Gas Bags And Gas Prices

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The Sunday Sermon

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Back at the end of July in a previous Sunday Sermon I wrote that:

“Troops are being sent to Syria and soon we’ll get bogged down in another mess that’s none of our business and will probably take many years and many lives to get us disentangled from – leaving behind chaos and confusion and a worse situation than the one we tried to fix.”

Obama-Peace-Prize

Of course it’s still being denied by Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama and his administration, but there is little doubt now that Syria is next on their war hit list and we are indeed about to be bogged down in another bloody mess.

Already naval and ground forces are being positioned, for example, the cruise missile laden USS Gravely, USS Ramage, USS Barry and USS Mahan are all in the eastern Mediterranean.

The only remaining part is to con-vince the American public, who do not want another Middle Eastern debacle, that they are wrong and that a strike on Syria is essential for their future well being.

chemical weapons

The pretext that is going to be used this time is ‘evidence’ of the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime against the rebels. And the people that are being relied on to provide that ‘evidence’ are the very same people who provided false ‘evidence’ that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

Everyone now knows and accepts that the WMD excuse for getting embroiled in Iraq was a deliberate deceit – otherwise known as a ‘lie’ – so the track record of the ‘evidence’ providers is neither good nor credible.

Already government apologists are making statements about how Syria had “used them [chemical weapons] before”, which is untrue. UN investigators charged the rebels, not Assad’s government’s forces, with use of chemical weapons in Syria earlier this year. Strangely (or perhaps not) Obama did not feel such a moral necessity to send a missile or two towards the rebels, instead he gave them more support. 

Now add to that another good pinch of hypocrisy.

In fact make that two good pinches.

The first, because the rebellion now taking place within Syria would not have happened without the financial and military assistance of the US, along with Israel and Saudi Arabia. The hypocritical part of it all is that these three nations are in fact supporting people who, if successful, will become even more bitter enemies than the Assad regime.

And the second, because in an alleged effort to encourage ‘democracy’ in Syria, ‘democracy’ in America and Europe is being ignored.

For example, 64 percent of the French people have said they don’t want to get involved, but as in America the ‘people’ don’t have a say on the final outcome.

In Britain the Conservative Party Prime Minister David Cameron got a very embarrassing slap in the face in Parliament when he tried to emulate the lies of previous Prime Minister Tony Blair but lost a vote on military intervention in Syria. His spin doctors will be working overtime to cook up a good story for the next debate.

British Prime Minister David Cameron

And it is plain that the majority of ordinary Americans do not want the President they elected on the promise of getting their troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, plunging them into another conflict which could prove to be as bloody if not bloodier. So plain in fact that until late Friday Obama had planned bypassing Congress obviously trying to avoid a similar embarrassment to that which was suffered by British PM Cameron.

Think this time it will only be a few missiles and drones and that troops won’t be involved? After all Obama has said “We’re not considering any boots on the ground approach”.

Then you need to think again.

Sure, at the outset Obama will try to fool the public by limiting attacks to missile strikes, but these alone won’t be enough. Even in today’s high-tech world you can’t wage wars without those boots on the ground. And in those boots are brave, but misled men and women, some of whom will lose their lives or be maimed as a result.

Boots On The Ground Fallen Soldier

The doomsday pundits are saying that all this posturing and war mongering by Obama could spiral into something worse. Possibly even be the start of WW3. Unfortunately grandiose claims like these only serve to lessen the credibility of those who are arguing against another foreign intervention.

Putin seems to have more sense than Obama. The Russians have already made their mistake in Afghanistan and are unlikely to do it again. Even less do they want to start or become involved in, a major conflict – not at the moment anyway.

China has little interest in getting involved in a conflict in the middle east either. They will take the long view, and, as they did with Iraq, they will let the US waste billions more dollars blowing things down and building them up again and then they will step in and secure more oil supplies for themselves.  

If it does get down to the nitty gritty one possibility that is more realistic is that the conflict could spread to other nations within the Middle East.

Iran for example has a mutual assistance pact with Syria. It also knows it is next on the US hit list so the longer the US is focused on Syria the longer it will postpone an attack on itself. It is not beyond imagination therefore that Iran could send arms and even troops to assist Assad.

Neither is it unreasonable to imagine that, if missile strikes on Syria result in retaliatory Syrian missile attacks on Israel, Israeli troops will also be sent into Syrian territory, with US forces backing them up shortly thereafter.

