Thursday, January 25, 2007

No End To Labour's Incompetence


Is there no end to New Labour's incompetence? Today the Home Secretary asked judges to send only the most dangerous criminals to jail as U.K. jails are now full. So burglars, shoplifters, joy riders and yobs everywhere, you may continue with your nefarious activities, free of fear of any custodial sentences. Given the police know that those they might or should arrest are unlikely to be locked up, what motivation do they now have to collar these types of criminal? It has been well documented over the last decade that new prisons would be needed but New Labour as is their habit continue to play their fiddles while Rome burns.

In similar vein, a senior police officer who was asked why we could not adopt a zero tolerance policy towards yobbish anti-social behaviour, similar to that introduced in New York, responded that his officers would be unable to tackle any other crimes; inferring that the problem is so widespread it is now beyond the capacity of the police to deal with it.

This man should be walking the beat! How does someone of such dull intellect get promoted to Chief Constable? It is beyond me. This dullard has so completely missed the point and purpose of a zero tolerance policy. If you implement a zero tolerance policy properly, the message will soon get through and put a virtual end to miscreant behaviour, freeing up more officers, who would otherwise be patrolling the streets on a Friday and Saturday night chastising violent drunks and those who use our streets and alleys as public toilets.

As my father-in law was keen on saying, "God give me strength" and I would add, save us from this awful mediocrity that pervades our town centres every week-end and struts the upper echelons of our political and social institutions.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The Begining Of Everything


In the beginning their was helium and hydrogen. Oh! and there were gaseous clouds floating about. They collided causing a huge reaction of chemical elements and dust particles, which condensed, eventually resulting in a massive nuclear explosion; from which the sun and the planets were formed. We are all made from star dust according to scientists.

It must have been some spectacle, shock and awe on a magnificent scale. Imagine the magnitude of an explosion that created an entire universe. It's almost incomprehensible; as incomprehensible as the the origin of all those gases that just happened to be floating about, in a space and time that did not apparently exist, prior to the Big Bang! So where did they come from? Were they the residue of a previous universe perhaps or did they just sort of materialise as if by magic from nothing out of nowhere? This is of course, the billion dollar question scientists avoid, in order to make their equations add up.

If those gases were the residue from a previous universe and why shouldn't they be, one must assume it had collapsed in on itself. This may have happened countless times, in which case universal evolution stretches back aeons upon aeons further into the distant past than we had hitherto imagined. But it still does not answer the fundamental question, how did it all begin? The only certainty as far as I can see, is that it did not begin with the Big Bang. That was a consequence of pre-existing matter. The Big Bang may explain the birth of our Universe but it does not explain the conception.

In fact it explains precious little and it certainly fails utterly to prove or disprove the existence or otherwise of a God. What we can say without fear of contradiction is that the forces of good and evil are present in the minds of man. However, these forces may simply be our interpretation of the interplay between the forces of construction and destruction which are visible in everything we see. That which destroys, we regard as evil and that which constructs we interpret as good.

The solar winds for example, destroy the atmosphere of some of the outer planets but the Earth's magnetic field shields us from its malevolence. Paradoxically, without the energy supplied by the Sun, there would be no life either. The Sun is therefore both a destroyer and a creator of life as are water and fire and all the other elements and every living thing.

It is so because life could not evolve any other way? It is so because without these opposing forces at work there could be no evolution and no enlightenment. Knowledge is born of experience and observation from which comes wisdom. But what good is the acquisition of knowledge, if in the end there is nothing but death and ultimate universal destruction? To serve any purpose knowledge has to evolve continuously as does life. Temporary knowledge like temporary life, is an exercise in futility.

These are the questions the scientists cannot answer and until they can, we should not place too much emphasis on their assertions anymore than we should believe Popes, Archbishops or Mullahs who have allowed power and politics to corrupt their "truths". We are as far away from understanding the origins and mysteries of life as we ever were. I just have a feeling that even now, with all the scientific knowledge we have, we will not believe our eyes or any of our other senses when and if, all is finally revealed.

Perhaps the key to this eternal mystery might be better understood if we spent less time looking through telescopes and more looking at the nature of life itself. We need to try and understand what we can see, before we try to understand what we cannot. The purpose of life cannot be found through a telescope or in a laboratory, nor is it explained by a big bang. These tools can tell us how life has evolved but cannot, I believe shed light on the purpose of life or the objective of enlightenment. These are the questions we all want answered above all others. I hope that when and if we get the answers, it will be shock and awe on an unimaginable scale. I just hope that we do not find that life is nothing more than a ridiculous exercise in futility.

