DUFF & NONSENSE!

The latest smash hit movie!

Those rascals at 'IHTM' are at it again with their up to the minute reporting from Hollywood;

It’s IHateTheMedia.com’s Saturday Morning Obama Movie Matinee, bringing you some of the greatest films of all time. This week’s feature film is Liar, Liar starring Barack Hussein Obama in the title role.

Sit back, grab a bag of popcorn, and enjoy.

I particularly enjoyed seeing who was the 'Understudy' and 'Military Consultant'!

Do me a favour - PLEASE!

OK, OK, I know, so I'm acting like those people who hang around outside the supermarket muffled in coats and scarves rattling their charity tins, except, of course, that unlike them I am doing my rattling from the comfort of my study.  Even so, please, please, please, do me a favour and go here and watch the short film on Mercy Ships.  Remember that virtually everyone involved is unpaid and they do it on a voluntary basis in their own time.  Also, please be aware that you can double your and their money because one wealthy donor has promised to match all contributions received up to the 31st December to a total of £150,000.

So please, just click here and all you have to do is type in your name and address  and card details and if you are a UK tax-payer, tick the box.  If a fiver is all you can afford, then send it, every little helps and in this case it will turn into a tenner because of one man's generosity.  This little fella', and others like him, will be very grateful - and you will feel good about yourself!

Justice - Italian style

I have nothing to say on the details of the Meredith Kercher murder for the simple reason that the sum total of my knowledge is limited to the headlines which I skim read and the reports on Sky News.  However, two things strike me as worth a comment, indeed, they deserve to be headlines in their own right but I doubt they will be.  First, what a surprise to see a judge hand down a sentence there and then, immediately following the guilty verdict.  That never seems to happen in Britain where the judge invariably calls for reports - on what or why we are never told - and sentencing comes several weeks later.  The second admirable example of Italian justice was the sentences of 25 and 26 years respectively for the two found guilty.  You would need to kill the Queen to draw that sort of sentence from the delicate little creatures who sit on our High Court benches.  So, viva Italia! - er, and all that sort of thing!

I have a shameful confession to make

Tiger Woods has shown me the light and the way!  It is time, dear reader, for me to come out of the closet, well, not the closet exactly, but my study, actually, and 'fess up to the secret, one might almost call it 'Top Secret', activity in which I indulge.  You see, I play with soldiers!  No, no, no, not real soldiers, I mean toy soldiers.  I blame 'SoD' because when he was about 10 years old he started taking an interest and so we joined a small wargamers club in which we operated as a team, that is, I gave the orders and he did all the fiddly-diddly painting of tiny model soldiers so that we had an 'army' of Napoleonic figures with which to play.  This continued for some years until the time when I found it increasingly difficult to lean across a 10' table to reach my troops, it being an invariable law of wargaming that one's troops end up in the middle of the table and never on the edge where you can reach them.  'SoD', despite being well into middle-age by now, continues with his table-top gaming but I have retired to the much easier world of computer wargames which I can play dedicate my life to in the comfort of my study.  I hasten to add, in mitigation, that I have no interest in those 'shoot 'em up' games, preferring to waste my time tax my military brain with what are called 'strategic' or 'operational' games'.

One of my favourites is Combat Mission 2, admittedly a little dated now, which is set in the eastern front during WWII.  The graphics are simply amazing in that you can view the entire battlefield as though at high altitude in a 'plane, or you can zoom down lower and lower until you have a realistic man's eye view of the terrain as seen by the soldiers.  However, since the expiration of King Lear, I now have a gaping hole in my life which, if I don't fill it quickly, will be re-allocated by she-who-must-be-obeyed to decorating the bedroom, changing the garden layout, or whatever!  Seeking a new game for the first time in years, I came across War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition.  This covers the entire far eastern campaign in WWII - and I do mean entire!  From Burma to New Zealand, from Ceylon to Los Angeles.  It includes armies, fleets, transports, aircraft - everything.  It will almost certainly take me weeks to master the rules and years to actually win the war - even if I play the American side with a nuke or two!  I may have to go to night school, or perhaps Staff College might be better.

