Brits leaving Basra in Iraq... well, at least some of them are

It's really bloody brilliant hearing today about Britain's boys & girls in uniform coming back from Basra in Iraq. After six sorry years of blood, sweat and tears.

Back from Iraq where they were illegally sent to illegally invade and occupy a foreign sovereign nation, by the war criminal Tony Blair. The criminal Tony Blair who, after a while, simply got so & so sick of it and so shamefully sodded off when it suited him ~ leaving a lot of unlucky lads & lasses to carry on killing & being killed regardless.

Some brave British Prime Minister, eh?

Has any other British Premier in history ever done such a dastardly, cowardly, absolutely shameless thing?

Whatever, should anyone here ever bump into the bum perhaps they'd like to pass this especially sickening link on to him.

It shows all of the brave boys & girls who, like the evil little louse himself, weren't still around to see some sort of sense and/or sanity hold sway today.

The big difference being of course that the kids who were killed, thanks entirely to Blair and his criminal cohort and cowardly American brother-in-blood [George W. Bush] didn't have a choice.

So, should you ever be in a position to show said link to the little shit, tell him it's a gift from This Old Brit who, (like the bunch of boys & girls pictured and/or listed) given the chance, wouldn't see fit to let the lousy likes of him lick their blood stained boots.

Bridgend Suicide 'Curse' Continues Claiming Lives...

Some true stories seem simply to be beyond belief.

Stories such as the continuing, shocking, strange, sad & sorry saga of serial suicides, all in the same small Welsh town of Bridgend.

A grieving father has been found dead in the tragedy-hit town of Bridgend after his own daughter and nephew hanged themselves.

Dean Stephenson, 40, was discovered hanged after struggling to coming to terms with the death of his daughter Kelly, 20, and nephew Nathaniel Pritchard, 15.
Just days before his death Mr Stephenson left an entry on his Facebook site saying the biggest interest in his life was his family.

Friends said the father-of-three never got over the death of Kelly - the 16th out of 24 young people found hanged in the South Wales town.

Read the rest of this report right here.

Internet coming under concerted attack in UK

Intelligence?

As far as we're concerned there's only one thing worse than having one's own intelligence insulted : having it insulted by (stupid) liars.

Plan to monitor all internet use

Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.

The home secretary scrapped plans for a database but wants details to be held and organised for security services.

The new system would track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites.

Ministers say police need new tools to fight crime but opposition MPs and campaigners have raised privacy fears.

(snip)

Bloody brilliant, eh? That'll teach the bad guys, eh? That'll stop 'em, eh? That'll certainly make us all a lot safer, eh?

Since the baddies won't be reading & hearing what everyone else now is, eh? So they won't increasingly simply start switching back to using all sorts of 'good old fashioned' low-tech stuff for their secretive plotting & planning, eh?

Nawh! Never!

Not!

They'd never dream of using internet cafes, public phone boxes, cheap second hand, throw away, unregistered pay as you go mobile phones would they? Nor would they think of writing & posting letters : particularly of the coded kind. Nor would we ever see them returning to the use of micro dots, dead letter drops and so on & so forth.

Eh?

Nawh! Never!

Since all the baddies are simply brain dead dumbos. And the smarter, more serious, slyer and more successful type they are, the god damned dumber they're bound to be, eh?

Jeeze. Many millions of minds must already be bloomin' boggling.

Unless .......... unless ........

...... unless, of course, all this nonsense is actually all some sort of dastardly, damned, whizz bang, underhand, unique double bluff ploy, eh?



You know, something that gives "them" yet another way to get the likes of "us" to timidly toe "their" lines. To keep tabs on "us" ~ for possible "future reference".

Reference you, me and us ~ the genuine good guys & gals, that is. Unbelieving "us". The all too often perceived subversive, rebellious (albeit entirely erroneously) smart arse, revolutionary, rabble rousing, riff-raff eh?

Nawh! Never!

"They"'re not as naughty, nasty and/or damned dictatorial as that, are "they"? After all, "they"'re on "our" side aren't they? You know, the genuinely good guys & gals' side.

Well, aren't they?

(Regard that question as rhetorical and don't answer it btw, at least not until you've seen a solicitor or someone similar.)

So, read the rest of said shockingly sad report.

Then for Pete's sake, swallow it ... fast.

Better quickly choked, than 'cuffed, chained and summarily incarcerated in some stinking cell in a sleazy, secretive clink somewhere - sez we.

What say ye?

Food Aid? To feed the poor & hungry of modern day America?

It's almost impossible for any none Americans to even come close to comprehending how the hell some millions of citizens of the United States, the world's wealthiest country, could ever be allowed to find themselves in such a shocking sort of sickening situation as this is.

