Distressing

Those who were pleased that the police had apparently vanished from Tahrir Square, the centre of the protests in Egypt, must think again.

In view of the distressing content of this article from the New York Times, I am fully convinced that the Egyptian State in its present form is rotten and deserves to fall; and no, I am not convinced by the lies I have been hearing from the leader of the ruling party and from the newly appointed vice-president General Suleiman.

I wish the protesters well in their brave efforts, but equally hope that they are not unwittingly building another Iran. The Iranians are no strangers to repression and cruelty; unlike the Egyptians, they practise these things though in the name of their "god" and their interpretation of their holy book...

Until the next time

Iran/Neda

The Iranian Theocracy has ordered that there should be "no prayers" for Neda, the 27-year-old woman murdered by the revolution's thugs.

Words fail me.


Until the next time

More on Iran

The Guardian is providing comprehensive coverage of the uprising; plenty of excellent links in this item

Until the next time

IRAN

You are all probably aware of the upheaval in the Islamic Republic of Iran, caused by blatant election fraud and vote-rigging by the friends of "I'm a dinner-jacket."

I am merely posting this to express my support for the very many brave protesters there. Bloggers and journalists have been captured or have gone into hiding whilst the government there attempts to shut down means of communication - portable phones, Internet etc.

The Iranian communications ministry still seems to have a problem with Twitter; it seems that this is the means whereby thousands are able to remain in touch and meet today for example for another enormous demonstration in the face of atrocious behaviour by the likes of the Revolutionary Guard and the unpleasant volunteer vigilantes whose speciality is simply beating up demonstrators. This group, or more correctly, bunch of cunts, is known as The Basij. The following comes from a Daily Telegraph article covering the day of mourning (Thursday) for the protesters murdered by the Holy Islamic Régime of Iran...

Meanwhile the authorities are making careful preparation for Tehran University's weekly prayers tomorrow. A state news agency declared that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will lead the Friday prayers flanked by the Basij volunteer Islamic militia.

"Alert Basijis... with their epic presence, will take part in Friday's prayers to be led by Ayatollah Khamenei," the agency quoted a statement issued by the militia.

The Basij, which was established to defend the Islamic Revolution and has been at the forefront of the crackdown on protesters, warned the defeated presidential candidates that they must "explicitly dissociate themselves from the rioters".

Prayers!! What a fucking joke.

Here's a link to a Twitter post - note the messages of support. It is fascinating to see how technology is changing the way of the world - perhaps... The link came from an article on Wired.com.

For this writer, the situation confirms my view that revolutions are seldom a very good thing. Yes the Shah and his secret police SAVAC were pretty ruthless - rather like the secret police of the Czar of Russia, but what came afterwards was/is definitely worse.

Finally I note with interest that like the totalitarian régime in North Korea the Revolutionary Government of Iran has a penchant for crappy posters! First, North Korea:

Image source: Guardian

And now, Iran:

Image source: Wired.com

Such absured publicity should be graced with titles I think. How about "Forward to 1937" for the North Korean one? Easy to come up with a title for the Iranian poster of course: how about "Looking forward to the fifteenth century (Allah permitting)"? Another possibility of course, is "Beards R Us"

Until the next time

How to make your country a laughing-stock - or perhaps not...

The easiest way to make a country a laughing stock is to practise some sort of stupid ideology. Good examples of this would be Kim Jong-Il's ludicrous Stalinist state of North Korea, a country which cannot feed itself yet produces missiles and Albania under the rule of the pathetic Enver Hoxha - and of course Pol Pot's Cambodia.

Another state that should be a laughing stock is Saudi Arabia, with its Islamo-Facistic religious régime complete with its own Mohammedan Gestapo, the so-called "religious police" praise its bloody holy name... Of course when you have the world's largest proven oil reserves and stupendous quantities of money, others tend not to laugh so much, but condemning a 75-year-old widow to a whipping? Barbarians for all their revolting holiness.

The tragedy of course is that these perverted states and in the case of Tibet regions, are a nighmare for the persecuted innocents who are not allowed freedom of expression - no laughing matter for those poor souls.

Zimbabwe, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Belarus, Chechenya, Tibet, Russia, China etc. etc. etc.

Until the next time

In Case You Didn't Know...

Sorry everybody, but Sunday has turned out for me to be a bit of a blood-boiling day.  Perhaps I should stop reading the news?

Anyway, it seems that it's official: some creep (the son of what is, I hope, the late Osama Bin Laden) has written to the government of Iran, thanking it for its help in setting up terrorist cells in Yemen (another bordel) and for its assistance in the suicide bombing of the American Embassy there.

Unfortunately for the "towels" the communication has been intercepted by Western Intelligence.

Whoops.

I suppose that "Dinner-Jacket" will be obliged by his bearded masters, the Ayatollahs, to deny everything and continue with his atomic bomb.  Perhaps they can hire "Mr Whippy" who by now, probably considers himself a master of public relations!

God!  How they piss me off!

Until the next time

Strictly Come Dancing? I think Not

Alternative title:

THE BARBARIC, THE TRAGICOMICAL & THE COURAGEOUS.

I hate once again to give you a rant, but once again here it is! It is about those wonderful, progressive, humanitarian peoples, full of the milk of human kindness, tolerance and generosity, guided (so they say) by their holy book.

My alternative title is inspired by the fact that this piece is based on three recent news items, as usual taken from the International Herald Tribune.

The first item, splendidly illustrating how holy men can provide comfort and support for populations in struggling countries, comes from Somalia. There, 32 people, 25 women and 7 men foolishly decided to take part in a traditional dance. In consequence, they were all whipped.

