Armchair Revolutionaries

Mediocre, overpaid and spoilt that just about sums up our sportsman of today. While aimed mainly at our footballers this does hold true for cricket and rugby.

While our rugby team seems to be getting its act together after a poor start in the Six Nations and they did mange to reach the rugby world cup final after another poor start. They are still not covering themselves with glory, the standard of rugby they play is poor and they still don’t know to run with ball all they can do is kick and they rely on the kick skills of Johnny Wilkinson to pull them through.

Our cricket team fairs no better, after a whitewash in the ashes tour last year we have had some limited success, however, we have shown our true worth once again, in New Zealand where we have been overcome with ease by a country whose national sport is rugby and cricket falls way back in the pecking order.

What do these sportsmen have in common, their love of money and not the game? They care more about lining their pockets than playing the game and who’s to blame, us the great English public? We are the idiots who go week in and week out to watch this so called entertainment.

But the dilemma of rugby and cricket pail into insignificance when compared to our footballers. We are constantly told that the English Premier League is the best in the world. Why is this we ask, well it’s because we have millions of pounds to spend on bringing the best players in the world here? The reason for this is clear with the exception of a few individuals we do not have the talent in this country. This can clearly be seen in the way our national team performs. Every time we play in the finals of the World Cup or the European Championships the papers, pundits all say this is our time we have a great chance of winning this time, are these people living in cloud cuckoo land, we have no chance of winning anything while we have this type of mental attitude and we pay hundreds of thousands pounds a week to mediocre players. Thankfully we aren’t even in the running this year!

Foreign players make a great success in this country, just look at the top of the Premier League and see how many foreign players are in these teams. While these players do very well over here, English players have had very limited success in Europe, because we are just not good enough. If we look at the top scorers today in the Premier League there is not English player in the top 10. Gerrard and Rooney are in equal 12 positions with 8. What more proof do we need?

I have seen two year olds have temper tantrums, but this is nothing when compared with our professional footballers who question every decision surrounding the referee trying to change his mind with intimidation. At least in rugby they just accept the decision and get on with the game.

The Premier League want to take our game abroad, this is only to raise more money, the larger clubs get richer while the smaller clubs suffer, it has ruined our game. I used to go and watch football every week, but the game has been ruined by too much commercialisation and I for one no longer support it. We need to return to grass routes cap the wages of players and let’s play for the love of the game and not money.

It takes a nurse 4 years to earn the same as a professional player such as John Terry does in a week, but would you put your life in the hands of a footballer!

Hi to everybody...just a quickie...did anybody see Horizon tonight about Professor Lesley Reagan and what she would put in her supermarket trolley...some quite surprising results...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/broadband/tx/supermarket/
More information there than I can give you here...
Big hugs to one and all...

There is tons of information around about this. It does make me worry about future generations. Already the "Our oil under their sand" attitude of the US ruling circles is causing instability in the world as competition for what will be a rapidly declining resource hots up.

This is from a much longer article on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

"Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum production is reached, after which the rate of production enters its terminal decline. If global consumption is not mitigated before the peak, an energy crisis may develop because the availability of conventional oil will drop and prices will rise, perhaps dramatically. M. King Hubbert first used the theory in 1956 to accurately predict that United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. His model, now called Hubbert peak theory, has since been used to predict the peak petroleum production of many other countries, and has also proved useful in other limited-resource production-domains. According to the Hubbert model, the production rate of a limited resource will follow a roughly symmetrical bell-shaped curve based on the limits of exploitability and market pressures.

Some observers, such as petroleum industry experts Kenneth S. Deffeyes and Matthew Simmons, believe the high dependence of most modern industrial transport, agricultural and industrial systems on the relative low cost and high availability of oil will cause the post-peak production decline and possible severe increases in the price of oil to have negative implications for the global economy. Although predictions as to what exactly these negative effects will be vary greatly, "a growing number of oil-industry chieftains are endorsing an idea long deemed fringe: The world is approaching a practical limit to the number of barrels of crude oil that can be pumped every day."[1]

If political and economic change only occur in reaction to high prices and shortages rather than in reaction to the threat of a peak, then the degree of economic damage to importing countries will largely depend on how rapidly oil imports decline post-peak. The Export Land Model shows that the amount of oil available internationally drops much more quickly than production in exporting countries because the exporting countries maintain an internal growth in demand. Shortfalls in production (and therefore supply) would cause extreme price inflation, unless demand is mitigated with planned conservation measures and use of alternatives, which would need to be implemented 20 years before the peak.[2]

Optimistic estimations of peak production forecast a peak will happen in the 2020s or 2030s and assume major investments in alternatives will occur before a crisis. These models show the price of oil at first escalating and then retreating as other types of fuel and energy sources are used.[3].