Anyway, that's me taken care of for the next few years.  Don't be too quick to sneer, all men's hobbies are inexplicable to other men.  For example, several of my friends go off several times a week to walk in a beautiful country park but instead of enjoying the walk they take some peculiar looking sticks with them and insist on hitting a little white ball ahead of them as they stroll.  Then they get in a fearful strop when the ball goes missing or fails to go where it should.  I know, ridiculous isn't it, but that's men's hobbies for you.  Anyway, I can't hang around here wasting my time, I've got a war to win!

So Jan Moir was right after all

Do you emember all the outrage when Jan Moir of The Daily Mail pointed out the all too obviously disgusting background to the death of the homosexual pop-singer, Stephen Gately?  A transparently whipped-up tide of protest from the homosexual lobby and their acolytes duly arose and Ms. Moir was lucky not to be burnt at the stake for heresy against homosexuals in general, and nice, pure little, pop-singing lads in particular.

Now, according to Steven Glover, also of The Daily Mail, virtually everything she surmised was true, indeed, the actualite was even worse.  Apparently, The Sunday Mirror got their 'Grub Street' hands on Georgi Dochev, the Albanian waiter/male model (you choose), and induced him to tell it the way it was which was, of course, the way most people possessed of more than three brain cells guessed it was.  So that excludes Stephen Fry, then!  Why am I not suprised?

At last, the fat lady and the black crooner have sung!

Well, we waited, and waited, and then we waited some more, and at long last 'The One' gave us 'The Word' and the fat lady, Miss Susan Boyle, sang her way to the top of the American charts.  Given that the three options facing the president were get out, go half in and then get out, or stay in and win, could be categorised as hard, easy and hard, respectively, there were no prizes for guessing which one he would choose.  The first was particularly hard for him because he had backed the Afghanistan war up to the hilt whilst seeking the presidency and to suddenly withdraw would display his hypocrisy for all to see.  The third option of going in with the intention of staying in and winning was altogether too reminiscent of Vietnam and a steady stream of body bags do not garner votes.  There is also the tricky question of what, exactly and precisely, constitutes a win in a place like Afghanistan.  It was only ever going to be the middle course of surging in thousands of troops and then equally quickly surging them back out again in time for the next presidential election.  Of course that means during the interim thousands of men, some of them British, will either be killed or have their arms and legs blown off for abslutely no good strategic reason other than helping Obama back into the White House for a second term.  Can you imagine the thoughts of the average 'Grunt' or 'Tom' about to be shipped out to the 'killing fields' knowing that there is no chance of actually achieving anything except the political ambitions of a shifty, shady machine-pol from the most corrupt city in America?  If Obama is bad, Brown is worse - and the high command of the British armed forces are despicable.  They know as well as anyone that this whole 'surge' comes under the heading of 'a futile gesture', always a favourite amongst politicians of no worth, and put up with by generals and admirals eager not lose their chances of a Lordship.

It was that great military genius, von Moltke the Elder, who stated that no plan evers survives contact with the enemy.  If the Taliban were clever, they would hold fire and wait for the invaders to leave, at which point they would probably have little problem collapsing the Karzai regime and taking over - although some of the provincial warlords might give them trouble.  However, my guess is that their fanaticism will drive them to mount a ferocious campaign against the infidels so that the inevitable withdrawal, which Obama was stupid enough to forecast, will look entirely like what it is - a major rout and defeat.

To be fair to Obama, which I am not very inclined to be, it is George Bush and the neo-cons with their absurd notions of nation-building who bear much of the blame for this imbroglio.  It confirms me in my belief that in future we should adopt a strategy of 'trash 'n' dash', in other words, go in with pin-point missiles, and troops if necessary, to attack governments and their organs of power, not the people, and then having achieved their annihilation, get out.  Even if years later you have to do the whole thing again, it is still cheaper in blood and treasure than hanging around.

War is hell but a truly stupid and pointless war is beyond description.