That is boots on the ground, no matter what denials you currently hear.

However it pans out, two things are certain. ‘Evidence’ or no ‘evidence’ Uncle Sam will stick his nose in once again. And if it all goes pear shaped, as it most likely will, then UP is the only way your gasoline and heating oil prices will be heading.   

Happy winter!

gas and oil prices

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Is Obama Making A Bad Korea Move?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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It was either a title with a pun in it or just call today’s post “The Sunday Sermon”, but as you can see the pun got the better of me as usual.

If you hadn’t guessed, this one is my take on the goings on in North Korea.

Here we go….

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Before the sermon starts I should preface it by saying we are in the current mess because politicians faffed about instead of stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons when they had the opportunity. It’s their mess, but unfortunately we are all in it with them.

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JFK had Cuba and now BHO has North Korea, both countries run by dictators and both in their time posing a nuclear threat.

Why do the Democrats always get the best crises? Poor old Dubya and his greedy and power hungry ally in Britain, Tony Blair (often deliberately spelled Bliar for good reason), had to make up an excuse to start a war with Saddam Hussein. Remember the Weapons Of Mass Destruction that never actually existed?

Of course, when JFK was doing his statesman like thing, during his brief breaks between his girlfriends, I was far too young to know or care about nuclear threats or more world wars. I had other more important things to be getting on with like battling invaders from Mars or trying to pluck up the courage to explore that eerie wood just a short distance from the bottom of our garden.

So what I know about the Cuban crisis of the early 1960s is all gleaned from books and reports from that period which are now a matter of history. (We’ll leave the debate about just how accurate and reliable that is for another time.)

The truth seems to be that the Cuban nuclear crisis had very little to do with Cuba or Castro. It was a posturing competition between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, and to a lesser degree a pissing contest between Kennedy and Khrushchev.

Khrushchev-Kennedy
Khrushchev-Kennedy

In both Washington and the Kremlin, although there were the warmongers, there were more people who were sensible enough to realize that devastating each other’s countries would leave them both weaker and achieve very little. They were able to reach that conclusion simply because they were people who were not completely insane or delusional.

It probably seemed difficult at the time, but for JFK it was a relatively easy crisis to manage.

The ‘nuclear crisis’ facing Obama, if indeed it is that, is a different kettle of fish because Kim Jong-un shows all the signs of being both delusional and ever so slightly insane.

He can’t be held entirely to blame for this. He is the son of a long time dictator, who himself suffered from multiple delusions. And he was brought up in a militaristic and jingoistic regime, which is what dictators like to create for themselves simply because it makes their own people easier to control. North Korean propaganda has taught the public that military goals and economic goals are intertwined and therefore that Kim Jong-un’s actions are for the good of his people.

Kim Jong Un, Ri Yong Ho, Kim Yong Chun
Kim Jong Un, flanked by Ri Yong Ho, Kim Yong Chun

In the latest moves to up the ante, the North Koreans have told Britain and Russia that they should consider the evacuation of their embassies in Pyongyang. They have also moved another missile to their east coast as a further threat to US Pacific bases.

This in itself is just the latest response to UN sanctions and South Korea-US military drills, both of which have done nothing to ease tensions and in fact have annoyed the North Koreans immensely.

Now the North Korean army is saying that it has received final approval for military action, possibly involving nuclear weapons, against the threat posed by US B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers taking part in the joint drills. And all this has been accompanied by a series of apocalyptic threats of nuclear war in recent weeks.

The trouble with all this posturing is that Washington, which always gets a ‘F’ for ‘FAIL’ in Foreign Policy, very seldom, if ever, gets it right at the right time.

Washington doesn’t seem to understand that the macho culture in many other countries makes it extremely difficult for them to be seen by their own people as the one who blinked first. Losing face has a terrible stigma for them.

Further military ‘exercises’ and posturing will probably have the result of leaving the Jong-un regime with little alternative (in their eyes) but to act aggressively.

How that aggression will manifest itself is anybody’s guess. Least likely would be an attack on America – it’s too far away for the type of missiles North Korea currently has.

An attack of some kind on the US base at Guam is possible, as is an attack on neighboring South Korea. The latter, depending on the scale and the number of casualties, could spark of retaliatory strikes by the US-backed South Koreans and from there it is a short step into a conventional and probably very bloody war.