Pessimistic predictions of future oil production operate on the thesis that the peak has already occurred[4][5][6][7] or will occur shortly[8] and, as proactive mitigation may no longer be an option, predict a global depression, perhaps even initiating a chain reaction of the various feedback mechanisms in the global market which might stimulate a collapse of global industrial civilization."

Hi to everybody...I listened to Start the Week with Andrew Marr and part of the programme consisted of an interview with a co-author of a book on the Iraq War and the economics involved in it....to quote the write up on it..
'The White House originally estimated the Iraq war would cost 50 billion dollars. However, in his new book, the Nobel Prize-winning economist JOSEPH STIGLITZ puts this figure at three trillion dollars and counting. He asks how the government could have underestimated the cost of the war so spectacularly and what price the US and the world is paying for this miscalculation. The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, co-written with Linda Bilmes, is published by Allen Lane.'
The facts that came out were truly mind boggling. Every twelve days 5 billion dollars is spent. The investment in the whole of Africa by the Bush government is 5 billion...there are now fifteen soldiers injured some so seriously as to warrant care for the rest of their lives to every one soldier killed in Iraq...5 billion could provide literacy for the entire world...the money spent now on the war would provide a fully comprehensive social care program for all Americans for the next 50 to 75 years...Bush has cut the social care services in the USA because he cannot afford both the war and to pay for any improvements in those essential services...50 million Americans have no health cover...and the list goes on...
We are also involved in the Iraq war and so far, I haven't heard the true cost of this war to our country...and the question is why not? And, how many of our soldiers have been injured and are now hidden from our sight as happens in most of our recent wars here and in the USA? I believe we would probably be absolutely appalled at the daily expenses incurred by this disastrous invasion, and the extent of the injuries incurred by our military personel.
Hans Blix, just prior to the announcement, was walking around saying has nobody read my reports...there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq!! And Saddam Hussein had nothing at all to do with Al Qaeada, so the invasion had no justification whatsoever, apart from the fact that there was a massive lobby from the Israelis to get rid of Saddam Hussein because of his opposition to the existence of Israel...
The interviewee pointed out towards the end of his particular part in the programme that the USA was heading for a major recession due to the crippling expenses of this war, and I thought that whoever wins the next election is almost doomed from the start to make a success of his or her Presidency, because of what they're going to inherit from this current President. The programme, interestingly, followed this interview with a new book about George Bush and his relationship with his father, and the rest of the Bush clan...not good news for the world as we have discovered to our cost...
Going on this news about the war, it seems to be the height of insanity to allow Blair to become a peace envoy in the Middle East as he was responsible by dint of his relationship with George Bush for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis apart from the deaths of so many soldiers on the USA and British sides. Both should actually be charge by the rest of the world for war crimes...but I doubt whether this will ever happen because too many politicians on both sides of the Atlantic could not face the reality of their own acquiescence when faced with the question shall we go to war or not, and so many said yes...a close relative of mine has just returned from Iraq after deciding he could not deal with the corruption and catastrophe he found, and told his colleagues his feelings about this war, which, until he went out there, he was quite ignorant about...he said if he was an Iraqi today, he would wake up every morning and cry his eyes out...

This story caused me to have a big smile and even a cheer out loud this morning. I bet there were a few hangovers in sunny Cyprus after the celebrating last night!

February 24, 2008 - 9:15 PM
Communist Christofias wins Cyprus presidential vote
By Michele Kambas and Dina Kyriakidou

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Communist party leader Demetris Christofias won presidential elections in Cyprus on Sunday and agreed immediately to meet the head of the island's breakaway Turkish-Cypriot community to revive reunification efforts.

The Mediterranean island's partition along ethnic lines is an obstacle to Turkey's bid to join the European Union, and a source of contention between NATO allies Turkey and Greece.

Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat called Christofias to congratulate him on his win and they agreed to meet "at the earliest possible date", Talat's spokesman said. A spokesman for Christofias confirmed the call but said no date had been set.

"I extend a hand of friendship to my compatriots the Turkish Cypriots and their political leadership, I call on them to work together for our common cause, a country of peace," Christofias, 62, told a stadium full of jubilant supporters.

