Message to Zola

Do not sell Bellamy.

A Weird Boxing Day In The Footy...

It was a weird Boxing Day in the weirdest Premiership season I can remember.

It's a season where three or four bad games can alter a club from title contenders to relegation fighters and managers from local heroes to people who need sacking badly (Personally, I think managers have it too hard- one should not get sacked for losing the final of the Champions League).

I caught a fair bit of the Villa-Arsenal game. It was a spectacular goal that levelled it for Villa and I, for some reason (I'd usually support Arsenal in this encounter, but I generally support Arsenal in their encounters, unless they're playing West Ham, of course).

Great one for the Hammers, wasn't it? 4-1 against Pompey at their ground is a brilliant result. They should have kept Redknapp...

Man City did a great job against Hull. I guess their manager is safe for the time being. Come the transfer window in January, they're going to be spending like a thing that spends a lot (thank you, Messrs. Whedon, Curtis, Elton, Atkinson et. al). Perhaps next season they'll be the richest side in the Championship. ;)

Man U certainly left it to beat Stoke- it should have been a walkover.

It's going to be an interesting title race- it could go to any one of five or six clubs. For the record, I will now make my preferences clear.

Come on you Reds!

Gaza airstrikes

The Gaza Strips has suffered its worst airstrikes since 1967, as you've probably read on the news sites.

It seems to me that this is the lead up to a full-scale invasion by Israel, who are probably getting sick of Hamas.

It's going to be nasty whatever happens. My thoughts and prayers are with all those affected.

Merry Christmas

I would like to wish everyone an enjoyable and safe Christmas season.

Praise the Lord for the birth of his Son, that our sins might be forgiven and that we might enter his Kingdom!

US Election Analysis

I was going to do one, but it's a bit late now.

If anyone still wants it, please let me know.

Punditry

A job that requires no qualifications and which you can't get sacked from for excessively poor performance.

So, I'll be here for a while yet... ;)

Misuse of the word "since"

I'm getting annoyed with people constantly using "since" in the same sense as "like".

For example, an advert for the Quantum of Solace video game has a reviewer describe it as "the best since GoldenEye". I suspect that's one of those ripped out of context quotes, but still it's the word since that bugs me.

Let's say that each year, the number of cider bottles drunk by Dave is counted. These are the results:
1997- 61
1998- 23
1999- 30
2000- 8
2001- 24
2002- 25
2003- 15
2004- 21
2005- 32

Now, you could say that in 2005, Dave drunk the most amount of port he's drunk since 1997 and express alarm over his alcohol consumption levels. However, he's only drunk half of his 1997 level.

The current recession has been described as the "worst financial crisis since the Great Depression". However, it's nowhere near the Great Depression- financiers aren't jumping off skyscrapers, for example.

Please, to everyone in the media, put this in perspective.

Covert-81

I expect that this will go up at AJJE Games over the next couple of days, so I had better advertise it now.

Covert-81 combines three of the areas at I have a great interest in- RPing, espionage and the Cold War, in the form of a play-by-post RPG.

The year is 1981. Détente is in ruins after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. With the SS-20 missile deployment in the Western USSR and the planned NATO counter-deployments, a new, seemingly hard-line US president and a rapidly arming USSR, it seems that nuclear war is closer than ever.

Behind the summits and the rhetoric, shadowy operations are going on. Two black-ops organisations, one on each side of the East-West divide, battle to gain the advantage in this global struggle.

Choose your side: Section 91, dedicated to protecting Western freedom and democracy, or Chameleon, aiming to ensure the triumph of Marxism-Leninism.

Inspired by such works as Firefox, The A-Team, MacGyver and the Tom Clancy novels, but with the benefit of hindsight and better accents, Covert-81 is a tale of espionage, high-technology, betrayal, danger and really, really bad hairdos.

If you're interested, please email me at silenthunta@hotmail.com

(yes, that's a "Backfire"- from the DIA Military Art Collection)

Damian Green

Some general thoughts:

• I suspect that Green's releasing stuff in "the public interest" was also because it further served the Tory interest
• I believe that Brown and Smith weren't told about this beforehand- Diane Abbott said that there had to be political cover and I think not telling them was that
• If this was a Labour MP doing this, the Daily Mail et. al would not be so much in arms
• I hope there was a very good reason for this- I suspect there's something more than the Tory story.

(Edit 3.10pm - this is my 200th post)

Winning The War On Terror

This is the first part of an ongoing series where I try to solve the world's problems and probably fail miserably. Nevertheless, it's the trying that counts.

My first such topic will be on the war on terror. Now, this is the obvious conflict that is going on and one we'd all like to end, whether it be bringing our relatives who serving in Iraq and Afghanistan home or just not having to remove your shoes every time you go through airport security.

