Did anyone notice the propoganda last (Thurs) night
Jerry
on the Brazillian police in Buenes Aires.
Last night I heard it.
- of course it is totally unrelated to the small spot of bother on the
London underground
The jist of it was :-
1) that three policemen spent a day drinking, then borrowed a mates
motor and shot up a bar.
2) a forcibly retired ex policeman used to sell confiscated dope and
police issue guns to drug dealers - a nice little 'interview' with him
3) about 500 BA policemen have been sacked and sentenced to short stays
in police cells - for similar activity
4) the BA police run protection rackets
5) the BA police invade the slums, and have shootouts with drug dealers
6) quite a lot of corpses in the mortuary have been shot in the head or
the back
- that one is a bit ambiguous to me
I made a conscious effort not to doze off, it is seldom that one hears
such blatant propaganda - quite neatly targetted ... but what is the
real reason.
The World Service is dead keen on identifying its audience, forever
saying ring/Email/Text us - but I can't believe that they are
targetting insomniacs in the UK
- the only thing I can conclude is that they are intimidating the
Brazillian government, which raises the question (not begs !!) .... Why
?
Pinochet's problems are getting a good airing, yet again, I don't get
quite why, the UK owes him for the Falklands - and he did the decent
thing and stepped down from being a dictator ( I assume on the promise
that he could retire in peace
GBP 27m in Switzerland is either an underestimate or he was not greedy
).
All very curious - it feels as if the World Service is talking at a
very specific audience.
Norman
has sat down and thought that out and there is a reason for that stupid
design to be the stupid way it is. It's just that you don't know
what it is.
Point being that there is always a reason for things to be the way they
are, even though it is not always apparent.
I guess the Beeb could have substituted Nigeria or any of its
neighbours for Brazil. Watch and wait and the mists of time will
evaporate.....
Best
Drew
have to get up early enough to experience mornings when not obliged by
work etc. Both Pinochet and Brazilian police lawlessness come up on a
regular basis. Why? Well I guess because there are many people in the
world who have a weird notion that mass murderers should be brought to
book. Amusing that the loyal right are leaving the Pinochet camp in
droves now that he is being charged with financial irregularities but
they didn't give a toss about the disappearances. I am confident
however that good old Thatch will remain unswerving.
For all her failings (such as wall to wall George Best), at her core
Auntie Beeb maintains remarkable fairness. And yes I think there is
still an element of 'building a better world' somewhere deep inside
the organisation, especially in the middle of the night when no one is
listening. I'm not aware of arm-twisting, perhaps I'm missing it.
The reports are compiled by foreign correspondents who have seen first
hand, and if you ever directly experience atrocities perpetrated upon
citizens by those examples (and countless others) it leaves an
indelible scar. One then becomes almost compelled to air the subject.
So I speak often of Bosnia, of the staggering brutality, the
self-serving perpetrators at the top, the uniformed henchmen at the
bottom (often police). The experience also made me much more acutely
aware of similar elements, albeit inchoate, within our own society. The
subway shooting contrasted with the shooting of the sow last week is
extremely disturbing. We are a hair's breadth away from becoming an
outright police state, and when that happens the so called law becomes
an oppressive weapon of the state.
All I feel is good on the Beeb for throwing up these foreign examples.
They may help us to reflect upon the slippery slope. Had post WW2 for
example, the USA any genuine awareness in common domain of the outside
world, I doubt the witch hunts would have achieved the frenzy which
they did.
Best
Norman
torturing each other but it seems to be widespread across international
boundaries.
Pinochet's financial irregularities is just something that it is
easier to prove and make stick; another Al Capone if you like.
Yes, there are dedicated and truthful reporters. Two from television
that come to mind are Kate Adie and Michel Burk amongst many others but
at best this is first hand reporting of external events and analysis
although crystal clear on some occasions is often subjective. To my
mind, the best program the Beeb ever did was HARD talk. What better
than to ask directly on the people at the heart of important issues. As
the title suggests, there is no pussyfooting around subject matter in
the way that David Frost became sycophantic. Full marks to Tim
Sebastian and his successors.
Just a short post this time as I don't want to appear too learned.
Even my member isn't that learned these days.
Best.
Jerry
The BBC World Service (and about 10% of the rest of it, the overlap is
interesting) is rather a good institution
- it does not lie
- but there is a definite slant
The correspondents are seriously interesting as they appear to have got
under the skin, rather than swanning the diplomatic circuit.