Little Willy shrinks (even more!) from the challenge

You remember 'Little Willy', the "punk scientist" with the titchy little you-know-what, but an enormous, and foul, mouth to compensate.  I was banned from his site months ago but I still pay the occasional visit, mainly it must be confessed, to re-enforce my conviction that many university graduates are pig-ignorant, particularly if they are students of the soft sciences, like 'Little Willy'.  However, I was also interested to see, given that he is a fanatical (I use the word advisedly) 'warmer', how he would re-act to the CRU scandal.  I am happy to report that despite two encouraging comments from me (since wiped) urging him to stand up and be counted in defence of Dr. Phil Jones 'et al', he has issued forth not a single word, not even one with 4 letters which is about as much as he can manage on a good day.  I am relieved that he has so completely lived down to my expectations.

"Oh, Vanity of vanities!"

Poor lady, she was sitting on her brains all this time!

A 38-year-old former Miss Argentina has died from complications after undergoing cosmetic surgery on her buttocks.

Solange Magnano, a mother of twins who won the crown in 1994, died of a pulmonary embolism Sunday after three days in critical condition following a gluteoplasty in Buenos Aires.

Being a strict, orthodox coward of many years trembling, I could never undergo any medical procedure which contained the word "gluteoplasty" - my dear, simply too, too, 'sticky-fatty'!

Close friend Roberto Piazza said the procedure involved injections and the liquid "went to her lungs and brain."  [My emphasis]

Via Drudge and . . .

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/11/30/international/i171127S34.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0YRNZxNUv

 

Has Obama sent the troops to the wrong place?

It has been some time since I last wrote on the thrills and spills - er, spilled blood, that is - of "my kind of town, Chicago is" but during my absence I am happy to report, via the 'cbs2chicago' site, that the old town, enjoying as it does several decades of Democrat rule under the likes of former Congressmant Obama, is keeping the old traditions going: 

It was a violent and deadly holiday weekend in the Chicago area, with nine people reported slain between Wednesday and Sunday nights.

 

The violence began around 5 p.m. Thanksgiving eve, when Shannon Moore, 18, was found lying on the ground with gunshot wounds ...

 

In the early morning hours of Thanksgiving Day, a shooting at an Englewood gas station left one man dead.

 

On Friday, two separate incidents of murder-suicide were reported, including a newlywed couple on the city's West Side and a Markham man who shot himself after shooting his ex-girlfriend and another man in south suburban Sauk Village.

Earlier that day, a woman was found murdered in an East Garfield Park neighborhood apartment, possibly shot to death by her husband—who then took his own life.

 

During an armed robbery on the West Side, Anthony Bryant, 40, was fatally shot ...

 

Nearby, an Austin man was also fatally shot in his home on the West Side.

 

On Saturday, 29-year-old Roy Williams died after being shot multiple times by two men ...

 

In the same night, at about 2:30 a.m., police found a Dolton man fatally shot ...

 

In south suburban Summit, a man also died early Sunday after he was fatally shot less than one mile from his home.

I wonder if any of the victims made their exit singing the old song:

Now this could only happen to a guy like me
And only happen in a town like this

This is my kind of town, Chicago is
My kind of town, Chicago is
My kind of people, too
People who shoot at you!

One thing's for sure, you are unlikely to die of boredom in Chicago!

 

 

Keep movin', you 'orrible little man!

Now that's what I call 'man-packing'!  As a regimental signaller, I carried some loads in my day but I never wanted to swap places with the lads in the mortar platoon.  I still remember how we all fell about laughing at one of them as we plodded off a DZ in Scotland and the poor bugger simply sank up to his waist in the boggy ground because of the enormous weight he was carrying. I really and truly feel for US Marine Cpl. Brian Knight.  I sincerely hope he lives to tell the tale and bore his grandchildren to tears.  

This site run by David Guttenfelder of AP is simply packed with terrific photos from which you can infer all you need to know about soldiering in Afghanistan.

U.S. Marine Cpl. Brian Knight, of Cincinnati, Ohio, with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 1st Battalion 5th Marines, pauses briefly in the heat to rest with his heavy pack filled with mortar equipment, ammunition, food, and water in the Nawa district in Afghanistan's Helmand province on July 4, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)