One cannot win the war on terror by military means alone. Some argue that it cannot be won at all.

Jesus said "love your enemy". This might be a good approach.

One thing we have to remember- Muslims are not our enemy. Those who distort that religion for their own sick ends are. However, there's no reason why we should not also treat them with love.

It's going to be important for President Obama to close Guantanamo Bay down. While I strongly suspect that some of the abuses there have been exaggerated by people for their own purposes, its existence is a recruiting sergeant for disaffected Muslim youths. Those there need to be placed on trial in a system that combines transparency with security- i.e. not releasing information that must remain secret.

On the subject of disaffected Muslim youths- the Muslim community in this country do feel that they are being excluded. This one is going to be a bit controversial, but I think, provided all parties agree in advance, that sharia law courts should be allowed.

The anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Tory press must stop.

We need to tackle the Middle East problem starting now, not after Obama takes office. It is the single key issue that "Al-Qaeda" gets most of its support from and we need to show the Muslim street that we care about them.

This also applies, as I've already mentioned, to the corrupt governments in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia in particular.

Global poverty needs to be dealt with, recession or no recession. I'm rather curious as to how much of China's foreign debt (if it has any) British people actually own. One way to deal with that is eliminating all tax havens, so uncaring rich people have nowhere to run. Lewis Hamilton (not saying he's uncaring) could pay a little more tax for a start. I also favour the Tobin tax.

These will show that we love all people, regardless of their skin colour or beliefs.

Of course, it may end up being the most loving thing in some cases to drop a 500-lb bomb on someone's head, sadly.

Your thoughts are welcome.

Speaking of Tories...

Boris may have scrapped The Londoner. Havering Tories haven't scrapped their bi-weekly paper.

In other news, my long-planned 1980s espionage RP for AJJE Games, Covert-81, should be going up soon.

I'll give you more details when the page is created.

Boris Johnson talks the talk on the environment...

But then scraps the Dagenham Dock DLR extension and is going to scrap the C-Charge extension.

I didn't vote for this guy and I think people who voted him in because he's amusing should examine his record before 2012.

Mumbai Attacks

I suppose you've already heard about it. Nasty, that's for sure.

Let me make one thing clear to those cowards who don't even have the bravery to attack military targets- as long as I have anything to do with it, you are not getting one iota of what you want.

Comments Policy

I've revised the comments policy- anyone can now contribute, but I reserve the right to remove offensive posts.

Thanks to Alun for pointing that out- Blogger has upgraded since I last the policy.

Remembrance: Legacy and Peace

The Legacy of the Second World War

The First World War was supposed to be the war to end all wars. As is blatantly obvious, it didn't exactly live up to that name.

The war changed the world, basically. The old European militaristic "glory of war" attitude was effectively destroyed for most people by trench warfare. Women got the vote, the class structure altered radically and the political structures of Europe were altered forever.

Of the countries in Europe most effected, Russia and Germany stand out for obvious reasons.

The Treaty of Versailles is rightly considered as a major cause of the Second World War. It made several crucial mistakes- being both too harsh and too soft on Germany.

General Pershing, despite his stupid decision to continue attacks on German troops after the Armistice had been signed (it was signed at 5am, but did not come into effect until 11am), commented that it should have been made abundantly clear that Germany had lost. If not, people could claim they had not- as Hitler did.

That said, blaming Germany for the whole of the war was wrong and its military should not have been limited in the way that it was (the Weimar Republic was already in breach of the military provisions before Hitler came to power). Germany should, as was done after the Second World War, been gradually reintegrated into the international community.

The biggest impact, which still resonates 90 years on, was the creation of the USSR. No USSR, arguably no Hitler, or at least no consideration of expansion. The support of the Western states of the anti-Bolshevik forces coloured Soviet perceptions of them for a long time, playing a factor in the Cold War and probably today.

Gavrio Princip's shots still echo today.

Peace

Someone once said, si vis pacem, para bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war). President Theodore Roosevelt said "speak softly and carry a big stick".

I can't recall the quote, but someone once commented, in essence, that an entire peaceful nation would be a sitting duck for one with warlike intentions.

There are around 210 geo-political entities on this planet. Even if 209 were entirely peaceful, just one could cause serious problems.

Certain people on the left place much of the blame on the current world situation on the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Sure, they have to share some of the blame, but it does not all rest with them by any extent of the imagination.

"Al-Qaeda" (I use the term in speech marks when I refer to the entire movement on a collective level) and the Taliban are the source of much of the trouble in Afghanistan- for example firing from civilian-occupied buildings, a violation of the principles of war.

