I had been spending the last few days living here in Avatime district while visiting Ghanaian friends nearby. Away from internet, TV and any other distraction, it has given me a chance to ponder what next to do with my life.
This has been a real problem. Have submitted Sikunder Burnes to the publishers, and while there is still editing and proofs, a huge amount of time is now free. My determination to dedicate myself to working for Scottish independence led to my comprehensive rejection by the SNP. This left me confused as to what I might usefully do with my life. I suppose the question I have been pondering is, what good am I?
I have come up with a potential answer, and will out it later this week.
Climate change deniers should come to Ghana. Not only have changing rainfall patterns devastated the hydro-electric system, life has become extremely hard for farmers. The last decade has seen the highly predictable wet and dry seasons become wildly unpredictable. It has been unseasonally raining heavily on me all over Ghana. The situation is extremely difficult for farmers. Mango farmers are now praying for relief from the rain for the next six weeks or the mangoes won’t flower. The continuing rains may already have adversely affected next year’s harvest. Meeting cocoa farmers today. Am now in Kumasi.
It’s quite possible that, as RobG has suggested, the radioactively contaminated U.S.S. Ronald Reagan has been stationed in also radioactively contaminated Japan because it is undeployable anywhere else.
So the MoD has defended its decision to fly a Royal Navy Admirals wife half way around the world to name a Royal Navy ship.
The MoD paid Lady Boyce £5500 quid to fly to South Korea to name a Royal Navy ship built there.
The MoD handed the £452 million pound contract to build Royal Navy ships to Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering.
Meanwhile back home the British steel industry is on its death bed, and yards like Portsmouth have been sold out by Westminster to foreign shipbuilders.
It wasn’t that long ago that Westminster claimed Royal Navy ships wouldn’t be built in an independent Scotland, a scaremongering tactic, yet here we are over a year later, handing a four ship build contract to South Korea.
These four ships will carry Royal Navy helicopters, and support other ships, it’s an absolute disgrace and an affront to British shilbuilders, and steel fabricators that their government won’t support them in their time of need.
I feel sorry for those workers who lost their jobs at Portsmouth, this kind of contract could’ve kept them going.
Meanwhile publicly owned Channel Four could be next to be sold off and privatised, just like the Royal Mail.
Suspicions were raised at the Commons yesterday when a SNP MP asked David Cameron about Channel Four’s future, Cameron replied that he’d need to look at the options, which many MP’s feel is code for privatisation.
Indeed some analysts suspect that next year, the Tories will undertake a privatisation bonanza, which will include, the Ordnance Survey, the Met Office, the Land Registry and the Royal Mint.
China’s president Xi Jingping, is a busy boy, he’s set to meet the president of Taiwan soon, a first meeting between both countries (I see Taiwan as a seperate country) for 66 years.
China’s president wants to grow economic ties with Taiwan, and hopes that eventually Taiwan and China will unite, by force if necessary.
However not everyone shares China’s hope of unification, Taipei Taiwan’s capital saw mass protests take to the streets.
Taiwan is a democracy, China isn’t in my opinion the Taiwanese would be foolish to march under a Chinese banner, unwittingly Chaing Kai-Shek gave birth to a productive and successful country, without Chinese intervention, best keep it that way, I say.
Turns out the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan has been sailing around Japan and taking part in a joint naval exercise with South Korea, even docking at a South Korean port. In the process, it has had encounters with a Chinese submarine and Russian bombers. Chinese Submarine Stalked U.S. Aircraft Carrier: Attack submarine sailed near USS Reagan south of Japan:
Family and Friends of USS Raygun seem blissfully ignorant of the peril.
https://www.facebook.com/ussronaldreagan
RoS Lord Boyce spoke in the Lords in 2007 advocating military build up without declaring an interest at the time as a remunerated director of VT Group plc. VT Group (Vosper Thornycroft built destroyers and the like. Split up since. Part sold to Babcocks.
He has since relinquished that directorship.
‘VT Group is a privately held United States defence and services company, with its origins in a former British shipbuilding group, previously known as Vosper Thorneycroft.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT_Group
He is now on the advisory board of http://www.dgroup.co.uk/lord-boyce/
‘Admiral of the Fleet The Lord Boyce KG GCB OBE DL was appointed First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff in 1998 and Chief of Defence Staff in 2001. Lord Boyce was a board member of VT Group and WS Atkins and is Chairman of the D Group Advisory Board.’
Surely that should read ‘ex Admiral….’
Jane Corbin of the Israel friendly Death on the Med BBC documentary (Mavi Marmara killings) is also there.
Unsure what the D Group is??
‘The D Group is a business development network which extends the reach and success of Companies, Institutions and their Leadership Teams. Together our members employ over 1 million people in the UK and over 6 million globally. We are headquartered in London, present in 30 countries and have contacts in over 100 countries.’
