Conspiracy or Cock-up?

I know it's been a while. About four years I believe since I last posted. I doubt if anyone's going to read this, but what the hell, here goes...

Two days ago an American drone strike obliterated a Taliban leader called Hakimullah Mehsud. This is in line with US strategy of removing the leadership of terrorist organisations to disrupt the chain of command, with minimum risk to American military personnel.

As you will know, Mehsud was due to meet the next day with representatives of the Pakistan government for peace talks. Maybe something would have come of them or maybe not. We shall never know now.

To say that the people of Pakistan are a bit peeved would be an understatement.  A fragile structure - like a house built of playing cards - has been literally blown away, and they are seriously pissed!

So far, so sad, but so understandable.

But

To the world, it looks like the USA has deliberately sabotaged this peace process. And to be honest, I can't see any other way this can be interpreted, other than incompetence. If the drone operators were unaware of the upcoming meeting, then the mission was an unfortunate coincidence. But that implies US intelligence didn't pass on the information.... Nah! I don't think so either.

So what's the strategy?

And why is nobody in America discussing this?

If you Google using keywords such as 'drone strike', 'American reaction', you get plenty about what they're saying in Pakistan, but trying to find out if Americans are for or against it is very difficult. On Yahoo news, the commentators are 99% for! But then I guess they're American.

I'm in ur oshuns, eating teh internets

The Indian internet has been severely hit by the as yet unexplained malfunctions of three submarine telecommunication cables off the coasts of Egypt and Dubai. Now on cabble being damaged is unfortunate, but, meh, stuff happens. Two cables getting damaged is a coincidence, but three? At the same time? That's a conspiracy surely? What are the odds of three cables going offline in the same month? I have heard it being blamed on ship's anchors, and certainly it makes more sense to put incompetence ahead of intrigue when looking for the answers to life's mysteries. I think, if another cable gets knackered, we're looking at vandalism on an oceanic scale. Either that, or Spongebob Squarepants has got a lot of 'splainin' to do.

Pneumonia epidemic?

Jeremy Beadle has just died - of pneumonia. He was 59. My neighbour died of pneumonia recently. She was 40. Someone close to me has been in hospital recently with pneumonia. This blog documents some more cases. Now one swallow does not a summer make, and a few anecdotal cases do not make an epidemic, but I've never heard pneumonia being mentioned as many times as it has recently.
Please keep yourself safe. If you develop a persistant cough, go to your doctor and get it checked out, especially if your chest gets rattly. If there is an epidemic coming, and I stress the if, then you must take extra precautions. It can be treated with antibiotics if caught in time.
And see how long it takes for the mainstream media to pick up on this story.

I bet Christian Voice are having wet dreams right now about the situation in Sudan, where a teacher is being prosecuted for blasphemy. If only it could be taken as seriously in Britain as it is there, and the people behind Jerry Springer - the opera could be put behind bars for their crimes against religion.
Never allow any of these fuckwits near any sort of temporal power. The kind of society they want to usher in would make Hell seem like an improvement.

Break through

I never thought I'd be glad to see adverts on television. But this week, they started appearing on Anime Central. Now, for two months I've been watching that channel, and there hasn't been a whiff of advertising. There were breaks where ads should have appeared, but they were filled by trailers for the shows, and though the music is amazing, it could start to get wearing. No advertising, of course means no revenue, and I was beginning to wonder if the channel would fold eventually, probably in the middle of a run of an anime I was following.
But no, the advertisers have at last cottoned on to the fact that there are people like me willing to invest time in following a fifty-episode series. Maybe they read my previous post on the subject? So now the breaks are filled with ads. Anime Central is making money, and I get to see Bleach and Hack/Sign all the way through.

Rattlin' Sabres

While flicking channels, I came upon The O'Reilley Factor on Fox, where he was chatting with some writer about the best way to bomb Iran. They agreed that if Iran believes the USA has a batshit crazy cowboy for a president, (now what would give them that idea?) then the best thing to do would be to play on that image, and get them to believe that the Americans really would carry out a first strike against Iran. To be fair and balanced, Bill O'Reilley did say that diplomacy should come first, but the fact that they're discussing the possibility of attack without a sense of horror is disturbing.

It's no longer for you-hoo.

At last the calls have stopped. We finally signed up to BT's telephone preference service just over a month ago, and the silence is wonderful. You know the calls I mean, the ones asking you if you want double glazing/ a loan/ a conservatory/ a loan/ a mobile phone/ another bloody loan... Now they've ceased. No longer will my teatimes be interrupted by someone wanting to speak to the houseowner.
If you're with BT and still bothered by marketing calls, I can't recommend this enough. And it's free. All it takes is one phone call (to an automated call process of course, but it's worth the time) and you can be sure that when the phone rings, it'll be someone you want to speak to.
What happens when everybody has signed up? what will the telemarketers do then? Who cares!

First with the news

Booyah! I scooped the Scotland on Sunday with my previous post! I went up on Saturday with it, and they, of course, ran it the next day. A small victory I grant you, but now I feel I'm starting to pull ahead of the game. The next goal is to have somebody in the media mention this blog as a source for a story.

"Vengeance is mine!" sayeth the Demon Landlord

My friend the Demon Landlord is back in the news. The Sunday Mail has yapped at him with an article lambasting his new website http://www.eviltenants.com/ which he has set up as a service to other landlords and letting agencies warning them about two (ex) tenants who up-sticksed owing him unpaid rent, and trashed the property before leaving. His blog has the full story, with a link to the offending article.
What gets the journalist's tighty-whiteys in a tizzy is the matter-of-fact way the Demon Landlord refers to this website as revenge. It's as if there's some sort of taboo in today's polite society about admitting to humanity's more visceral emotions. ("I mean... revenge! ... it's just not the done thing!")
Listen, The Demon Landlord is one of the last of the red hot capitalists. He does have a tendency to be brutally blunt, but he is running a successful business, and likely to become one of Scotland's wealthiest people. So what if he upsets the sensibilities of Sunday Mail journalists? He's providing a much needed service in a time of housing shortages and rising prices.
What's wrong with revenge anyway? It can be very satisfying, and good for one's peace of mind, especially when it's a dish served cold.

Dinos at dawn

It's Celebrity Death Match time. The two contenders I want you to consider are Barney (Cute Purple Dinosaur) versus HR Pufenstuf.
I consider this to be an evenly matched pairing. Both are seven foot tall raptors - OK one's a dinosaur and the other is a dragon, but it's close enough.
My initial assessment is that Pufenstuf has the advantage. He's an experienced politician, forward planner - his rescue service rehearse their procedures often, and his environment can be hostile, due to the attacks of Witchypoo.
Barney, on the other hand starts out looking like the under-raptor in this contest. He's the much younger challenger, lacking Pufenstuf's emotional maturity. His environment is very non-threatening, so his lack of combat experience could hold him back.
But.
He's a T-Rex, for Tinky-Winky's sake! OK, one that's fallen a really, really long way from the tree, but he's got the equipment - a large jaw with developed musculature due to years of singing. It's possible that if he's really pushed, his reptilian brain and raptor heritage could kick in and give him the edge.
So, Barney or Pufenstuf? You decide!