip: Slugger O'Toole
Issue 214’s Comments to Cyberspace
- - - - - O B A M A - - - - - Quote: “I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory’, because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.”
President
Obama, the one-time Harvard law
“professor”,
Hint: It was signed on behalf of Japan by Quote: “What the f-ck was that? ... Never again [sic]! Do you understand me? Never again [sic]!”
President
Obama is enraged at being
publicly lectured to and corrected
And is clearly not altogether au-fait with the historical resonance Quote: “President Obama has never presented to the American people the magnitude of the climate crisis. He has not defended the science against the ongoing withering and dishonest attacks. Nor has he provided a presidential venue for the scientific community ... to bring the reality of the science before the public.” As the interviewer Gerry Kelly concludes, “the Americans have Tiger Woods; we [in Northern Ireland] have young Rory and believe you me this boy can hit a ball”. Prescient or what? Hattip: Slugger O'Toole
Ex-VP Al Gore and the world's first global warming billionaire
Oh, and “Gore declined an Associated Press request for an interview.”
I find it odd to be vaguely on the same side as Obama! Quote: “To get our nation back on track, Barack Obama must be a one-term president.”
Republican presidential aspirant Michelle
Bachman - - - - - U S A - - - - - Quote: “Children raised by a single mother comprise about 70% of juvenile murderers, delinquents, teenaged mothers, drug abusers, dropouts, suicides and runaways. Imagine an America with 70% of these social disorders and you will see what liberals' destruction of marriage has wrought ... 85% of mothers who kill their children through neglect are single mothers. ”
Anne Coulter, glamorous US polemical columnist,
Quote: “It wasn´t Arnie´s fault”
Arnold Schwarzenegger's former housekeeper Mildred Baena Quote: “Government should not tell you what to do unless there’s a compelling public purpose.”
New York's billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg
explains his view that Quote: “The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress, and in the American body politic writ large, to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”
Robert Gates, America's Defense Secretary,
After 66 years, the US is getting a bit fed up
I agree. - - - - - - N E W Z E A L A N D - - - - - Quote: “Why do they take the most sick leave? Women do, in general. Why? Because once a month, they have sick problems - not all of them, but some do ... They have children that they have to take leave of therefore their productivity ... [it is] not their fault. It may be that they have not got it sorted with their partners where the partners take more responsibility for what happens outside work.”
Alasdair Thompson, CEO of New Zealand's Employers and
Manufacturers Association, The blunt truth is unacceptable and must never be uttered. - - - - I S L A M - - - - - Quote: “Now the good news is that it's also legal to be critical about Islam, to speak publicly in a critical way about Islam and this is something that we need because the Islamisation of our societies is a major problem and a threat to our freedom and I'm allowed to say so.”
Geert Wilders upon his acquittal from charges of
hatred (or something) Quote: “When I want a sex-slave, I go to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her.”
Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini, a popular Muslim preacher,
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| See the Archive and Blogroll at top left and right, for your convenience |
The
American-flagged boat, the sycophantically-named “Audacity of Hope”
(illustrated), pulled out when it was reminded that no US vessel may
enter a military exclusion zone without Executive approval. The Greek
Navy prevented it from sailing from Parama and
Now, for a little [Light Relief]
“”
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Gift Idea |
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Good to report that as at
FREED AT LAST, |
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BLOGROLL
Atlantic Blog (defunct) Blog-Irish (defunct)
Jihad
Religion
Iona Institute
Leisure
Blog Directory
My Columns in the
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What I've recently
But it's not
entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs
to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as See detailed review +++++
BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded it through adventurous acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term technical sustainability. Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in Russia. The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that had become poisonous and incompetent. However the book is gravely compromised by a litany of over 40 technical and stupid errors that display the author's ignorance and carelessness. It would be better to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying. As for BP, only a wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history. Note: I wrote
my own reports on Macondo +++++
A horrific account of:
More details on my blog here. +++++
After recounting a childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen, Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on Germany in 1939. From then until the Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror. After a wretched journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless garrison. Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in 1941, he is, successively,
Chronically ill, distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life. Only in his late 80s is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this unputdownable book. There are very few first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical document. +++++
This is a rattling good tale of the web of corruption within which the American president and his cronies operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP. With 75 page of notes to back up - in best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife. Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett, Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book. ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine it is. +++++
It is really just a collation of amusing little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour and situations. For example:
The book has no real message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and try to look for simple rather than complex solutions. And with a final anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in its tracks. Weird. ++++++
It's chapters are organised around provocative questions such as
It's central thesis is that economic development continues to be impeded in different countries for different historical reasons, even when the original rationale for those impediments no longer obtains. For instance:
The author writes in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to digest. However it would benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide natural break-points for the reader. +++++
The author was a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to harass Japanese lines of command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of India. Irwin is admirably yet brutally frank, in his descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness. He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved authority of the British. The book amounts to a very human and exhilarating tale. Oh, and Irwin describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF Brennan. +++++ Other books here |
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After
48
crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are,
deservedly,
England get the Silver,
No-one can argue with
Over the competition, |
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