Cue the Panorama music please LOL, we are websurfing to see what is going on in the world today. Usually it starts off with a strong first few stories and then winds down as I get more engrossed in the actual stories than keeping my blog informed :)
Kofi Annan has come out swinging with the oil for food thing, saying that the illegal smuggling, which is a distinct separate (and bigger) issue from the oil for food, could not have gone on without the US and Britain knowing. With the no fly zones and pilots in the air every day for twelve years, how could they have missed the huge lineups at the border crossings - Kofi has said that because Turkey and Jordan especially were Western allies, then a blind eye was cast. The US and Britain have denied any knowledge LOL. Although Newt Gingrich has actually said that someone must have known something, it wasn't all the UN's fault - hmm, ever since he got kicked out of the Speaker's chair, he has almost seemed reasonable, for a Republican LOL.
Michael Jackson's trial finally got heated overnight by the sounds. The defence attorneys quizzing the mother of one of the kids from the past that got admitted into evidence. Pretty damaging stuff she had been saying, that Jackson had been in bed with the boy, and apparently cried when he was told it was to stop, and that his staff had strongarmed her into staying at Neverland, was cross examined today and she could leave Neverland while her son was there. And the witness was being argumentative, and the defence lawyer unprofessional according to the judge, who had a pretty tough day of it. Hmm interesting - how do you get $152K from JC Penney for a sexual harrassment suit when you have been caught or at least accused of shoplifting LOL.
Maybe I will leave Downfall until next week, at the cinema. Will be within the actual ten last calendar days of the Third Reich then, April 20 to 30 - well not of the Third Reich, but of the Battle of Berlin and Hitler's life. Just today is the commemoration of the liberation of Belsen, sixty years ago. April 1945 in Germany must have been a crazy time, the government, as it were, imploding, and every person for themselves.
Read a good book by Anthony Beevor about the Battle of Berlin a couple of years ago, more from the viewpoint of the Soviet advance than the Western Front - war is hell, from all sides. The one thing that sticks in my mind from that book is the mass rape of the German female population, and, with the moving of the Polish borders a few hundred miles west, the mass deportation/evacuation of Prussia, where some of these people had been living for five hundred years. Sad, but then, what war isn't. With the Treaty of Rome binding Europe together, hopefully that sort of thing won't happen on the continent again. Chechnya I hear you say?
Just reading a good article now about Newcastle United's season in the English football/soccer. Is a huge soapy drama and all lol, an extract -
'This season alone has involved the dismissal of Sir Bobby Robson after the dropping of Shearer, which followed Dyer's refusal to play on the right on the season's opening day at Middlesbrough. Jonathan Woodgate was soon sold to Real Madrid and an offer of 23m [pounds] was made to Everton for Wayne Rooney.
That was August.'
Damn not having the pound button LOL. At least they keep in the headlines despite never winning anything, I am sure anyone who has the slightest inkling of soccer remembers a couple of weeks ago two of the Newcastle players were fighting each other?
And yay, Chelsea are in more trouble off the football field - after trying to snag one of Arsenal's players and then accusing a referee and then UEFA of lying, they have gotten offside with Manchester United, after having a chance meeting with Rio Ferdinand LOL. Good comment that Chelsea may become the most reviled team in the country soon, takes a lot for Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson to agree on something :)
Hmm, good article about how Tony Blair is campaigning in Britain - yes, there is a general election due there early next month. Now, he has said that this is his last campaign and he will step down sometime in the next term. I just remember that John Howard here in Australia was saying something similar a couple of years ago, until September 11 happened and he had to stay on for the continuity of government in a crisis. Now he has been completely re-energised, had a walkover win last year in the election, and shows no signs of stepping down. And there was a story a month or so ago in the British media that said Blair had made a promise to Gordon Brown a while ago that he would step down in this current parliament. Hmm, we will see.
'Whereever Mr Blair goes on this campaign, journalists feel they have to peel off from the event to talk to local people beyond the enchanted zone of invited guests who comprise the only audiences the prime minister meets. The Blair helicopter usually travels with a news agency reporter and a TV crew in tow, but for the rest of the media, it's a scramble. It is hard to follow a man in a helicopter when you don't have a helicopter yourself, and it is even harder when the Labour news management outfit won't tell you where the helicopter is going.'