You might be interested in this, the SS consisted of two distinct
elements, divided into totally separate regiments - one was military
(the Waffen SS) and the other consisted of ex-policemen and customs
officers - they were the ones who had the cushy job of killing unarmed
individuals. That might be propaganda ... but it smells likely to me,
efficient distribution of resources.
Digressing, torture seems totally pointless to me, Schadenfreude is
revolting, and if one wants to milk someones brains then there are few
things better than an adept listener and a copious quantity of alcohol.
Regarding Bosnia, my sympathies tend to lie with the Serbs, probably
because I know more of them - and partly because I dislike the
Albanians intensely, as they are culturally alien.
My understanding is that the 'moslem' non Albanians were stuck in the
middle.
The whole affair was disgraceful
It is interesting that Croatia (proper) was spared the carnage, the
Germans simply stepped in, probably because they interbred like crazy
in WWII.
Drew
their recent actions on behest of evil leaders rewriting history for
their own ends. Personally I don't have much sympathy for the Serb
belligerents because they shot at me, regardless that our aid was going
to beleaguered Serb communities too, anyone who needed it. Sarajevo was
(and is) a pretty urbane place, more so than many cities I can think of
in Britain. But there was Sarajevo besieged, mortars raining down on
them, snipers blowing heads off anyone who dared to go outside. One
morning (think it was Tusla) we were woken up by a heavy calibre shell
whistling close overhead. This was to 'celebrate' a massacre
exactly one year before. Oh yes, and in addition to a good few thousand
innocents they also murdered one of our women, Christine, with a .303
through her heart. That sort of thing makes a bit of an impression.
Albanians, I can understand lack of cultural empathy, but people are
essentially the same wherever. They are I'm afraid a prime case of if
you mistreat a dog it's gonna turn out bad. And boy have they been
badly treated. Some people don't like Yanks, some Germans, and lots
of people hate the English. Well I detest Republican, swimming pool
hoggers and football louts, but some of my favourite people are Yanks,
Germans and English. Just a sucker for finding good people :-)
As you rightly say though, the whole affair was disgraceful.
Best
Jerry
I know a journalist-ette who was in Kosovo with a bunch of others in a
few totally non military cars.
A US aircraft appeared, strafed them, killing the guide/interpreter and
wounding several others. Curiously, the locals were very friendly. As a
result connections developed.
Certainly a lot of went on was utterly disgusting, the massacre of the
Moslems (when they simply executed about 5000 guys) is virtually beyond
belief, on the other side there is some suggestion that Moslem agents
provocoteurs bombed their own people to stir things up.
I put the whole thing down to mass lunacy - or rather the lunacy of a
minority of swine on both sides. That and too many weopons.
I also agree that one can find decent people regardless of nationality,
and some real horrors.
Norman
are good for public consumption but useless in practice so long as
there are third country licensing agreements.
Maybe you saw some years ago a TV programme on channel 4, which was
partly chat and partly investigative journalism. Rory Bremner comes to
mind although it is probable it was somebody that just looks like him.
He called up Heckler and Kotch and asked to buy 1000 I think machine
pistols for delivery to a country where there was an arms embargo. H&K
graciously declined so RB? Asked "So what do I do now"? He was
given a telephone number and a first name to call.
The number was in Finland who did not have an embargo with the
destination country but were banned from importing weapons. They were
however allowed to import spare parts for existing weapons. The idea
was that the complete gun would be shipped as an MFI kit of spare
parts, assembled in Finland and shipped to wherever.
The Finish guy was exposed on TV and naturally played it down saying
"You don't expect to get a call out of the blue asking for weapons.
I knew it one of my mates having a laugh so I went along with it".
The trouble for him was that there was too much technical gun info
passing between them for it to ring true.
This is one of those areas where the mass will of the people is needed
to effect any change otherwise they are going to be classified like
Greenpeace as well meaning cranks.
Killing people is too big a business for governments to ignore so they
espouse the moral high ground whilst keeping open channels for the
unmoral low ground to operate. Generally I am not in favour of
Nationalisation but weapons manufacture and distribution is one area I
would be prepared to see under governmental control.
Best
Jerry
- the caveat is that it exposes ones underbelly
There is the Swiss alternative, where every male from 15 to 55 is
tooled up, annually retrained and totally lethal ... but that only
works in a society where things are stable.