Lord Boyce Register of Interests
Category 2: Remunerated employment, office, profession etc.
Adviser, Computer Science Corporation
Chairman D Group Advisory Board
Strategic Adviser, ATOS Origin
Senior Adviser, Protection Group International (risk-mitigation and security company)
Adviser, W S Atkins plc
Adviser, Sherpa Millbank (strategic counsel to companies)
Category 10: Non-financial interests (b)
Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable for Dover Castle
Colonel Commandant, Special Boat Service
Category 10: Non-financial interests (e)
President, Royal Naval Submarine Museum
Vice President, Forces Pensions Society
Elder Brother, Trinity House
Chairman, HMS Victory Preservation Company
Chairman, Centre for Blast Injury Studies Advisory Board
Trustee, Naval & Military Club
President, Pilgrims Society
Vice President, RNLI
http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-boyce/3630
“But you can rely on sea currents and waves and tides, Fred. ”
But they haven’t put the windmills under the sea.
“Have you got shares in the nuclear industry Fred?”
Have you got shares in Prices Candles Ltd.?
‘Let’s Bring In Our Pentagon Spokesman’ – Bombing Syria
05 November 2015
Medialens Editors
One of the great Freudian slips of our time was supplied by a Fox News anchor on March 24, 1999, as Nato was preparing to wage war on Yugoslavia:
‘Let’s bring in our Pentagon spokesman – excuse me, our Pentagon correspondent.’
For indeed the unwritten rule informing this type of journalism is: if you want to get close to the ‘defence’ establishment, you better be close to the ‘defence’ establishment: ideologically, sympathetically, ‘patriotically’.
A near-perfect example of this industry-wide perceptual bias has been supplied this year by BBC diplomatic editor, Mark Urban.
Last week, Urban discussed the Russian bombing campaign in Syria in a piece entitled: ‘Russia’s Syria intervention: One month in.’
This was made fascinating by the fact that, in January, Urban had written a piece on the US bombing campaign in Syria and Iraq: ‘On board with the US air crews fighting Islamic State.’
So how do these articles compare?
/..
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2015/806-bombing-syria.html
I would imagine the nuclear decommissioning industry is very profitable.
November 5, 2015
Nuclear Power: Dead in the Water it Poisoned
John Laforge
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/05/nuclear-power-dead-in-the-water-it-poisoned/
Bradwell. Shut 2002. Est date for completion – 2070s.
‘The buildings are being sealed in aluminium cladding to provide protection from the weather during the care-and-maintenance phase, which could last until as late as the 2070s. To date, 7377 square metres of cladding, out of a total of 28,000 square metres, has been installed.
A central building linking the two reactor buildings at Bradwell has now been demolished, separating the two buildings and enabling further progress to be made with the installation of the cladding. Cladding has now been completed on one of the four boiler houses and has been fully revealed for the first time as scaffolding has been taken down.
Bradwell site director Scott Raish described the separation of the buildings as marking the end of an era for the site. “Now the buildings are separated, the work to clad the reactors can continue and we will begin to see more of what the site will look like in care and maintenance,” he said.
Meanwhile, UK engineering company Costain has announced it has secured £1m ($1.6 million) of funding from the UK government to support a project to develop a “new and innovative” method to treat irradiated graphite.’
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-Changing-face-of-Magnox-decommissioning-2511147.html
‘Since the start of October, Palestinians have been taking part in mass popular resistance against Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of people joined a huge demonstration in al-Khalil (Hebron) and similarly large demonstrations took place in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Bethlehem and across Palestine. Palestinians continue to take mass action on an almost daily basis in cities, towns and villages throughout historic Palestine.
This uprising is led by a generation of fearless young Palestinian Davids who are no longer intimidated by the brutality of the Israeli Goliath and who are asserting their right to self-determination and freedom. It comes as a response to the escalation of Israel’s criminal attacks on and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Israel’s repression of this ongoing uprising has been brutal. Israel has killed 74 Palestinians, mostly unarmed protesters and bystanders, including 15 children and a pregnant woman. More than 2,000 civilians have been shot with live and rubber coated bullets. More than 1,350 Palestinians have been arrested.’
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2015/popular-palestinian-resistance-against-israeli-oppression-enters-its-second-month-13509
A good example of Tidal Forces, on an otherwise Very Calm Ocean –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jevwjLDhJrY
And Out at My Hebrides the U.K Gov allows any, More like all Navy Ships to Blast, Bomb away all they like..For about 15 years off the North and West coast of Scotland the United States have been testing weapons like the SM-2 and SM-3 missiles.. seven Nations all provided military ships and aircraft for the exercise.
But will the fisherman and residents on the West coast Ever be told if cancer-causing depleted uranium missiles/shells are used in the war games.
I am so outraged over this reckless..aye Scandalous Miss-treatment, and most likely Very destructive of Scottish waters..