The island has been split along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkey invaded after a brief Greek-inspired coup. Reunification efforts broke down in 2004 when Greek Cypriots rejected a U.N. plan and a divided Cyprus joined the EU soon after.

Ankara's EU entry negotiations have been partly suspended because of the deadlock over Cyprus. The EU recognises the Greek-Cypriot government in the south, where voting took place on Sunday.

After the vote, thousands poured into the streets waving red party banners and Cypriot flags and drove around honking horns. Christofias won 53.36 of the vote and right-wing rival Ioannis Kassoulides garnered 46.64 percent and conceded defeat.

CLIMATE IMPROVES

Analysts said the election would improve the climate between the two sides of the decades-old dispute, which has brought NATO members Greece and Turkey close to war a number of times.

"A moderate pro-solution candidate has won, he stands for a different approach for the negotiation, a direct contact approach with the Turkish Cypriots...and he will deliver on this," said political analyst Hubert Faustmann.

Christofias will be Cyprus's first communist president and the only one in the 27-member EU. Although proud to be a communist, he says he will leave the free market economy alone.

His AKEL party boasts busts of Lenin and red flags at its headquarters but it also owns a number of large businesses on the island. It has been instrumental in electing presidents but had never fielded its own candidate.

The surprise elimination of incumbent President Tassos Papadopoulos in the first round on February 17 raised hopes the Greek Cypriots might be ready for a deal. Papadopoulos had led the opposition to the U.N. plan in 2004.

Christofias, who won the vote after securing support from Papadopoulos's party, favours a structured approach to fresh talks through the United Nations.

Turkish Cypriots, who have watched wealthier Greek Cypriots enjoy the benefits of EU membership alone, welcomed the result, saying they were keen for negotiations to re-start.

Initial reaction from Turkey was lukewarm.

"We are a little cautious at the moment," a Foreign Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We have to see whether Christofias gave promises to Papadopoulos or not. (Christofias) will face a sincerity test."

(Additional reporting by Simon Bahceli and Stelios Orphanides, and Zerin Elci in Ankara; writing by Dina Kyriakidou; editing by Stephen Weeks)

Hi to everybody...Tom of seasideman blog has raised a question in my mind that I cannot answer. Do you think the world will move towards vegetarianism in the not too distant future, or is it an impossible aim?
My instinct is that it is not a possibility given the way the world is now, and the capitalist system is never going to agree to dispense with meat production because so much money is made from all the businesses involved in producing an end product that it's plain to see people want.
From an ethical standpoint, I can see that vegetarianism is probably a more moral way of dealing with the problem of keeping ourselves alive. No animals have to die to keep us alive so none are mistreated or exploited. However, since I was eighteen years old and travelling up to London everyday on the train where I would meet a girl who was both a Communist and a vegetarian, and discussing with her the pros and cons then of not eating meat, and the capitalist system versus the communist, she never managed to persuade me that it was a healthier option unfortunately, and I'm still not convinced and I'm 61 now. She did however, get through to me with her left wing views A few years later, I was almost as left wing as she was after experiencing certain things that changed me from a Young Conservative not to a Young Socialist because joining clubs was never my thing, but certainly a supporter of Socialism and I have remained so ever since....
The only way I might see it happening was if the current food producers found ways of creating synthetic meat products that were difficult to tell apart from the real thing. Then, and only then, might the masses who enjoy their meat, be persuaded to change their eating habits. That is a possibility, but, as yet, the synthetic meats on the market fall way short of the real thing, and actually make me quite ill...I don't seem to be able to digest them properly...they give me the most unbelievable wind, which, while amusing in a crude way, is no fun when your belly is blown up like a balloon...I tried Linda McCartney's vegetarian pies a couple of times and decided that I'd prefer to stay alive rather than ever try another...I could have landed on the damned moon I had enough gas in me to reach it...HLOL...it was also agony...not to put a too finer point on it...
So, my friends, what do you feel about vegetarianism and the possibility of it spreading across our world in the next few decades?
Big hugs to one and all...

THE BRITISH legal system is a part of the bourgeois British state, designed to protect property rights and the rights of the rich and powerful to remain rich and powerful. Nevertheless over hundreds of years it has made concessions to the bourgeois ideals of liberty and equality. Reforms have been hard-won in struggle and continually have to be defended against assaults from “anti-terror” legislation and so on.