Personally I do not want a gun in the house
Yesterday I was talking about it with a couple of old friends of mine,
who are very keen that I should visit them next week, I was astonished
by what one of them told me, and the other one just kept quiet - but
looked smart.
Annoyingly, I am intrigued by the technicalities of that underground
cock up, 7 is a prime number
- I suspect that in two weeks time I shall know the answer, it has to
be a hybrid
Drew
somewhat cavalier in whom they target. 'Collateral damage' assuages
their guilt and I'm sure is a comfort for the mutilated and bereaved
relatives.
Re the mortar attack in Sarajevo which killed sixty odd people, I did
hear that there was something very suspicious about who actually
perpetrated the deed. Blood under the bridge. Talking of which, it was
the Croats I believe who destroyed the Mostar bridge, an action which
ranks as sickeningly mindless as the Taliban's destruction of the
Buddha.
Too many weapons indeed. Most times the houses were just blown up but I
also saw some in mixed communities which had been taken to bits by
small arms fire. That requires a particular sort of brain death.
Guns of course aren't the problem, it's what people use them for or
why they have them. I think it is a little silly of the Swiss to have
so many guns because stability is not guaranteed. Though I'm not
particularly fond of the things, for legitimate reasons I do own a
couple. Loath shotguns though, scare me s*******.
However, even worse than guns are mines. All you get are blinded kids
with no legs and severed genitalia. And the most ridiculous aspect is
that it would be dead easy to design them to self-disable after a
certain time, were of course manufacturers in the slightest moral. To
his credit, that's one thing which our Tony did address.
Are you at liberty to mention the astonishing revelation? Something to
do with the underground murder?
Best
Norman
Smart Dust is rapidly taking their place. These are micro computers
with a sender / receiver which can form a network. They can be
distributed by the thousands from an aeroplane over enemy territory and
send back information about enemy movements which can then be targeted
in a less indiscriminate way.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/mote.htm
Best
Jerry
It is also applied to cars
- yet it seems blindingly obvious that a 17 year old driving a Ford
Mustang would do a lot more damage than if he were riding a bicycle.
No real revelation on the tube murder, just that I recently heard that
they used hollow headed bullets, probably low velocity - that is what
they use on airlines to avoid puncturing the bulkhead.
(Well they are also low charge, for the same reason)
That is all old stuff, it makes me suspect that the 'Israeli training'
was a blind
- what happened is standard procedure for an airline hijacking - also
hostage stuff
- the 7 shots sound like an automatic, but I'm pretty sure that would
not use an automatic on an aircraft ... just got me thinking - I once
got an accidental sight of the arms box on a fairly secure airline.
Architectural desecration is indefensible, personally I would have
awarded a free pardon to the German general(s) who refused to do
scorched earth when retreating from Italy, also in WWII Oxford and
Cambridge were remarkably unscathed as were Freiburg and Heidelburg.
- I once heard that it was entirely deliberate
Anti personnel mines are disgraceful.
The motes stuff is interesting, however I suspect it is a blind, one
can track people very efficiently by their mobile.
Drew
of this. It'll go down the line with cover-ups and finally get
re-opened twenty five years later for a reassessment. Thank goodness
there is a god in heaven to arbitrate......... not.
Oh Norman, the local rag last week reported on a small fire in Girvan
and twice mentioned the danger of exploding setaline (sic) bottles.
Best
Jerry
- it was a cockup, down to inexperience, adrenaline and a few
unfamiliar 'guys' helping out
- in propaganda terms it probably worked, but my guess is that is
serendipitous
- an eye for a tooth is pretty daunting, a head for a slap .. gets
people thinking
I'm not sure about the demographics of Girvan, but my guess is that
there are a few descendants of welders .. well a local journalist is
often an oxy-moron
Over the last few days I've been thinking about our latest contrived
diversion, the Marines initiation party.
I was wondering about the symbolism behind the fancy dress of the NCOs
- finally it clicked, they keep a store of costumes for heterosexual
occasions, the St Trinians kit came with a hockey stick ... very useful
for dealing with problems
... the medics kit was a passive form of protection - the guy wearing
it was nervous
It took me two days to work that out, I must be losing my edge.
