A Very Sad Day..............Claude Choules R.I.P.

The world's last known combat veteran of World War I, Claude Choules, has died in Australia aged 110.

Known to his comrades as Chuckles, British-born Mr Choules joined the Royal Navy at 15 and went on to serve on HMS Revenge.

He moved to Australia in the 1920s and served in the military until 1956.

Mr Choules, who had been married to his wife Ethel for 76 years, was reported to have died in his sleep at a nursing home in his adopted city of Perth.

He is survived by three children and 11 grandchildren. His wife died three years ago.

Mr Choules' 84-year-old daughter, Daphne Edinger, told the Associated Press news agency: "We all loved him. It's going to be sad to think of him not being here any longer, but that's the way things go."

Born in Pershore, Worcestershire, in March 1901, Mr Choules tried to enlist in the Army at the outbreak of WWI to join his elder brothers who were fighting, but was told he was too young.

He lied about his age to become a Royal Navy rating, joining the battleship HMS Revenge on which he saw action in the North Sea aged 17.

He witnessed the surrender of the German fleet in the Firth of Forth in November 1918, then the scuttling of the fleet at Scapa Flow.

Mr Choules remembered WWI as a "tough" life, marked by occasional moments of extreme danger.

After the war he served as a peacekeeper in the Black Sea and in 1926 was posted as an instructor to Flinders Naval Depot, near Melbourne. It was on the passenger liner to Australia that he met his future wife.

He transferred to the Royal Australian Navy and after a brief spell in the reserves rejoined as a Chief Petty Officer in 1932.

During World War II he was chief demolition officer for the western half of Australia. It would have been his responsibility to blow up the key strategic harbour of Fremantle, near Perth, if Japan had invaded.

Mr Choules joined the Naval Dockyard Police after finishing his service.

But despite his military record, Mr Choules became a pacifist. He was known to have disagreed with the celebration of Australia's most important war memorial holiday, Anzac Day, and refused to march in the annual commemoration parades.

He took a creative writing course at the age of 80 and recorded his memoirs for his family. They formed the basis of the autobiography, The Last of the Last, which was published in 2009.

The last three WWI veterans living in Britain - Bill Stone, Henry Allingham and Harry Patch - all died in 2009.

Another Briton, Florence Green - who turned 110 in February and was a waitress in the Women's Royal Air Force - is now thought to be the world's last known surviving service member of WWI. An American veteran, Frank Buckles, died earlier this year.


We are about to loose he last thread of contact to this terrible war. The sheer barbaric nature of it at times was beyond comprehension.
This is a chapter in humanhistory that should never be forgotten !!

Osama Bin Laden.........................What is the Truth !!

Yes I did a post yesterday............in fact below this 1 on my disbelief of the US story on Osama Bin Laden.

I state again............I am certain the man is dead........however he was not killed in a Special Forces raid on Sunday. I think he died quite some time ago.

I feel the story of how his demise came about to be fictitious .......... not that he is dead.

Anyway in the Graph comes this ditty.......Officials said on Monday that bin Laden's body had initially been identified using facial recognition technology on a photograph wired back to Washington from Abbottabad, before a DNA test was carried out that proved with "99.9 per cent certainty" that it was the al-Qaeda leader.

But yesterday a US congressman cast doubt on whether the DNA tests had yet been carried out. Representative Ron Paul, a Republican presidential candidate and a doctor, said: "I understand he was killed Sunday afternoon and by Sunday nine o’clock it was announced that the President would speak and they had DNA proof of the individual. I didn't know they could do DNA that quickly. Then they came back and said it was facial features and we'll get the results of the DNA later".
it takes 24-72 hours to get a DNA specimen result. With a high quality sample, it is possible to get a preliminary result in as little as six hours, but you still have to get the sample to the lab ... which was where?