But it is generally recognised that all citizens – in theory at least – have equal rights and freedoms before the law and are entitled to live in peace, hold property and live without fear of false imprisonment or arbitrary judgement. And in theory everyone is equal before the law and protected against discrimination – regardless of gender, race or religion – though often this protection has to be fought for.

This is a bourgeois democratic state and for all its faults it is better than a feudal state – with inequality according to property holding, gender, race and so on enshrined in law. All religious laws hark back to feudal ideas, recognising only “God” as the true judge of right and wrong, and his priests as the interpreters of what that means – and they cannot be challenged by any reasoned argument.

When the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams said that it was inevitable that certain aspects of Sharia law would become recognised by the British state for settling disputes within Muslim communities, he was calling for a return to dark days. He pleaded that this was “not about beheadings but about things like family law” he implied that family law is a trivial thing. Yet to be locked in a bad marriage or arbitrarily divided from one’s children is equivalent to a life sentence of misery.

He implied that it was possible for Britain to take on some aspects of Sharia for some people. It is like the famous cartoon of the curate’s egg – where a shy young curate, having been served a rotten egg for breakfast and asked if it was good replied, not brave enough to complain, that “parts of it are excellent”. There is no such thing as an egg that is partially excellent and the rest rotten. And there is no such thing as any code of law based on religion that is acceptable in a modern democracy.

Would he grant the right of Catholic priests to bar women from Catholic families having access to contraception, divorce or abortion and give that bar legal backing?

All aspects of religious law are reactionary and hark back to the days when religious leaders governed the every day lives of the working classes – and upper classes could always bribe their way round it.

This is a battle between secular and religious law that began with the battle between Henry II and Thomas Becket.

There is no equality in Sharia law, especially for women and the poor. For a start, it is impossible for any women to become a priest or judge. There is no consistent body of Sharia law. Sharia judges interpret the law according to what they deem as fair. Most strive to do this as well as they can for the benefit of their community but they are inevitably bound by their prejudices and the system is open to bribery. Cases often end in negotiations over compensation between families – where wealthiest will always prevail.

Some who claim it is equal towards women say there is no ban on women going out and about as they chose or wearing what they choose. But if a woman doing so is attacked in any way they will say, “What was she doing out and about when she should have been at home in the kitchen looking after her family?” Men do not suffer the same castigation.

The law must be secular and equal to everyone. Family issues are not trivial and ideas that senior family members always know what is best for younger and more vulnerable members is just not so. It harks back to the Roman concept of family as the private property of the patriarch to do with as he wished. And Rowan Williams betrays his own reactionary assumptions about families in his remarks.

He claims to be trying to build bridges between communities but most Muslims in Britain do not want Sharia law. It has no place in a modern industrial society, nor does any other religion-based law code.

Following the sentencing yesterday , separately , of two particularly nasty convicted murderers , who the discovery of their DNA played a big part in apprehending and convicting , the (UK) police are again calling for a compulsory national dna database , to help to solve serious crimes and to keep the most dangerous criminals off of our streets .
Already , the dna of anyone arrested - and not necessarily put on trial for or found guilty of - recordable offences is routinely taken and kept on record , as is that of witnesses to crimes who supply their dna so the police's forensic investigators can differentiate it from that of the possible culprit .
The police , and some members or our unparalleldly intrusive government want the taking and keeping of dna to also become routine for anyone arrested for non-recordable offences , i.e dropping litter , or driving a little above the speed limit .
The ultimate aim would seem to be that all new born babies and all legal UK citizens would be compelled to provide their dna samples , to be kept on a database for the rest of their lives and beyond .
Which would make no difference re . illegal immigrants in our country , which seems to have largely lost control of our borders in the last few years .
And whether all legal foreign visitors to our country would have to provide a dna swab upon entry is open to question , though in our present political climate that seems doubtful .
Would I mind a sample of my dna being held on a national database ? -
Well since I've done nothing awful and have no plans to I'd say no I'd not mind , if I can be 100% convinced that it's a 100% infallible , un-tamperable system which would be used only in the investigation of serious , nasty crimes .
There's a potential concern that if , in decades to come , many areas of Britain were to have descended into chaotic lawlessness resulting in an extremist party who do'nt respect human rights getting enough votes to be able to form a government , they might somehow abuse their access to a dna database .
Would you mind if a sample of your dna were to be permanantly held on record by our government / police ?
Undoubtedly such a policy would help to convict more dangerous criminals .
Though proof that someone had been in contact with a victim , or been at the scene of a crime of course does'nt necessarily prove their guilt of it .
Do we need to all be forced to carry - and personally pay for - identity cards , and be on a dna database ?
I'm not completely sufficiently informed , or yet decided but please , I'm really interested , what is your stance on this issue ?