And we should remember that the Korean war during the 1950s was a spectacular waste of human lives. Generals sacrificed their men for years and ended back at the 38th parallel, more or less the same place they started.

military-trucks-crossing-38th-parallel
military-trucks-crossing-38th-parallel

Admittedly things might be a lot different this time if China decides that the North Korean regime is too out of control to support militarily. I doubt very much if it is in China’s long term interest to have a whacky dictatorship armed with nuclear weapons on their doorstep. After all it’s only 1,000Km to Beijing and more than 5,000Km to Hawaii, the closest state of the US to North Korea. At the same time would China want an economically united and strong US dominated state on its borders?

The jury is still out on that one.

Another thing that Washington gets badly wrong is that it thinks that because it is the most powerful military nation on earth – and it is by a long way – that therefore other countries will be afraid to take it on.

Rather than a comparison with the Cuban Crisis that everyone is concentrating on, I see parallels between North Korea today and Imperial Japan in the 1930s. Both are/were jingoistic regimes with an ’emperor’ having complete control, and both created a military style regime more as a way to suppress and control their own people, and therefore to cling to power, than to attack another nation.

But things being what they are, and people being so bloody stupid it’s unbelievable at times, there comes a time when those in power in such regimes lose their sense of reality and get carried away believing their own propaganda.

Hence Pearl Harbor when Imperial Japan forgot that when something big and powerful is asleep you should never poke it with a sharp stick, coz when it wakens up it will kick the crap right out of you! Pearl Harbor attack WWII

And hence, the North Koreans are not afraid of taking on America. They should be, but they aren’t, which again makes some kind of attack more possible the more they are backed into a corner.

Thankfully there are some signs that Washington might be getting the message and preparing to step back from the rapidly approaching brink. American officials have reportedly decided to “pause” the recent show of US force in Korea because

– wait for it, it’s a good one –

they are surprised at the intensity of the North’s response.

I mean who could have seen that coming? Well the answer is just about everyone except for the cretins in Washington!

What is surprising, however, is that the most sense talked about the whole affair recently has been from the world’s number one cigar salesman, Fidel Castro. In fact, make that doubly surprising, in that he has said some things that I am in agreement with and that he is still around to say it!

Fidel Castro and cigar
Fidel Castro and cigar

He said “If a war breaks out there, there would be a terrible slaughter of people” in both North and South Korea “with no benefit for either of them.” And also that the “duty” to avoid the conflict is in the hands of Washington “and of the people of the United States.”

Castro hasn’t quite figured out that once elected US Presidents do whatever THEY want, not whatever the PEOPLE want.

But what he must have figured out is that politicians like to be liked because he also warns President Obama that his second term, “would be buried in a deluge of images that would portray him as the most sinister personality in the history of the United States.”

Ouch!

Equally, he cautions the North Koreans that now they have, demonstrated their “technical and scientific advances, we remind them of their duties with those countries that have been their great friends.” And he urged them to remember that “such a war would affect … more than 70 per cent of the planet’s population,” and decried “the gravity of such an incredible and absurd event” in such a densely populated region.

Do you think he is hankering after one of those Nobel Peace Prizes, like the one Obama got for not being George W Bush?

Who knows.

And who knows what is going to happen in the Koreas?

Certainly not the mob in Washington I think!

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Dumb Dumb Dumb – Yes, More Quiz Show Answers

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Dumb was about the only word that could describe today’s lot of quiz show contestants, but even that wasn’t enough so I said it three times (and that went along with the video at the end, who was it said, I like it when a plan comes together).

So here you are.

Hope you find something to make you smile this Monday. I’m away to count me toes.

Enjoy!

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Q:  Which American actor is married to Nicole Kidman

A:  Forrest Gump.

Q:  On which street did Sherlock Holmes live?

A:  Er . . .

Q:  He makes bread .. .

A:  Er . . .

Q:  He makes cakes .. .

A:  Kipling Street?

Q:  Which of these is a city in Germany: Hanoi, Hanover or Hangover?

A:  Hanoi.

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Q:  In what year was President Kennedy assassinated?

A:  Erm .. .

Q: Well, let’s put it this way – he didn’t see 1964.

A:  1965?

Q:  What’s the Prince of Wales’s Christian name?

A:  Err . . .

Q:  Here’s a clue: he was married to Diana.

A:  Err . . .

Q:  It begins with a ‘C’.

A:  No idea.

Q:  What was the name of Tony Blair’s chief spin-doctor who resigned last year?

A:  Iain Duncan Smith.