And, in any case, they are only making a comparison with the sister's DNA. That just proves a familial relationship. It is not proof – or anything like it - of identity. Thus, we are now told the reliance was on facial recognition technology, using a photograph "wired back" to Washington from Abbottabad. Was that before or after his face was blown away with two head shots? Does anybody realise how unreliable facial recognition technology is, and how high the error rate is, even under optimal conditions? Says Wikipedia:
Other conditions where face recognition does not work well include poor lighting, sunglasses, long hair, or other objects partially covering the subject's face, and low resolution images. Another serious disadvantage is that many systems are less effective if facial expressions vary. Even a big smile can render the system less effective.
Would a blank stare and a grimace through having your head shot off, as well as being dead, also have a marginal effect? At least, whoever they shot probably wasn't smiling.

Then, let's not talk about the lighting conditions, or whether they took the photograph square on. Of course, they could have published the photograph(s) on which they relied ... that would settle any doubts. They could have sent copies of the photographs to independent universities, which specialise in face recognition technology, for independent corroboration. But all this they seem strangely reluctant to do so.

However, joining in this theatre of the absurd, we now have The Times tell us that Osama bin Laden’s 12-year-old daughter has reportedly told Pakistani investigators that her father was captured alive by US Special Forces before being shot dead in front of his family. Presumably, it was after that, with the famous head shots, that they then took the photograph for facial recognition purposes.

Well, at least if there are any doubts, the US have custody of the body, so they can repeat the tests. Oh woops! They've dumped the body in the Arabian Sea - or so I am told by a man, who knows another man, who knows a man who told him. He does not work in Area 51 by the way.

But it is a pity that a body has been deep-sixed. However, even if the evidence was now recoverable, it would not be conclusive. Would anybody like to tell me why the story so far is not a pile of horse manure?




Thanks to Richard!

Bin Laden Dead..........No I dont Believe You !

When the Bolivian Army killed Che Guevara in October 1967, they displayed his body as proof that he was indeed dead. The Bolivians in fact staged the body so that ordinary people—and the world’s journalists—could get a good view of the corpse, up close and personal.



The above photograph, grisly though it may be, is one of hundred taken of Che’s body. It—along with the pictures and testimony of hundreds of journalists and ordinary people who saw his corpse—puts to rest any notion that Guevara somehow survived—which of course was the whole point: The Bolivian Army wanted there to be no doubts that El Che was really dead.

My readers know I don’t truck in conspiracy theories. I believe Elvis is dead, I believe Diana was an accident, I believe 9/11 was a terrorist incident, and I believe Neil Armstrong did in fact land on the moon.

But I don’t believe Osama Bin Laden was killed over the weekend.

The story goes that Bin Laden was tracked down to a multi-storey compound in the middle of the Pakistani hinterlands, where he was shot twice in the head by American Special Forces. These soldiers then took his body, and buried it at sea.

That’s the story. But I don’t buy it.

Just to be clear, I do not believe Bin Laden is still alive. I believe what a lot of intelligence analysts have been privately saying for a long time now: That Bin Laden died of kidney failure in December 2001, and that he was buried by his followers in an unmarked grave in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

After all, it was a known fact that Bin Laden had severe kidney problems. People who spoke with him in 2000 and 2001 said how sick he looked, and described symptoms that matched kidney failure. From these accounts, the international intelligence community was pretty much in agreement that he had some sort of severe kidney problems. Without dialysis or a kidney transplant—neither which would have been available to him in the aftermath of 9/11—he wouldn’t have much chance of long term survival.

From 2002 onward, there hasn’t been a single undisputed Bin Laden sighting—even though he was supposed to be the most hunted man on earth. Furthermore, in Bin Laden’s videotaped rants that were periodically released, he never referred to current events. The only times he did refer to current events was on some of the 30 audio tapes he allegedly released over the last ten years—“allegedly” because many of these audio tapes are in dispute, as to whether they actually were made by Bin Laden or not.