Poverty hits African Americans hard

BBC correspondent Matthew Price continues his journey across America, and reports from Chicago, Barack Obama's home town, where African American community leaders fear the recession is dragging down their communities more than most.

(snip)

Poverty is growing across the United States. Many communities are affected. Yet a number of studies suggest that African Americans in general have been hit harder than others.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, black unemployment has risen to 13.4% since the recession began in December 2007. The national unemployment rate is 8.5%.

One of the largely untold stories of America's economic decline is the disproportionate effect it appears to be having on African Americans.

Read the rest of this remarkably revealing report.

[Sigh.]

If only "socialism" wasn't such a shocking swear word in the states, eh?



Who knows though?

Maybe the blessed Obama truly does have the balls he so strongly hinted he had -- last year.

Maybe now that his presidential honeymoon period is over, Barack will be brave enough (and care enough), to bring about some real change : as opposed to simply some more, same old, same old, 'small change'.

Eh?

(Cross posted across at 'appletree')

Caption Competition...

It's occurred to us that we've not had one of our caption competitions for quite a while.

Also, since we've lately been enjoying some amazingly, unseasonably hot April weather around here, we've been out & about a bit with our battered old "Brownie Box".

OK, so we've fibbed a bit about the Brownie, but when did we ever pass up absolutely any chance to mega-milk almost any kind of elongated/extended "alliteration" opportunity -- at all?

Anyway, coupling those first few sentences with our (so often, so obviously), shameless personal narcissusism, we've decided to display one of our own photos this time.

Over to you.

(Cross posted across at 'appletree')

Olbermann goes Overboard

I knew he'd lose it as soon as he didn't have Bush to kick around anymore

I've long been a fan of Keith Olbermann. Of all the political commentators on TV, he was the only one who seemed to muster the appropriate amount of outrage in the face of the abuses and crimes of the Bush administration. That said, I've long thought that Olbermann is a bit of a blowhard. He often seems overly self-righteous and eager to be angry, and he often comes across more as less of a crusading journalist and more of a self-aggrandizing fop.

Here's the sort of thing I'm talking about:



The problem here is not Olbermann's tone per se. If he had gotten his facts right, his tone would be exactly right. The problem here is that Olbermann appears to have selected and massaged the facts to fit his tone.
Read more »

Second brutal British bobby suspended re: second violent "incident"

We see that a second British bobby (this time a giant of a sergeant) is suspended from duties as a result of another video coming to light showing how he summarily dealt out his own personal brand of "justice" to a young female who allegedly used some naughty words during recent the G20 protests.

Since we can't think of anything else to say that we didn't say a few days ago regarding our once highly regarded and respected police, we'll let The Guardian's cartoonist, Steve Bell's picture do the talking this time.

Here's a quick cut & pasted taster about this most recent example of an obviously "broken" British police service.

A police sergeant seen in video footage apparently hitting a woman during the G20 protest in London has been suspended, Scotland Yard has said.

The officer appears to hit the woman in the face with his hand and then the leg with his baton after she swears at him.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission - already investigating the death of Ian Tomlinson during the 1 April protests - is examining the case.

The Lib Dems say it shows there is a systemic problem and want an inquiry.

Officers 'accountable'

The latest video footage featuring the female protester has been passed to the IPCC, a Scotland Yard spokesman said.

"The officer has been identified and suspended pending further investigation. The officer works as a sergeant in the territorial support group," he added.

Earlier, police said the apparent actions of the officer featured in the footage raised "immediate concerns".

Read the rest of this report and see this sickening incident for yourself.

(Cross posted across at 'appletree')

Britain's Got Talent : Susan Boyle : A star is born.

Surely one of the most wondrous things any one of us could ever witness would be the actual birth of a star.

Well, never let it be said that we don't pamper our readers.

Prepare to be privileged.

Prepare to have the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

Prepare yourself for a large lump in your throat.

Prepare, perhaps, even for a tear or two.

Prepare for proof positive that this old Britain's Got Talent.

** N.B. Please ensure your speakers are switched on ~ and that the volume is turned up.

** P.S. Remember Paul Potts?

UK Border Agency : Barack Obama brother booted out of Britain

Well, well, well.

Wadaya know?

We hadn't heard a peep about this until today. How about you?

Is it a case of us becoming careless, or what?

Obama brother refused entry to UK

Barack Obama's half-brother was denied entry to the UK after being accused of a serious crime on an earlier visit, the Home Office has confirmed.

Samson Obama, who lives in Kenya, was on his way to the US presidential inauguration in January when he was stopped at East Midlands Airport.