For national security reasons, I am sure LOL.
Okies, more later :)
Paul
Kofi Annan has come out swinging with the oil for food thing, saying that the illegal smuggling, which is a distinct separate (and bigger) issue from the oil for food, could not have gone on without the US and Britain knowing. With the no fly zones and pilots in the air every day for twelve years, how could they have missed the huge lineups at the border crossings - Kofi has said that because Turkey and Jordan especially were Western allies, then a blind eye was cast. The US and Britain have denied any knowledge LOL. Although Newt Gingrich has actually said that someone must have known something, it wasn't all the UN's fault - hmm, ever since he got kicked out of the Speaker's chair, he has almost seemed reasonable, for a Republican LOL.
Michael Jackson's trial finally got heated overnight by the sounds. The defence attorneys quizzing the mother of one of the kids from the past that got admitted into evidence. Pretty damaging stuff she had been saying, that Jackson had been in bed with the boy, and apparently cried when he was told it was to stop, and that his staff had strongarmed her into staying at Neverland, was cross examined today and she could leave Neverland while her son was there. And the witness was being argumentative, and the defence lawyer unprofessional according to the judge, who had a pretty tough day of it. Hmm interesting - how do you get $152K from JC Penney for a sexual harrassment suit when you have been caught or at least accused of shoplifting LOL.
Maybe I will leave Downfall until next week, at the cinema. Will be within the actual ten last calendar days of the Third Reich then, April 20 to 30 - well not of the Third Reich, but of the Battle of Berlin and Hitler's life. Just today is the commemoration of the liberation of Belsen, sixty years ago. April 1945 in Germany must have been a crazy time, the government, as it were, imploding, and every person for themselves.
Read a good book by Anthony Beevor about the Battle of Berlin a couple of years ago, more from the viewpoint of the Soviet advance than the Western Front - war is hell, from all sides. The one thing that sticks in my mind from that book is the mass rape of the German female population, and, with the moving of the Polish borders a few hundred miles west, the mass deportation/evacuation of Prussia, where some of these people had been living for five hundred years. Sad, but then, what war isn't. With the Treaty of Rome binding Europe together, hopefully that sort of thing won't happen on the continent again. Chechnya I hear you say?
Just reading a good article now about Newcastle United's season in the English football/soccer. Is a huge soapy drama and all lol, an extract -
'This season alone has involved the dismissal of Sir Bobby Robson after the dropping of Shearer, which followed Dyer's refusal to play on the right on the season's opening day at Middlesbrough. Jonathan Woodgate was soon sold to Real Madrid and an offer of 23m [pounds] was made to Everton for Wayne Rooney.
That was August.'
Damn not having the pound button LOL. At least they keep in the headlines despite never winning anything, I am sure anyone who has the slightest inkling of soccer remembers a couple of weeks ago two of the Newcastle players were fighting each other?
And yay, Chelsea are in more trouble off the football field - after trying to snag one of Arsenal's players and then accusing a referee and then UEFA of lying, they have gotten offside with Manchester United, after having a chance meeting with Rio Ferdinand LOL. Good comment that Chelsea may become the most reviled team in the country soon, takes a lot for Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson to agree on something :)
Hmm, good article about how Tony Blair is campaigning in Britain - yes, there is a general election due there early next month. Now, he has said that this is his last campaign and he will step down sometime in the next term. I just remember that John Howard here in Australia was saying something similar a couple of years ago, until September 11 happened and he had to stay on for the continuity of government in a crisis. Now he has been completely re-energised, had a walkover win last year in the election, and shows no signs of stepping down. And there was a story a month or so ago in the British media that said Blair had made a promise to Gordon Brown a while ago that he would step down in this current parliament. Hmm, we will see.
'Whereever Mr Blair goes on this campaign, journalists feel they have to peel off from the event to talk to local people beyond the enchanted zone of invited guests who comprise the only audiences the prime minister meets. The Blair helicopter usually travels with a news agency reporter and a TV crew in tow, but for the rest of the media, it's a scramble. It is hard to follow a man in a helicopter when you don't have a helicopter yourself, and it is even harder when the Labour news management outfit won't tell you where the helicopter is going.'
For national security reasons, I am sure LOL.
Okies, more later :)
Paul
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