My head is hurting now, so I'm off to bed to ponder all the ramifications in my sleep! Goodnight.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Destiny Rides Again


Every possible destiny is laid out for us on the great celestial map of life. The first path we travel is that which our parents are already on when we are born and on which we remain until such time as we are mentally and physically able to make independent choices.


However, control over our own destiny is as much subject to the direction being taken by others, over whom we have little or no control, as the choices we make for ourselves. If a burglar chooses to rob my house, his destiny crosses mine through no choice of my own.Thus the choices the burglar makes affects my journey as well as his. Our personal destiny is therefore tied to that of every other being and every other living thing. We are as dependant on each other as we are on ourselves. If we look after each other and of course our environment, our destiny will take us to a brighter future. If we abuse each other and destroy our environment, destiny will lead us all, to a darker place.


Thus to believe that individuals have absolute control or no control over their own fate is a complete misnomer. Our individual destinies are self evidently, inextricably linked to the collective journey of life. Politicians in Israel and Palestine and all over the world where nations and cultures are in conflict, would do well to remember that the destiny of nations as well as individuals are inseperable. No man or nation is an island unto himself or itself. Understanding this will help us navigate the map of life more effectively and rewardingly.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Who harbours tyrants - the UN does!

(From old news item)

UN envoy upbeat on Mugabe talks

Mr Mugabe says the slums were cleared to root out crime. A UN envoy has spoken warmly of her discussions with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe over his controversial urban slum demolition scheme.

Typical example of UN duplicity

It is time to admit that the United Nations can never be an effective arbiter of civilisation or international law whilst it is founded on the ill conceived often corrupted principles that pervade its entire structure. A United Nations that harbours despotic and corrupt member governments within its walls can and never will be anything but corrupt. Such a body will never be able to act effectively to protect the innocent from state barbarity. We need not look further than the genocide in Rwanda, the chaos in Zimbabwe, the slaughter in Sudan and the persecution of the Iraqi people by Saddam Hussein for over thirty years, to know this to be true.

In the absence of an effective international body responsible for the application of civilised rules of international behavior, countries will inevitably fall back on unilateral action to resolve problems and the world will continue to flounder from catastrophe to catastrophe. Until we understand that the serving of the common interest is the key to self interest, we will go nowhere worth going to.

Now is the time for the Iraqi people to show the world a better way. Their destiny lies not in the hands of the UN or the USA but in their own hands, if they did but realise it. It is what they now do that will determine what course the UN and USA will follow, not the other way around. Say yes to freedom. Say yes to democracy. Say yes to justice and above all say no to terror and the USA will become their client and not their master, their friend and not their enemy.

Re-printed from article written in September 2004

Monday, January 01, 2007

Another War




Somalia targets Islamists' escape
Somalia's interim government appeals to Kenya to seal its border to stop fleeing Islamists from crossing.

Comment:

It is time to start bringing those that initiate wars to account. Most if not all wars are the result of actions taken by a tiny minority of the world's population who hunger for power and wealth.

They are for the most part politicians, religious fanatics, self proclaimed revolutioneries or military commanders, seeking to boost their own self interests rather than those of the people they claim to represent; the vast majority of whom would rather live and raise their families in peace.

Why do we, the vast majority allow them to get away with it? How is it that we are so easily duped by their propoganda and why after centuries of abominations have we not yet comprehended the full horror of war? These are not virtual deaths that we are watching every day on our television screens. These are real people like you or I. They are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. They could be your mother, father, daughter or son. They could be you.

Wake up world and smell the coffee. It's aroma is so much more appealing than the stench of death.


Update: 9th January 2007

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Many people died in a U.S. air strike on a southern Somali village occupied by Islamists believed to be sheltering at least one al Qaeda suspect, a Somali government source said on Tuesday.

"I understand there are so many dead bodies and animals in the village," the senior source told Reuters.

In the first known direct U.S. intervention in the Somali war that began over Christmas, an AC-130 plane rained gunfire down on the southern village of Hayo late on Monday.

"The Americans are saying an al Qaeda member heading operations in east Africa is among the Islamists there," the source said. He did not know the man's name or whether he died.

Hayo is in the southern tip of Somalia between Afmadow and Doble, areas where Ethiopian and Somali troops chased the Islamists' last remnants after ending their six-month rule of Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia in a two-week assault.