Norman
thought it was a bad connection on the broadband transformer which has
a chocolate connector about half an inch from the transformer itself
thanks to Benny. But no it was the power to the router which had enough
connectivity to drive the LED's but not enough to drive the modem to
the computer. I am one of those nerdy blokes who sticks everything
together and hopes for the best but don't really, really know what I
am doing. I just keep telling myself that I must be good at other
things, just can't think what at present. I think I will have a
Condor Moment and maybe it will come to me.
Oh yeh, cetylene cylinders, usually either a leaky valve or a blowback,
both unusual since the dangers are well known. Ignition through a
faulty or hand tight valve and you have a damned good torpedo. If you
have half an inch of weld to do and your final bottle starts to throw
in its hand there is a lot of incentive to carry on though, winding the
regulator valve in to counteract failing pressure. The prudent person
would shut it down but with a 'just about' flame on the end, a wide
open line and no forward pressure and especially no flashback arresters
in the line, then it's Boom, Boom baby. You don't want to be in the
way of that one.
The trouble with catharsis is that it is good for the soul but very bad
for the bank balance.
Pity someone lost their life because there were a couple of unfamiliar
guys helping out though. I hope it doesn't happen to me.
We got the marine thing over here but the whole screen was pixelated
out so I wasn't aware of any fancy dress. Bullying in the forces is
an old story. I wonder what brought it round again. The trouble with
being a cynic is that you are always looking for the story behind the
story.
Best
Drew
What always amazes me about the marine type revelations is that they
are always claimed as a surprise. Just how dumb do they think we are?
The military does not gentleman make. They're not bad guys, just
arrested development. Lord of the Flies scenarios. As I've said
before, something like 90% of headline news is dumb actions by dumb
people, which kinda makes up 100% of the population. Major headlines in
the last week :-
--George Best dies. Claimed as a genius. No, a genius has an IQ of 150
and doesn't pickle two livers. Nor are football players anything to
be respected.
--Marines acting like playground idiots.
--Bush wanted to bomb the Arab news agency in a friendly country.
Compounded by Brit government hushing it up and charging those who
tried to tell the world what a complete arse Bush is.
--100 more deaths in Iraq.
--Blair wants to pollute the world with nuclear waste and silences
dissent.
--Met chief is investigated for deliberate misinformation.
And so it goes on. Mmmm, maybe more than 90%.
------------------
Reassuring that you have your techie problems too Norman. Some charmed
people get away with hanging wire death traps but other souls (such as
I) just don't get away with it. I blame god.
Depressingly Best
Jerry
device should have a separate source and an LED
- one does land up with masses of multiple sockets - but I can live
with that
Drew, precisely, the 'revelation' was totally unsurprizing, simply the
NCOs ritually humilliating the new recruits to make sure that they know
who is boss
- I would say that the first six weeks of breaking in a bunch of
carefully selected thugs is quite dangerous - you just need one or two
to lose their rag and you've lost a trainer.
Pretty sensible making them feel vulnerable, nobody likes scrapping in
the nude, I felt extremely uncomfortable when a chased a burglar out of
my flat about 18 months ago.
There is a major difference between that sort of thing and ritual
bullying - although my guess is that the Deep Cut stuff was down to sex
and drugs.
We have had some curious headlines recently, although I don't believe
in conspiracy theories, I do believe that a lot of idiots try to
conspire, but are too thick to pull it off.
The Natural Gas 'crisis' is definitely engineered - a few quiet words
from OFGAS and a whisper in the ear of John Browne would sort things
out.
You're probably right, they are trying to slip in the Nuclear stuff
while people are nervous.
I can't say I'm keen on it.
Hmm... you missed another 'diversion' - the Pension Problem
- what nobody seems to have clocked is that technology and productivity
/does/ increase and in 20 years time we probably will not want or need
that many people in the work force.
- also, if we do hit a labour shortage (pretty unlikely), then pay
rates will rise and people will be sucked into the work force from pure
greed.
Drew
Missed another headline too, the Vatican's new ruling on
homosexuality in the priesthood. Let's go to your inverted pyramid
(or my reductionism) and it's just so depressingly irrelevant, and
still they equate homosexuality with paedophilia. However, one major
news headline, still based on dumb but pretty good is that the leader
of South Ayrshire Council has just resigned. I am in joyous heaven.