"We arrested 25 women and seven men who were dancing near Balad (town). We released them after whipping them. We warned them many times, but they wouldn't listen," he told Reuters.

"The dancing of men and women together is illegal and totally against Islam. We neither killed them nor injured them, but only whipped them according to the Islamic law."

Thus spake one Sheikh Adow, a fine example of Islamic fundamentalism. A bullet in the back of the Sheikh's head would, I think, improve conditions in that locality. What a miserable example he is! "We neither killed nor injured them, but only whipped them..." Arsehole.

By an amusing coincidence, the second story concerns dancing too. Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, is apparently Vice-President of Iran and he is in big trouble. Mr Mashaie is responsible for Culture and Tourism and presumably in connnexion with his official role, attended a ceremony in which women in traditional dress carried a copy of the Koran (the Islamic bible if you didn't know) accompanied by music. This has been described as a "dance" and is viewed as being very naughty indeed. There are calls for the Vice-President's resignation. Sounds very moderate to me; perhaps they'll not injure him - just give him a little whipping? Next time perhaps the women will carry a copy of the Satanic Verses or Plato's Republic - or even Tom Jones (!) instead.

Finally my third item shows real courage which I can only boggle at. I should say that I am well aware that sitting here in the West at my keyboard, it is easy to be "brave"; the story of Shamsia in Afghanistan puts all of us bloggers to shame.

Shamsia, a 17-year-old schoolgirl at Kandahar, was in a group of girls who were attacked by some of those fearless servants of Allah and Mohammed. No doubt inspired by the Koran, they ripped off the girls' headscarves and threw acid into their faces. Shamsia is made of stern stuff; covered in ointment and with one eye damaged she said:

"I'll continue going to lessons. I'm studying to be able to build our country."

In Afghanistan where the appalling Taliban who were most likely responsible for this fine holy act, hold sway over much of the country, Shamsia has great courage to speak out thus. I wish her every success.

Until the next time.

US Presidential Update

Image source: here

Those of you who live in England will be familiar with the "Party-Political Broadcast", ten minutes of mind-numbing stuff from the various political parties, that usually appears around nine o'clock in the evening.

Once upon a time, I think it might have been in the 1970s, a Conservative General Election victory was followed up by some party-political broadcasts entitled "Report to the People" which I suppose was intended to demonstrate that all the promises made in the election campaign had been, or were being, met.  Of course this series of broadcasts ceased relatively quickly.

This lengthy introduction relates to the fact that I am determined to be "difficult" about Mr Obama's election as President of the United States.  This is not because I believe that Mr Obama will be a bad president - far from it - but I am determined to do my little bit to stop the nauseating self-congratulation that I have witnessed here in France on television.  The gullibility of the general public beggars belief, but really I should know well enough by now not to be surprised.  Whatever are they expecting from Mr Obama?  Do they imagine that as a true American he does not believe in "America First"?

There was a "special" after the news today on France 2 TV, showing various black - and white - people in tears following the announcement of the election result.  There was one individual in a t-shirt bearing a likeness of Mr Obama, accompanied by a red star!  There was a group of misguided individuals chanting "Af-ri-ca, Af-ri-ca".  They should visit the Congo or Zimbabwe rather than visit that on us... EDIT: or Nigeria for that matter.

Now to the real stuff - realpolitik - the things a real US President does and deals with; forget the touchy-feely nonsense: let's start with the US plan to install a missile defence shield in central Europe.  I quote from this BBC article:

In a statement published on his website on Saturday, Poland's president said Mr Obama had "emphasised the importance of the strategic partnership of Poland and the United States and expressed hope in the continuation of political and military co-operation between our countries."

"He also said that the missile defence project would continue," the statement added.

When asked about the declaration, McDonough said that the US president-elect had had "a good conversation" with Mr Kaczynski about the American-Polish alliance and discussed missile defence, but "made no commitment on it".

"His position is as it was throughout the campaign, that he supports deploying a missile defence system when the technology is proved to be workable," Mr McDonough told the Associated Press. 

This is bullshit: the US has already declared that the system is in no way intended or designed to, shoot down Russian missiles - indeed I recall that the US invited senior Russian military personnel to inspect the facilities etc.  Politics in action No  1.

Here's No 2: concerning Iran.  The International Herald Tribune, one of my favourite sources for news items, is associated with the New York Times and Boston Globe.  These are not right-wing publications and indeed I get the impression that they are more inclined to a Democratic point of view.  In an article published today I read:

Iran's head of parliament on Saturday criticised U.S. President-elect Barack Obama for saying its development of a nuclear weapon would be "unacceptable" and repeated the Islamic state's call for fundamental policy change.

"Obama must know that the change he talks about is a fundamental change and not changing of colours or tactics," Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said in comments on state radio.

Larijani, echoing Iran's official line, called on Obama to carry out his campaign slogans of U.S. foreign policy change, including change to U.S. dealings with Iran.

"Repeating objections to Iran's nuclear programme will be taking a step in the wrong direction."

Obama, at his first news conference since Tuesday's election, said on Friday an international effort must be made to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, adding that the country's development of a nuclear weapon was "unacceptable."

President-elect Obama is an American, further he is about to become President and Commander-in-Chief of the USA.  As I wrote on 5th November, he is not likely to be a cuddly little pussycat; his achievements to date suggest that he is a tough egg and I see no reason why he should change.  The "touchy-feelies" should take note.

If you have read this far, you might wonder at the purpose of my rather lengthy introduction to this article.  Well, it was just to indicate that I have no intention of publishing regular updates for the next four years!

Until the next time.