Moreover—and most tellingly—the American military’s efforts to capture Bin Laden “dead or alive” in W.’s ridiculous phrase dropped to almost nothing after 2003. Many people from both the Left and the Right wondered at this dismissal of Bin Laden as a viable threat by the defense and intelligence communities—his dismissal even as someone to worry about, or even take seriously.

Bizarre: That the mastermind of the most egregious terrorist attack in U.S. history—the worst mass killing of American citizens on U.S. soil since the Civil War, as I understand it—was treated so la-di-da by the American defense and intelligence communities.

Yet after 2003, for the next eight years, the American military offered up a mere token effort to find him “dead or alive”. An attitude that makes absolutely no sense at all..............................unless you already know that the man is dead, and that his body will likely never be found.

This was my impression: The American defense and intelligence agencies knew he was dead, and knew they would never likely find his body. In fact a couple of intelligence types I know privately confirmed this line of thinking.

But then Monday morning, I wake up to hear about Osama Bin Laden’s death.

He was killed not in some cave, as he was famous for inhabiting, but rather in a multi-storey compound in the Pakistani countryside—a compound that stuck out like a sore thumb—a compound not one kilometer away from a Pakistani military base.

Some U.S. Special Forces stormed the compound, and shot Osama Bin Laden dead.

This man was the most feared and terrible terrorist in U.S. history—and rather than make every effort to capture him alive, and thereby bring him to justice for the whole world to see, Bin Laden was shot in the head. Twice—as if for good measure.

Then, supposedly following Islamic tradition that the dead must be buried within 24 hours, Osama Bin Laden was given a hurry-up burial at sea—which explicitly goes against Islamic tradition.

Other Muslims killed by the Americans and their allies were not buried immediately. For instance, the sons of Saddam Hussein. Their corpses were held for a while, in order to confirm that they were indeed the intended targets.

But Osama Bin Laden? Killed and buried at sea in record time—even though there hadn’t been a confirmed sighting of him in something like eleven years.

Pictures of Bin Laden’s corpse? (apology again)



Well sort of..........please see above. Many a photoshop theory about the lack of skills of the CIA in that dept....do your own comparison.....and that is from me, Mr no conspiracy theory.

Nor have there been any pictures of this “burial at sea”. There’ve been plenty of video of where Bin Laden was killed—but none (so far as above shows) of the actual corpse.

In fact aside from the word of the American defense and intelligence establishment, there hasn’t been a shred of evidence that they did in fact kill him.

All we have is the official word of the American defense and intelligence establishments.

Mm-hmm. Because they’ve always been so trustworthy.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a very interesting book called Blink. In it, he explained how experts often get a first-look reaction to something, a knee-jerk reaction that often as not turns out to be true. He gives as an example an art expert who took one look at a celebrated painting that was about to be sold—and declared it a hoax on the spot. The seller, buyer and art gallery handling the sale all said that the expert was wrong, that the painting was the real deal—until sophisticated authentication techniques revealed that in fact it was a forgery.

The second I heard about Osama Bin Laden’s death, my reaction was that it was bullshit.

The whole story smells: Where he was supposedly located; how he was shot twice in the head, rather than captured; how he was buried at sea; how there’s (so far) no picture of his corpse.

The American military might claim that they held on to bits of DNA samples of the corpse they say is Osama Bin Laden’s. They might claim that this is proof positive that he is dead. But as far as I’m concerned—and I’m a non-conspiracy, fairly skeptical sort—I’ll never believe them. A lab report is not the same as an actual corpse.

To insist: I do not for a second doubt that he is indeed dead. I just don’t believe that he was killed this past weekend. I believe that he died quite some time ago—years ago, in fact.

In my mind, whoever was killed this weekend was not Osama Bin Laden.

I am way outside the mainstream on this. The mainstream consensus in the USA is that this was a “great victory”. President Obama gave what amounted to a “Mission Accomplished” speech. People were celebrating outside the White House and on Times Square as if it were V-E Day. Prime Minister Cameron also hailed this news and takes about the phone call that awakened him from President Obama with the news.