Hi to everybody...here's an article by Mark Steel in today's Independent about Cuba and Castro...in between the humour, there's a lot of facts and harsh truths...worth a read..
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-so-farewell-fidel-ndash-but-please-dont-give-a-speech-784363.html

Big hugs to one and all....

Hi to everybody...as nobody else has put up another subject to discuss yet, I'll continue putting forward suggestions...today, Fidel Castro announced that he was stepping down as President and handing over the reigns fully to his brother, Raoul...
He has been seriously ill now for 19 months and hasn't appeared in public since his admission to hospital for a series of operations. The Cuban people have had time to adjust to his disappearance and to get used to seeing his brother in charge.
It is only my point of view here, but I have always regarded Fidel Castro as a hero. Prior to the revolution, Cuba was the playground of the Americans and the Cuban people were mostly chronically poor, uneducated and downtrodden with little or no healthcare. After the revolution, Castro set about defending Cuba, educating his people, providing them with some of the best health care in the world, and raising them from abject poverty to a level where they could have meat on the plates frequently rather than once or twice a year, if that, prior to the revolution.
By fair means or foul, he succeeded in achieving all those aims...I say fair means or foul, because, in the situation he found himself in once he had thrown out all the criminals and wealthy Americans who used Cuba for their amusement only, he had to seek out help from wherever he could find it and, at the same time, counteract the American government who left no stone unturned to try to oust him or kill him...the amount of assassination attempts on his life has become one of the standing jokes I think because there were so many yet not one was successful, it does suggest that the CIA operatives have to be amongst the most inept in the world...actually I've never understood why they always managed to remove somebody like Allende in Chile by brute force, but seemed incapable of killing off an individual leader by stealth...in all the films, they seem to manage it, but, in the real world, rarely...hmmm...
I have digressed...for years I've watched Castro be criticized and put down by the West, and I have never deviated from my belief that he was one of the few good guys left in the world. I am aware that there have been dissident voices in Cuba and some were dealt with harshly, but it would have been extraordinarily difficult for Castro to tolerate them and allow them the freedom to continue to stir up discontentment and urge a second revolution to overthrow him. We, in our country, made very sure that the Communists amongst our people never got a foothold politically, so while we handled our dissidents by stealth, he had to do it in the open and thus earned a reputation for being a brutal dictator. I don't know of many dictators who can walk amongst their people as Castro did for the majority of his fifty years as President, confident that he was held in high regard by them in the same way as he held all of them in high regard and love.
I will miss him greatly on the world stage. He represented somebody to me who stood up to the mightiest nation on earth for fifty years and won out against overwhelming odds. He kept his dignity and his fiery spirit, and his passionate belief in his people and his love for his country.
I would be interested to know if I am alone here in my admiration for this grand old man.

Hi to everybody....to start off this group, today, Kosova is about to declare independence from Serbia. The EU is split on the Kosovo Albanian's decision, but the USA and Britain, France and Italy are among those supporting it, but many other EU countries do not agree with this move. Russia is vehemently opposed to it, because it will set a precedence and there are many countries with areas occupied by immigrant populations that might wish to break away from the country the land belonged to for, sometimes, centuries.
Here's a potted history of Kosova for anybody who might like to know more about the situation.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/kosovo/110492.stm
There are some thousand of our troops being sent out there now together with a large peace keeping force to ensure that no trouble starts once the declaration has been made. This stretches our military capacity to its absolute limit, so, if there is trouble, there will be no more help for our troops because no more are available.
It is worth knowing a bit about this momentous decision because it just might be a pivotal point in human history, just as the assassination of a single man in the Balkans prior to the second World War triggered off catastrophic results around the world...

It's a decision that troubles me greatly and I think the EU countries that have approved it alongside the USA are making a huge mistake. What do you think?

Hi to everybody...as the title indicates, this is a group for anybody who has a topic they would like to discuss or debate...all that I ask is that all those taking part avoid abusive comments...any subject is acceptable, but preferably it should be about something taking place in our world which either troubles us or angers us, or with which we agree. That's a broad remit, my friends, so I hope you'll join me in being an armchair revolutionary... Big hugs to one and all....