We cannot defeat these people solely by arms that fire bullets, but we also need to use arms that provide hugs. We must put major pressure on the Middle Eastern states to allow freedom of speech and democratise- allowing people to affect politics in other ways. We also have to wean them off their dependence on oil as a revenue source, just as we have to do it as an energy source. On a related note, selling Eurofighter Typhoons to Saudi Arabia is a bad idea.

I have a saying- Perception is nine-tenths of a war. People start wars out of fear or because they misread others, more than anything. Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 is an example of the latter- he thought the USSR would prevent UN action, which it didn't do.

We need to understand the cultures of others- and explain our own to them.

I don't imagine it will be easy by any stretch of the imagination- there will always be a few war-lovers, people who glory in causing mass destruction, out there. We just need to make sure that they are contained.

While this concludes this series, I want to explore certain aspects of this in my blog in the future.

The continuation of this blog

The Remembrance post will follow tomorrow or Sunday.

That said, I am seriously considering mothballing this blog. I do not seem to be getting any visitors at all and I do not fancy speaking into thin air.

I will let you know my decision in two weeks.

Delays

The two final Remembrance posts were due on Monday and Tuesday, but I had internet connection problems.

They will be posted as one post, probably sometime next week.

Remembrance: The Sea War

I intend to do two more posts on the subject of the First World War- one more on its legacy and a second on peace in general.

The First World War is not as well known in the naval area as the Second. There was only a couple of large sea battles in the course of the war- Jutland being the most famous.

However, this war set a lot of elements that would make the later Battle of the Atlantic in the second war so bloody for all concerned.

Submarines had been around for a long period and used in war for about half a century. They were more submersibles at this point, spending most of their time on the surface.

Initially the Germans adopted the Prize Rules of the period (specifically from the two Hague Conventions)- challenging merchant ships, allowing the crew to get to a place of safety, which didn't count lifeboats, then sinking the ship. A British Admiral, John Fisher, worried about the Germans going to unrestricted submarine warfare- as a sub could not take the crew of a merchant ship. Churchill, then thought that a civilised nation would never do it.

Fisher was right- Germany did go unrestricted, in response to an effective Allied blockade of Germany. During this process it sunk the Lusitania- that, other attacks and the later Zimmermann telegram, brought the US into the war, leading to Germany's defeat.

For both sides, submarines were noisy, dirty and cramped. Being sunk could lead to a highly unpleasant death.

Some of the U-Boat commanders committed atrocities (others didn't) and there was considerable public hatred of them in the Allied countries.

Depth charges and sonar appeared in this war, to be perfected later.

Being on board a sinking ship, flooding rapidly, while possibly injured, must be an awful way to die. Knowing also that your family won't have a real grave to go to either. Those who served in the naval and merchant ships in both wars were truly brave men and women.

Remembrance: Conscientious Objection

The First World had conscription on nearly all sides after willing volunteers ran out.

However, for some people, the whole idea of war was wrong. They refused to fight in the war, preferring to go to prison rather than compromise their beliefs.

Some played a valuable part in helping the wounded in No Man's Land. Others refused to take part in that, arguing they would be helping to prolong the war by fixing people up.

It sometimes takes more courage not to fight than it does to fight. If I had been around at the time, I suspect I probably would have gone to war. I was briefly a pacifist, but lost that a long time.

Sadly, it is sometimes necessary to go to war- it will be until the Second Coming. But I respect those who disagree provided they are genuine about it and not biased in who they criticise.

Don't buy white poppies- the money does not go to help those who have been injured. If you don't want to wear a poppy for whatever reason, just put a quid in the poppy box. It still helps people.

Remembrance: The Eastern Front

One of the most important impacts of the First World War was the end of the Tsarist regime and the Bolshevik popularly-supported coup that led to the creation of the USSR- with all the historical implications that had.

Arguably, Russia's reaction to Austria's threats to Serbia was a major reason why war broke out in August 1914. "Slavs united" has been a force in Russian policy for quite a while (Kosova in 1999 for example).

Unlike the Western Front, the Eastern Front was a war of movement, with advances and retreat, going over much the same ground as in the Second World War.

Russia lost this part of the war- mainly because it was badly organised. Nicholas II (and later the Provisional Government) ended up between a rock and hard place with regards to continuing the war. Neither decision would improve things- a true dilemma.

Ultimately the Bolsheviks ended the war, the Germans moved their troops and launched their offensive- but the Americans were there. The decision of the Provisional Government to continue the war was, probably, the right one.

But, to honest, it shouldn't have had to be made. The Tsarist regime should have reformed earlier. Their error was to all our cost.