Then there’s the Dolphin, and Whale beaching’s.. Thanks mostly to Sonar disrupting their navigation –
http://caltonjock.com/2015/07/15/the-west-coast-of-scotland-an-island-fortress-part-2-a-sea-and-land-nuclear-death-zone-westminster-sell-out-to-the-yanks/
http://newsblogged.com/live-video-million-mask-march-london-2015-millionmaskmarch
Some livestream coverage of the Million Mask March kicking-off in Central London right now . Who would guess from this the Met or Police in general are short-staffed . Not a Policeman to be seen on Halloween night when bikers on mass rode through London on pavements , through Red Lights making pedestrians jump for their lives . Public disorder acceptable unless it’s political it appears ?
Monteverdi, most of the live streams are being removed PDQ. Russia Today (RT) is probably the best place to find raw footage of the demonstration.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahus-new-media-czar-called-obama-anti-semitic/
Another of those ‘ you couldn’t make it up stories ‘ re above quote by Ran Baratz , Netanyahu’s newly appointed ‘ Head of Public Diplomacy ‘ .
My guess is his career will be fairly short .
“Point being, how can the UK claim to have any morality at all when it gives guys like this a State welcome? ”
Sure it was a State visit?
The Chinese Presidents was.
Benign ignorance.
BBC1 Question Time 22.35 tonight
‘David Dimbleby presents topical debate from Tottenham, London. Panellists include Conservative international development secretary Justine Greening, Labour’s Chuka Umunna, the Green Party’s Jenny Jones, Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens and writer and broadcaster Victoria Coren Mitchell.’
Million Mask March protest underway in London – live updates
Thousands of people dressed in Guy Fawkes masks in Trafalgar Square are met by ‘significant policing operation’, including thousands of extra officers to tackle expected unrest
LIVE Updated 9m ago
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2015/nov/05/million-mask-march-gathers-in-london-live-updates
Mary; I’ve heard of Picadilly Circus but didn’t know there was a Chinatown. How was that not legislated out as racist in the UK? Sensitivity is selective.
Historic Ben. That’s England for you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_London
At least we’ve stopped selling opium to the Chinese people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_opium_in_China#Growth_of_the_opium_trade
and Prince Phillip has stopped referring to Chinese people as ‘slitty eyed’ (as far as we know – at least not in public).
If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed. Said to a group of British students in China in 1986, as quoted in “Long line of princely gaffes” BBC News (1 March 2002) Wikiquote
so there has been a little progress!
Ba’al Zevul
5 Nov, 2015 – 2:49 pm
Queen: “And what do you do?”
Nazarbayev: “I sell oil, bitch.”
_______________
Soooooooooo funnnnneeeeeee, in a Banal sort of way.
Pauper’s humour?
“Mary; I’ve heard of Picadilly Circus but didn’t know there was a Chinatown. How was that not legislated out as racist in the UK? Sensitivity is selective.”
It isn’t seen as racist in the UK because we didn’t have an influx of Chinese slave labour to do hard manual work for menial wages in the 19th century as America did hence Chinese were never seen as inferior or lower class. The Chinese have always been quite high up the social ladder in Britain working mostly in the retail and catering industries. Chinatown just refers to an area with a lot of Chinese shops and restaurants.
” Pauper’s humour ”
I do mean more intellectually, than anything else, of course.
Climate change deniers?
You mean there are people who deny the climate changes???
Anyway, stand as an independent voice in Scotland for an independent Scotland. Why do you see the need to put yourself in a position where you’ve got a bunch of people curtail your own fibre?
Or, just keep on working in that part of Africa that you like so much. I’m sure there are opportunities… Your part owner in a gold mine there – yes? Why not use some of the money to set up a school – where you could teach? I’m sure you would be a great educator – you are here!
^ ” Your part owner in a gold mine there – yes? ”
Is someone smokin’ somethinn’ ?
From yesterday:
John Mann on Wanless Review and Dickens File
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oqx4nE35Z0
And the latest from Exaro:
http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5688/police-probe-13-more-politicians-over-claims-of-child-sex-abuse
” Historic Ben. That’s England for you. ”
Historic? Perhaps historical?
And before you start getting hysterical, what’s England for you, Mary?
” Would you prefer Mursi whose intelligence head Zawahiri is brother of CIA Zawahiri in Afghanistan? Mursi got him to phone his brother to offer Egypt’s undying support for regime change in Syria. ”
Egypt is lost between the devil(s) and the deep blue sea.
“Chinatown” is a word used without embarrassment for Chinese-populated neighborhoods here in the U.S. I work perhaps half a mile from what I know is still called “Chinatown” in D.C. (even though most of the Chinese have moved out to the suburbs). I have also been in neighborhoods certainly called “Chinatown” both in New York City (my original home town) and San Francisco.
As events move to New York…
https://www.rt.com/news/320840-2015-million-mask-march/