Two sided stories blog

The news is of course deadly serious...the story a sad one,
but the back story is even sadder.
Apparently the people who persuaded the deluded Akmal Shaikh into carrying 4 Kg of heroin - (that is a lot of heroin guys...) convinced him he was going there to become a pop star singing this song...

53 - the same age as me - and with a diagnosis I am completely familiar with...
but I still laugh when I watch that video...

I blame Simon Cowell.
All those sad people who audition for his god awful show, and now encouraged by Susan Boyle's triumphant success...( remember her near nervous breakdown previously? ) of course Simon would never persuade anyone to carry 4Kgs of smack into China for him - he exports much more disgusting stuff.

Mr DinnerJacket is making a very common accusation regarding where the unrest in his country is coming from, and our foreign office is once again denying that the British have done anything that might justify his threat to punch us on the nose...

Well its time we came clean.

It is our fault
- and not just with blogggers like me taking the mickey out of his name, we are so powerful that we actually do arrange all the unrest, all the demonstrations and all the opposition to his government regime, and their rigging of the election.

Why are we not thanking him for recognising what an immensely superior and incredibly powerful nation we are?
...A nation where ordinary people using ordinary modern methods of communication such as the internet and telephones and letters, have managed to turn ordinary, proudly pro-Dinner Jacket civilians into zombies that we control.

God is not great - WE ARE!
we are so powerful that our poorest civilians, with access only to free internet in the library, are more capable of prompting and continuing bloody revolution in Iran than their armed forces, in their own country, their media, their ayatollahs plus all their employees and followers are, in trying to portray I'maDinnerJacket as a decent human being...
How powerful is that?!

WE ROCK!
It's time our government expressed some pride in this amazing ability and joined in with us making little laughing noises down the tapped phone lines at the Iranians whilst holding up rubber model missiles, where the body of the rocket is all droopy...

That's how we are doing it on the internet!

New security checks are bound to be brought in.
This man, (Title linked story,) Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, may soon become an unwitting hero of the Green movement - and he didn't kill anybody so we should all be able to celebrate his achievement.

What? I hear you cry - have you gone over to the mad Mullah brigade?

To which I would calmly answer, of course not, I am saying that the actions of this nutter will possibly have some consequences that could help the green movement goal of reducing the amount of high level CO2 emissions that are killing our climate's manageability.

Realistically - the whole world is so dependent on Airline travel that it isn't about to stop, most people use it in the full knowledge that it is safer than most other forms of transport. The security checks however - those ones with the little plastic bags, the abandon all drinks bottles here, remove your belts... and mercury fillings, submit yourself to anal probing... those ones - may put off some of the people wanting to travel abroad for their three holidays a year.

We need to drastically reduce the amount of non essential travel - and long haul holidays are the most obvious quick win. So we need more of these failed bombers to bring new ideas of how to smuggle explosives on board international flights - such as this guy's wonderful technique of wrapping a type of plastic explosive around his crown jewels - and we could start to see some fun scenes!

I like to picture Henry and Jocasta thinking twice before jetting off to Barbados for a fabulous four day February fuck break, when they realise some security guards are going to be shoving sniffer dogs noses and pen torches in places they had previously regarded as strictly a matter for their own private late night viewing...

Al Quaeda may be a green movement in disguise...

Three cheers for Gareth Thomas - finally coming out, presumably just before a kiss and tell was about to come out in some rat-bag mag...

I am not knocking him (no, honestly - missus ) but it was, as a Western Mail journalist said on the news - "One of the worst kept secrets in Wales."

The good news is that what the general acceptance of this signals is that we have reached a point of real progress since the 1960s, when the idea of an out Rugby player would have been impossible. It is not long ago that being gay was a suicide risk for any sportsman...
well, possibly not gymnasts.

on the lighter side, there is something rather ironic about this serious quote that the Gay crowd might spot...
"...I've stood on so many cliff edges. I used to go to the cliffs overlooking the beach near our cottage ... and just think about jumping off", G. Thomas

Why was he so alone?
I know a fair few gay men in Cardiff, they always told me that the easiest pick up was a rugby player on a drunk Saturday night out after the game - but you had to remember not to be there in the morning when they woke up...