(As an aside, I do have to point out how ugly it is to celebrate the killing of another human being. Because that is what we saw in New York and Washington: People cheering in the streets, celebrating a murder. It’s not only ugly, indeed, it is repulsive.)

But I don’t really see how this assassination is a “victory”. President Obama claims “Justice has been done”—but that’s simply not true.

Justice would have been served if he had been captured, flown to New York, and tried in a (civilian) court for the events of 9/11.

Extra-judicial assassination is not “justice”—it’s merely revenge, something that Christianity, the dominant morality of the United States, specifically rejects. Don’t believe me? Read Matthew 5:38, or more apropos, Luke 6:27. .......However dont tar me now as a religious nutter..........religion itself IMHO has been the cause of more pain an death in the world that any other subject.......I find religion a difficult subject to accept.

Someone might argue that, if what I think is true—that Bin Laden died years ago, and this is some big old hoax—then what would be the point of this hoax?

I have no idea. One can only speculate—and any such speculation will be pointless and endless, not to mention endlessly boring.

Perhaps—what with all this talk of “victory”—it might be that this was staged in order to give an excuse for rapid withdrawal not only from Afghanistan, but from Iraq as well. Perhaps this charade is an excuse to declare “victory” and thereby end the endless Global War On Terror. After all, the United States, The UK is going literally bankrupt—and a lot of the reason is because of its unsustainable military spending. Bin Laden’s “death” might give the perfect excuse for a sudden, rapid draw-down, in particular as the United States’ fiscal budget is about to tip over into insolvency.

But this is idle speculation on my part—buttressed by nothing but air.

The sad thing is, we’ll probably never know the truth—which is a pity. Had Bin Laden been shown to the world’s press—just like the Bolivian Army did with Che Guevara—there would be no doubts. Because when the Bolivian Army showed off Che Guevara‘s corpse, there were international cries of outrage at the “brutality” of parading his corpse around for all to see.

But not even that perennial fantasist Fidel Castro could deny the truth that El Che was indeed dead.

With Osama Bin Laden? We’ll never be really sure.






H/T To Mr Lira

William and Kate - alternative 'proposal' interview

Indeed.............quite a frank interview I thought !!!!

Oh FFS....AGAIN

My good friend Flick the Lick...........yes subtle I know,,,,, advised me of this little gem.

Of the back of my post here...........and the sheer stupidity of some people..........comes this !!!

Domestic dogs, cats, hamsters or budgerigars should be rebranded as “companion animals” while owners should be known as “human carers”, they insist.

Even terms such as wildlife are dismissed as insulting to the animals concerned – who should instead be known as “free-living”, the academics including an Oxford professor suggest.

The call comes from the editors of then Journal of Animal Ethics, a new academic publication devoted to the issue.


Do What ?????

Are you for real..........we cant call our pets..........pets.

So do we have to now go round and rename the Pet Shops "Companion Animal Shops"?

So I am not a responsible per owner ..........I am now a "Responsible Human Carer"

Guess what................bollocks!!!

Honestly read this here.

This country is literally mental !

And as for some Oxford professor who makes the claim...............get out you twat, go on, get outside and get a life.

Just try it..............there is a whole big wide world out there...........and even a space for a complete cretin such as you.


I said before this country is screwed............it emigration time !!

Oh for "F" Sake!

Christ. So Cameron said something vaguely in touch with the common parlance and now lefties are predictably going off the deep end.

See Here

The faux moral outrage is depressing. Anybody with half a sense of humour would have smiled and moved on. But no, already we're seeing articles about how the Prime Minister's (mis)use of an advertising catchphrase is a gateway to reverting to Victorian attitudes to women and how we can expect a rise in wifebeating and clitorectomies as a result.