Q:  Arrange these two groups of letters to form a word – CHED and PIT.

A: Chedpit.

Q:  How many toes would three people have in total?

A:  23.

Q:  I’m looking for an island in the Atlantic whose name includes the letter ‘e’.

A:  Ghana.

Q:  No, listen. It’s an island in the Atlantic Ocean.

A:  New Zealand.

Q:  What is the world’s largest continent?

A:  The Pacific

Q:  Name a film starring Bob Hoskins that is also the name of a famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci.

A:  Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Q:  In which European city was the first opera house opened in 1637?

A:  Sydney.

Q:  What was signed to bring World War I to an end in 1918?

A:  Magna Carta.

Q:  What international brand shares its name with the Greek goddess of victory?

A: (after long deliberation): Erm, Kellogg’s?

Q:  Name a book written by Jane Austen.

A:  Charlotte Bronte.

Q:  What is the name of the French-speaking Canadian state?

A:  America? 

A:  Portugal? 

A:  Canada? 

A:  Mexico? 

A:  Italy? 

A:  Spain? 

Q:  How many days in a leap year?

A:  253.

Q:  What is the county town of Kent?

A:  Kentish Town?

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Q:  Who wrote Lord of the Rings?

A:  Enid Blyton

Q:  In which European country are there people called Walloons?

A:  Wales.

Q:  Dizzy Gillespie is famous for playing . .. what?

A:  Basketball.

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It’s More Moronic Madness, Yes, It’s Quiz Show Monday!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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So how many idiots got elected last week? Not all of them I hope, but I bet there are at least a few intellectually challenged newbees in the corridors of power in Washington. 

On the lighter side, some of those who didn’t make it in politics made it on to television and appeared in quiz shows.

The results are not that much different to some of the dumb things said in Congress (oh, oh, I feel another post forming in my head) so here is a selection to get the week started with a smile.

Enjoy!  

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Q: In craps, what are the numbers you will need to roll an ‘Easy 10’?        

A: What are 9 and 1?    

craps dice

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Q: Paul III roared at him, “I have waited 30 years for your services. Now, I’m pope. Can’t I satisfy my desire?”        

A: Who is Lady Godiva?

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Q: If a Japanese “isha” (doctor) asks you to stick out your “shita”, he means this.           

A: What is your behind?

proctologist cartoon

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Q: To get to Wallace, Idaho from Boston, get on I-90 West, and the first one of these you ‘hit’, you’re there.        

A: What is a buffalo?

Buffalo

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Q: 2 of the 3 countries classified as extending across two continents     

A: What are Africa and Europe? 

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Q: The original one of these on Massachusetts’ Little Brewster Island was built in 1716; automation didn’t come until 1998.           

A: What is Kebert Xela?

Kebert Xela 

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Q: [The language that this statement, meaning “I love you guys”, is in:] Yr Wyf I’n Dy Garu Di      

A: What is Klingon?

A:  What is Welsh?       

klingon

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Q: He is the only sitting Vice President since Martin Van Buren to be elected President   

A: Who is Al Gore?

Al Gore cartoon

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Q: This nursery rhyme was based on actual events at a 1900 schoolhouse.         

A: What is ‘There once was a man from Nantucket?’       

There once was a man from Nantucket

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Q: In 2002, an elaborate dinner party was held at No. 10 to celebrate this many years’ reign by Elizabeth II           

A: Who is Tony Blair?   

Tony Blair cartoon

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Q: The Timon puppet in “The Lion King” was inspired by Bunraku, the traditional puppet theatre of this country     

A: What is Africa?        

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Q: Of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council, the one that is smallest in size         

A: What is my apartment?         

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Q: George Bernard Shaw called this condition “the greatest of evils and the worst of crimes.”       

A: What is marriage?

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Q: Of Pastism, Presentism or Futurism, the literary movement that began around 1909    

A: What is Modernism?

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Q: According to the old saying, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for…” what?          

A: Jim Beam

Jim Beam

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Q: Franklin D. Roosevelt is found on the head side of what American coin?        

A: $50 Bill

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Q: “If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere.” What city does that describe?

A: Phoenix

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Q: What was the magical item that brought Frosty the Snowman to life? 

A: Corncob pipe

corn cob pipes 

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Q: What vehicle is used in the Tour de France race?       

A: SUVs

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Q: What eye ailment is the more common name for “myopia?”    

A: You think you’re right

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 A myopic video

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