Nasty thieving ignorant self serving little toad. What is
extraordinarily dumb is that people actually voted for him, but for
standard euphemistic 'health reasons' he's scuttled off into a
hole. Hopefully a prosecution will follow. How long does it take
though, I knew he was on the pauchle twenty years ago.
Best
Jerry
Unfortunately I'm not sufficiently wayward to do this, but the idea of
justifying (heterosexual) rape on the basis that it is depriving a
potential human of life ... rather amuses me.
Funny how people confuse scoutmastering (paedorasty) with
homosexuality, I suppose that the Vatican prefers a euphemism - can't
understand that behaviour myself - but I guess that where you get
choirboys you get perverts.
Hmm... I wonder what Andy Hill has been up to, ain't Google grand,
'buying votes' is pretty standard stuff ... sounds like someone has got
some dirt on him.
Today I became the proud recipient of a 'Virtual' air ticket, Saturday
PM I'm off to the land of religion and conflict to suss out a bunch of
in-house mainframe programmers who reckon that their chances of
personal survival could be substantially enhanced by taking on my
system.
A bit of a turnup for the books, by committing Hari Kari in April this
year I've probably ring fenced two old mates of mine and prevented a
metaphorical train crash.
This one could be a laugh, I've a few old scores to settle and I'm not
at my most user friendly.
I know for sure that they'll have beer on ice for me on take off, and
my pals are pretty punchy after eight months of anxiety - they are well
aware of my abilities as a Deus ex machina.
And I've got a whole new layer of 'top' management to deal with ...
heh, life can be fun after all
Drew
passed the outrage state. Got a funeral to go to on Monday but I simply
cannot sit in church and listen to "In the true and certain
knowledge" etc. I sweat profusely, my vision blurs and I get an
almost uncontrollable urge to scream. Wonder if I could claim late
onset tourettes?
paedorasty --paederasty, for pedantry. (Only 'cos I checked the exact
definition). 'Scouting for boys' though. Yes that was a pain in the
arse. As I've said before, it was suggested to me that I don't come
back so I didn't. No wish to play their silly games anyway but these
were the days when parents told you what to do, like "Join the
scouts," and one had no option. Scarred for life I was -- not. Think
the final straw was when I asked if there was a shaggin badge.
Oh, you looked up the major news headlines and came up with Andy Hill.
It's major news here but the locals can't quite understand why it
isn't national news headlines, or even Scottish. This leads them to
suspect there must be some sort of cover up.
So how long will you be away for? Be nice to be in the (relative)
warmth, slightly offset of course by having to break in new
mouthpieces. Shame too that you'll miss a bit of the growing
crescendo of maudlin sentiment. Bah humbug.
Best
Jerry
with Akela
Later I was a Sea Scout - they were less picky about the intake - lost
interest pretty quickly, although I remember a riotous week in Jersey.
I also detest funerals, I've been to far too many in recent years, the
Catholic ones are a nightmare - especially when the 'deceased' topped
themselves - boy do they go in for some tortuous logic under those
circumstances.
I could not quite figure out what was going on with Andy Hill, it looks
like the Council is going into meltdown, so I expect one of his old
mates is threatening to grass him up.
Yes, it should be shirtsleeves weather, I could do with a bit of warmth
and some decent food.
Probably I'll come back on Thursday evening or Friday morning, since
their Friday is our Saturday - four full working days should be enough
- I'm scheduled to doss around on Sunday as I'll get in about 3:00 in
the morning.
I'm rather looking forward to this - it could be a real laugh.
Drew
sycophants, those who tolerate him and feckless relatives who he has
placed in jobs. Big useless fish in a tiny pond who got into power by
similar techniques as Hitler and Thatch, albeit that his attempt at
world domination didn't get beyond South Ayrshire, which incidentally
*is* the world in local mindset. Could still end up hanging from a
lamppost. Maybole and Girvan need bypasses like a fish needs water but
it just wasn't going to happen whilst anyone had to deal with him.
Perhaps now.
Well I hope you have a fine time in distant lands. Presume you like
olives. And they are sure to laugh like buckets when you ask for bacon
sarnies for breakfast.
Best
Jerry
- when people are on the ladder down, people tend to lend a helping
hand
Curious, bypasses are quite a good source of revenue, snap up key land,
all rules change for out of town shopping planning permission
- plenty of scope for pecuniary benefit
You would be amazed what you can eat out there, there are some very
good pork spare rib restaurants ...
Back Friday-ish