She requires double bagged anyway !!!!!!!


Angela Eagle has predictably responded with a chippy article about how she's "been condescended to by better people than Cameron." Well, then, she should be fucking used to it by now and not fucking writing articles in the Guardian about how not upset she fucking is.

On the other side of the coin, I actually read someone criticising Ed Balls for not standing up for Yvette, when it was originally thought that Cameron might have been talking to her.

Christ Almighty. The economy is in the toilet, we're engaged in illegal wars, Libya is shaping up to be another Vietnam, we're taxed for more than half our income, social democrats are chipping away at the handful of freedoms we have left and all we can get exercised about is a fucking throwaway line from an advert.

I need to get out of this shithole. Enough is enough.


Hat tip to the Clown

ANZAC Day

ANZAC Day, 25 April, is probably Australia's most important national occasion. It marks the anniversary of the first major military operation fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.

Today Australians will reflect on the many different meanings of war and throughout the country Dawn Services will be observed.

The poem was sent by an Australian friend who shares my view there is no glory in war, only pain and grief. Dialogue is far more valuable. None of our recent leaders has had personal experience of war - more's the pity - because if they had been active participants they may not be so extravagant with the use of our armed forces.




THE FINAL INSPECTION

The soldier stood and faced God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass.

'Step forward now, you soldier,
How shall I deal with you ?
Have you always turned the other cheek ?
To My Church have you been true?'

The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
'No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns,
Can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.

But, I never took a penny,
That wasn't mine to keep...
Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God, forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears.

If you've a place for me here, Lord,
It needn't be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand.

There was a silence all around the throne,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the soldier waited quietly,
For the judgement of his God.

'Step forward now, you soldier,
You've borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell.'

Author Unknown





Text words and poem reposted from the lovely Subrosa with thanks!!

Subversion of Due Process: The Death of Dr. David Kelly

Yes I am still going on about it...............because he was murdered!

Because the Government at the time lied to us all.

Blair and his side kicks..........all lied.

David Kelly was a liability to the govenment of the day

See Here and Here
Suffice to say the issue wont go away.
However it no longer gets the air time it deserves.

To that end I will post the open letter sent to David Cameron 26/03/2011..........



Dear Prime Minister,


SUBVERSION OF DUE PROCESS AND INSUFFICIENCY OF INQUIRY IN THE INVESTIGATION INTO THE DEATH OF DR DAVID KELLY


When Lord Hutton reported on 28 January 2004, many said "whitewash”. The Hutton Report was indeed a "whitewash", not so much because Lord Hutton wrongly found the BBC and not the Government responsible for Dr Kelly's "suicide" but much more importantly because Lord Hutton failed adequately to address the cause of death itself and the manner of death. The invocation by Lord Falconer, in his role as Lord Chancellor, of Section 17a of the 1988 Coroners Act to replace the statutory inquest by a non-statutory ad hoc judicial inquiry was highly irregular, as was the Coroner’s decision not to re-open the inquest following Hutton’s report. Not only did Lord Falconer, in his role as Minister for Constitutional Affairs, commission the Hutton Inquiry and determine its very narrow remit but he also decided, in his role as Lord Chancellor, that it would be an adequate replacement for a statutory inquest, when it was clearly no such thing. Given all this meddling with due process of the law it is perhaps not surprising that the death itself was not properly investigated.

Thus, not only was the form of inquiry inappropriate but the inquiry itself was clearly insufficient. There can be little doubt now that Lord Hutton presided over a blatant insufficiency of inquiry and the evidence to support that view is overwhelming. Some of that evidence, but for practical reasons not all, has been presented to Dominic Grieve QC, the present Attorney General.