Read the rest of this remarkably surprising report right here.

Diddle a boy, get protection from the Church. Ordain a woman, get excommunicated.

The common cardinal (L) and the rare refuses-to-protect-child-molesters cardinal (R)

The misogyny of Catholic leaders keeps driving them to ever-lower depths of hypocrisy:

"Nearly 5,000 Catholic priests [in the U.S.] have sexually abused over 12,000 Catholic children…but they were not excommunicated," says Father Roy Bourgeois, who faced the latter scenario after helping celebrate what the Vatican considers to be an illegitimate ordination mass in August 2008. Bourgeois, a Vietnam veteran with a Purple Heart who became a prominent peace activist, stood with the trailblazers of the female ordination movement in Lexington, Ky., to make Janice Sevre-Duszynska a Catholic priest.

For thumbing his nose at one of the most sacred tenets of the conservative hierarchy -- that only men are worthy of the priesthood -- Bourgeois was swiftly rebuked by the Vatican in a letter two months later, telling him he had 30 days to renounce his actions or face excommunication.

"The church believes that the intent of Jesus' founding of the priesthood is that it was reserved for men," explained Sister Mary Anne Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. But, speaking for the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests, Bridget Mary Meehan, herself ordained in 2006 and subsequently excommunicated, disputes that teaching. "Jesus never ordained anyone," says Meehan. "And in the tradition, women were ordained deacons, priests and bishops for the first 1,200 years."

The Vatican's strong response to Bourgeois' action stands in stark contrast to its overwhelming failure to punish molesters. Even a homicidal priest, Father Gerald Robinson, who was convicted in 2006 of the satanicritualistic murder of a 71-year-old nun in an Ohio chapel (see "The Nun's Story," Summer 2006), has not been excommunicated. Though Robinson to date has spent more than two and a half years in prison and lost an appeal, he still remains a priest, albeit one quietly retired by his bishop.

Maybe if there were a few women in the hierarchy, the Church wouldn't have such a permissive attitude toward crimes like forcible rape of a child.

(cross posted at appletree)

About the death of Mr Ian Tomlinson and Britain's 21st century Big-Brother-Bully-Boy-Bobbies

The unfortunate London newspaper seller shown above is Ian Tomlinson

Shortly after this picture was taken, Ian Tomlinson was dead ... thanks entirely to a big brave British bobby's cowardly assault/attack.

(The term 'big brave' is obviously sarcasm, of course.)

The innocent victim's family are urgently appealing for witnesses.

Well, anyone who sees, has seen or will see the film footage that can be found at our link below below can witness first hand exactly what happened.

Including seeing the sadistic, helmeted and uniformed little shit who shoved and battoned this poor man ~ from behind. That's right, from behind. And so self evidently without any just cause.

See for yourself then you be the judge.

We say (along with many, many more) that any outcome other than a manslaughter charge being brought against the police officer concerned, will be a crime in itself.

NO perpetrator is above the law of this land simply because they wear a f*cking uniform ~ ANY uniform.

Justice must be done. Moreover, justice must be seen to be done.

If, in present day Britain, innocent working men & women simply going about their peaceful business and living their everyday perfectly legal lives, are not safe from those who are supposed to be duty bound to protect them, then God help us all.

What a crying sodding shame that this once great country should ever have come to this.

We wonder whether there will be a 'whitewash'. We fear that there may be. We hope that there wont be.

There's much more on this right here.

And before anyone else says it, yeah, we know that all police officers are not the same. However, as we see it, an increasing number of them are certainly, to say the least, "not fit for purpose".

Our latest semi-absence excuse

Every so often we become convinced we simply must sod off somewhere else ~ and kick our keyboard completely into touch for a time.

Hence, the recent scarcity of sightings of ourselves.



So for better or for worse, depending upon how you feel about blogging old Brit buggers such as ourselves, we sometimes just sling our cameras over our shoulders and set off to see some more of real life ~ as opposed to the virtual type ~ whilst it's still possible.



It's sometimes so easy to forget that when the crooked, thieving, lying, politicians and powerbrokers can't be seen to be constantly conning, killing, etc, that there are still so many super-special places ~ almost within spitting distance of our own front door step.











See what we're saying?

Leastwise, attempting to.



But nothing lasts for ever.

Neither well earned breathers nor absolutely necessary breaks.

Eventually, it's inevitably time to head for home and get back into the blogging business.



Incidentally, isn't our friend 'flickr' fantastic? We don't know what we would do without out.

(Cross posted across at 'appletree')

** Note: All above pictures are copyright. Reproduction without our personal permission is illegal. **