We still, as a species, have such a sense of confusion about sexuality, it is puzzling, self damaging and occasionally amusing.

When I was studying in Aylesbury for 'A' levels we had a school soccer team but also the opportunity, one afternoon a week, to choose rugby or ballroom dancing.

Jim Fletcher and I were the only two males to choose ballroom dancing...along with 22 girls...
When taunted as "Poofs!", we pointed out that the guys doing the taunting were trotting off to a cold wet mud patch, to grapple with each other's dirty gussets and stick their heads in between each other's sweaty thighs...
- whilst we were taking a firm hold of our pick of the school's most attractive girls.

One or two of them suddenly clicked but the confusion among the others was a joy to behold.
It was never a surprise to me to find out that being attracted to close bodily contact with other men means that most people with gay inclinations choose sports like rugby, what is more surprising is that it took this long for a major professional player to be able to be out - at last! without feeling suicidal from keeping it secret...

Soccer players next... and that is hopefully a short wait.

Bishop Stephen Venner...
the temptation to say he exposes the thin veneer of the Church's position on war and other religions is almost too great to resist... so I won't.

He was reported in the Telegraph, (title linked) as saying that the Taliban could be admired for their conviction and loyalty. Quack Quack Ooops. The western world is ablaze with fury that he could "give succour to our enemies".

He went on to say in a BBC interview:
"I'm not trying to support the Taliban," he said. "At the moment what they are doing is evil."
He said he would be "deeply grieved" if anyone had taken offence and hoped he had not jeopardised his job.

There you go - the job of a bishop is what...?
To promote tolerance and mutual understanding and build bridges between different religious groups..?
to earn money from promoting fear and stupidity among the masses?
or not to defend other religious groups too well, in case we start seeing the hypocrisy inherent in war and Christian beliefs...

The nice Archbishop of Canterbury chose to decry Salman Rushdie's right to free speech and cajole his inciting of Islamic people. This was not giving succour to enemies apparently...

The truth is all about how religions have a vested interest in supporting each others fairy stories- even while they want to kill the others for not believing in the same particular aspects of the story they hold as dogma.
But at times like these when a war makes one group our "enemy" well - perhaps Salman would like to pen a little ditty about the Taliban's abuse of women?

The idiocy of any war has been demonstrated ad nauseam but still our leaders, elected and robed in silly garb dare to speak as they do... especially sad because this idiocy is not avoided, or denied by Obama, or by Brown as well as by Bishops, (not just this one), the world over...
so who shall we turn to for leadership?

...given that the Taliban are a religious group that demonstrate the civilised approach to life of a pack of baboons on crystal meth, we have a really good picture of just what is so civilising about religious influences on people...

May the all powerful life essence that I refuse to call God give me strength...

...the Israeli embassy said it was "extremely disappointed".
"We think this is singling out Israel and it plays into the hands of those who are calling for a boycott of Israeli goods," it said.

Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs was on thought for the day this morning, extolling the way the Jews choose peace when it comes to celebrating either the Sabbath or the Macabee military victory normally scheduled for their very many celebrations of dubious deeds...

The unfortunate context for his bumbling 'thought' was the news announcement just before he spoke, that supermarkets are to be required to differentiate the labels of foods produced on the West Bank into those produced by the Palestinian homelanders and those produced by the illegal Israeli invaders.

This is the news that the Israeli embassy are so "disappointed" about. They say it will encourage consumer boycott of their Israeli goods...

errr yes, and why not?

Christopher Hitchens in his "God is not Great" book, and talks, highlights how devout Jews often disobey the edict that they should pray every morning that they are thankful that God didn't make them a) a woman, and b) a gentile...
Christians tend to disobey the edict to stone to death those who dare to pick up sticks, or wear clothes made of two different materials, on the Sabbath.

Even these devout religious people can occasionally see that their dogma is inhumane and they would be better off obeying normal Atheist moral codes...
but Sachs won't ever talk about this I feel sure.