Lord Hutton's finding of suicide is clearly unsafe and may, especially given the extraordinary context of Dr Kelly's death, represent one of the gravest miscarriages of justice to occur in this country. Many people in our country have known to a greater or lesser degree that that was the case but it was left to a few doctors, and latterly one journalist, to pick up the pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle and to assemble a picture clear enough to present to the Attorney General. The doctors are requesting that an inquest be ordered through their lawyers, Frances Swaine and Merry Varney of the London law firm Leigh Day & Co. and Dr Michael Powers QC, in the form of a formal application to the Attorney General for his "fiat" to apply to the High Court to order an inquest as allowed under Section 13 of the 1988 Coroners Act.

Under Section 13 there are six reasons why the Attorney General may grant such "fiat". These are:

1) insufficiency of inquiry
2) irregularity of proceedings
3) rejection of evidence
4) new facts or evidence
5) fraud (in this context deception)
6) refusal or neglect to hold an inquest when one ought to be held


The doctors have provided abundant evidence to satisfy all six of these reasons; the Attorney General needs evidence of only one reason to grant his "fiat".

Further, the Attorney General is not required to satisfy himself that the verdict of suicide would change, only that it might change.

Accordingly, in September 2010, Leigh Day & Co. delivered a 34 page legal document called the Memorial to the Attorney General. On 28 February 2011, an Addendum to the Memorial was also provided to and at the request of the Attorney General. Both documents may be viewed in full on the BBC Online website. The doctors and Leigh Day & Co. have had sight of many other submissions to the Attorney General. It seems to the doctors and their lawyers that the case for an inquest is unanswerable.

It is surely in the public interest, and in the interests of justice, that an inquest into this death now takes place. The laws of this country, and indeed of Europe, require that the death of any British citizen dying in the manner in which Dr David Kelly is said to have died is investigated at an inquest, at which the Coroner possesses statutory powers. These include the power to hear evidence under oath, the power to subpoena witnesses, the power to have witnesses aggressively cross-examined and the power to call a jury. Lord Hutton possessed none of these powers, but the public was led to believe that Lord Hutton was better equipped to investigate Dr Kelly's death than was the Coroner. Further, Lord Hutton heard medical evidence for just one half of one day out of twenty four days of evidence, and found that Dr Kelly had committed suicide; no coroner in the land would have reached a suicide verdict on the evidence which Lord Hutton heard. The level of proof required for a coroner to reach a verdict of suicide is very high, since a suicide verdict closes the case for ever and automatically stops any murder investigation, in addition to permanently smearing the deceased (when he can no longer argue back) and his family. The Coroner is required to hear evidence which constitutes proof beyond reasonable doubt that the deceased killed himself and that he intended to kill himself, before he may return a verdict of suicide. Lord Hutton did not hear evidence which came near to satisfying that test.

We write to you asking that you endorse the request that an inquest be ordered. You will be aware that this important death, especially in the context in which it occurred, and the long subsequent fight for an inquest has been observed with mounting interest worldwide. Many will regard the response to the request for an inquest as a litmus test as to the good intentions and credibility of your government.

It is unfortunate that your government inherited this case from the preceding three governments, all of which did all they could to stop thenecessary inquest. But, now surely is the time to begin the attempt to restore the tarnished reputation of our country around the world by holding a full, frank and fearless inquest into Dr David Kelly's death, so that “the truth, pure and simple”, of what happened can finally be established “however complex, painful or unacceptable to whomsoever that truth may be” (Christopher Clarke QC, in his opening statement as Leading Counsel to the Saville “Bloody Sunday” Inquiry).

If an inquest is denied, despite all the evidence carefully provided to the Attorney General, there is a real and grave risk that your government will be seen as continuing, and being complicit in, an enormous conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Further, any “no” decision will be vigorously contested in the courts via judicial review by the doctors’ lawyers.

Finally, while the wishes of the family may be taken into account by the Coroner as to whether or not an inquest should be held, those wishes are not determinative in law. The Coroner's primary duty is to the deceased, not to the family of the deceased. Similarly, the Attorney General's primary duty, under Section 13 of the 1988 Coroners Act, is to the deceased.not to the family of the deceased. The Coroner speaks for the dead to protect the living.


This letter, addressed to you, is an open letter and it will be made available to the Press Association for onward publication.


Yours sincerely,

Dr Christopher Burns-Cox MD FRCP

Dr Stephen Frost BSc MB ChB

Dr Andrew Rouse MB BS MPH FFPHM



The truth will come out on this subject 1 day............however that will be once a certain ex-PM is long gone to his next life..........in fact that certain squeeky clean ex-PM will be taking rather a lot of secrets away with him no doubt.

Do i think Cameron will do anything..............NO. Because he is a spineless twat !!
The family have fromally requested this subject comes to an end........I respect that and as a result this is the last post on the subject. The pain of a loved ones name being harranged about like this is too much I suspect. Despite the fact the questions remain open.
Blair must be breathing easier now!!!!!!!!!

Do Leopards Ever Change Their Spots...............errrr No!

Menachem Begin was a terrorist and we should have hung him for his crimes at the time - as he deserved. But no, we miss our chance and like every bastard who puts on a suit and becomes a "revered international statesman" we're stuck being polite to him for a few decades.

This is what comes of it...as usual.



Israel secretly supplied arms and equipment to Argentina during the Falklands War due to Prime Minister Menachem Begin's personal hatred of the British, a new book discloses.


"He [Begin] hated the English above all; everyone had forgotten the British occupation, but not him" according to Lotersztain.

His colleague Jaime Weinstein agreed, saying: "He did all that was possible to help Argentina, selling her weapons during the Malvinas [the Argentine name for the Falklands] conflict." Israel needed a third party to help with the deal so that the British would not know that it was helping Argentina and this is where Peru, despite the fact that it had tried to broker a peace plan which Argentina rejected, came in.

Fine. That's one to remember when the chips are down next time in the Middle East.

My dad was put through the wringer on this wee island conflict, as a result I soooo look forward to all the Israel loving Brits to start banging on about how persecuted they are next time it kicks off..............feel free to email when it does and give me your thoughts.

Hat tip to The Eye

So is the law applied the same...............Don't think so !

I wrote a piece last November about an incident where a group you young Muslim chaps burned poppies infront of people commemoration Remembrance Sunday............as a mark of a protest against British troops involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Well the chief burner so to speak was up in court and well guess what....The moron who burned the poppies at the Remembrance Day service gets a £50 fine and outraged a nation.



Emdadur Choudhury



London Evening Standard wrote:- The Prime Minister told the Commons that a "stronger statement" should have been made to show public disgust at the man's action.
"I think to many of us, you look at something like that and feel that we should be making a stronger statement that the sort of behaviour is out of order and has no place in a tolerant country," he said.



Now a guy who burns a Koran in protest gets a 70 day prison sentence.


Cumberland News - A man who burned a copy of the Koran in Carlisle city centre was today jailed for 70 days.

Andrew Ryan, 32, of Summerhill, off London Road, was accompanied to Carlisle Magistrates' Court by supporters carrying a St George's Cross flag who were chanting "We love you England".


Ryan had pleaded guilty to racially aggravated harassment and theft of the Koran holy book from Carlisle Library at an earlier hearing.

Ok it wasn't his Koran, he stole/borrowed it from the library, however that normally involves just a fine not a custodial sentence, but 70 days for outraging Muslims whilst the moron who burned a poppy and outraged the nation gets only a £50 fine?


The word disproportionate seems to apply here. After all if some idiot artist can put on display a bible to be defaced and has nothing done to them. Then this guy should surely have expected the same, save I suppose that he didn't call it art.

I suspect Andrew Ryan will end up a hero in some quarters, despite the theft, I have to admit I don't like the idea of burning books, but I can see his motives, sadly though I now know the cost of freedom of expression and that's 70 days in jail.



Tips Hat to the Quiet Man