The Chief rabbi, also, could not really choose to talk about Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territory, the desperate need for the wider world to boycott the goods of the corrupt and hypocritical Israeli governemnt who preach peace while creating war - so he chose to emphasise that really they are all about peace...

It's utter claptrap and he knows it. If he were to publicly reject the obscene nature of those sexist racist prayers and admit that Israel represents all that is worst in a rich modern state, then his ideas on peace might hold some weight...instead he has consistently chosen to be a pro-Israel apologist who should not be listened to.

and boo! to my blog hoster who will not only forbid any link to a sex reference (including a Guardian link on the killing of homosexuals in Uganda) but also would not let me caption that picture above - "Israelis killing for peace" - it is automatically rejected only when the word Israeli is included... shame on you, Francois Planque and B2Evolution.

When you are a major Hollywood star - of the sort who sifts through the script offers rather than perusing the Variety magazine casting opportunities... you are already in the position of not needing "extra cash"...

You might choose to do some commercial blockbuster, on the pretext that it not only pays your children's, and their children's, and all their children's, grad school, law school, med school, astronaut and other training bills, but mainly you do it so you have the star name...
the kudos.
Kudos that enables you to do those serious or quirky and personal projects - like "Being John Malkovich" if you are John Cusack for example...

What it also means is that your image is one of the most important things about you, that you have to strive to avoid typecasting, enabling you to play a broad range of roles and maybe, eventually, possibly, go for that Oscar - playing someone with a disability or "going ugly" if you are known as a glamour puss..

Why then..?
would someone who has already been Obi Wan Kenobe, a dream role for a wannabe kid actor who made their name in the sleazy drug drama, Trainspotting, appear in an advert for a perfume playing on the documentary they made of travelling on a motorbike with a friend - all alone across dangerous territory (except for a ten man camera and security crew in 4x4s)?

Why does someone so desperately want to appear to be a wanker?
Mathew McConaughey possibly has the excuse of being thicker than the average actor, and that is saying something, but his Dolce & Gabbana advert - which makes the average porn star look like Princess Diana - added to Ewan McGregor's Davidoff vomit inducing fawning, are enough to warn a producer are they not?

if not - listen...
Film producers everywhere!
these guys may be bankable - but the way they are prostituting themselves means the word needs a "W" in it instead of a "B".
Please, do not encourage these guys to do this, not just for their own sakes - they give stars a bad name - but because that's bad for your business...

and in the meantime it is making me nauseous.

for these three Christian missionaries.

Brundidge, Lively and Schmeierer, they are on a mission made in Hell...

This linked story tells it all really. Any Christian I know would probably join me in saying that what these guys have achieved and what they preach goes entirely against Christ's teachings.
Nevertheless, Christian churches still proudly champion missionary work to the underdeveloped world and enjoy telling impoverished people how to live better. Even the more moderate churches make no efforts to stop these missions to Africa, of which there are thousands.

The fact that these nations' comparative poverty is partly the result of earlier missionary work by eminent Victorian Christians does not challenge their sense of irony - because they don't have one.
It is in the nature of the religious followers of many different types to ignore the complexities of political life and believe that the sheer power of the words and simplistic ideas they believe in, however ridiculously selective those ideas and words might be, will help people...
so they proceed to ignore the teachings of love and ram dangerous ideological nonsense down other people's gullets.

Good Samaritans they are not.
Bush talked of a crusade in the context of invasion in the Middle East and it wasn't just a slip of the tongue - in his mind, and many other American evangelical "cultures", the crusades were an honourable attempt to bring civilisation to the heathens.

Whereas in reality, Saladin, the Muslim leader was better educated, more naturally intelligent, less avaricious and kinder than any 12th century Crusade leader on the "West's side"...(not to mention George)

Ugandans may have many dubious people in their government and a huge task in coming forward to the modern age, but like Bush, these missionaries should stay the hell away from here, stop interfering - here or anywhere else - with their crusades against homosexuality.

These three anti-Christ Christian men are less deserving of their freedom than many on their own country's death row...