What's good for the goose...

I had my say on the BBC website today regarding the ongoing saga of whether Prince Harry should serve with the British army in Afghanistan, unfortunately due to restrictions on word count I had to abbreviate my posting to less than this that follows:

Harry should be left to serve in Afghanistan, unless he puts his colleagues in any more danger than the poor souls already are.
He signed up to serve in the British army and I can imagine that is exactly what he wants to do.
Regardless of what my opinion on sending troops to Afghanistan and Iraq may be I believe it is deplorable how news sites that are obviously short of news worthy stories can make so much out of Harry doing his job.
I had to endure 15 minutes of continual news coverage of the story on the BBC news last night before reaching for the off button and now it has been dominating their website all day. I have resisted adding to the fervor until now and feel it necessary to knock the BBC and other news outlets, including the original leaked source, for making so much of the tour of duty of one soldier when we have so many others out there who are equally precious to their loved ones at home.
Bring them all home soon, or at least work in conjunction with the UN more when we deploy our men overseas.

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I am hoping that there will be no such restrictions on the Amazon site when I eventually come to review a book I am currently reading. However, if there are restrictions I can always take a leaf out of the book and using the style and language of the author I could simply write ‘Crap’.
I will continue reading to the end because I cannot begin a book and then not finish it whatever I think of it.

Earth moving

I was scarred out of bed last night by the biggest earthquake tremor in 25 years in the UK; I personally cannot remember a bigger one. We sleep in our converted loft and I thought the roof was about to collapse in on us. Although only lasting 5-6 six seconds it was enough to remind me of how powerful this earth really is and how superstitions and religions easily arise or claim these tremors to be forebodings of Gods wrath.

If we do not look after this planet more we can expect to hear much more from her, not in the form of tremors because they will occur whatever we do to her.

And, just because some may just believe it, let us say that it is a warning from Mother nature to look after the planet more than we do and whilst we are at it care for each other a little more.

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I was taken out and treated to a meal last night by two friends and colleagues from work for no other reason than they knew that I needed to get out for an evening as I had not been anywhere since last October when I began a term of illness from work.

They asked for nothing more from the night than to have a pleasant evening, which we did, and we neither expected anything from each other, other than a good time.

Who am I trying to kid, they are probably having an affair and I am a good excuse for them to be out together. [That is not true but it beats the hell out of me telling you I had a nice meal with friends].

Still, at least with the earth tremor the earth moved for all of us in one way or another.

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I have just purchased a book by an ex-policeman, Paul Browning, turned author [I use the term lightly] entitled ‘The Good Guys Wear Blue’, and after reading the first two pages I was convinced it must have been written by a 15 year old school boy as an essay for his mock exams. I don’t expect the prose to improve for the next 300 plus pages but it is set in my home town of Coventry UK so I will stick with it, the book not the City [I moved away, not too far, 28 years ago].
If its content lives up to expectations, which must improve pretty quickly into the book for me, then I am hoping I will not be totally disappointed.

I will let you know if it turns out to be earth shattering stuff.

Wheat crops, food drops

A contributory factor in pushing up the price of Wheat is the rush for farmland to increase the production of crops for bio-energy, [especially in the US]. It is ironic that, for as long as I can remember, we still struggle to feed the World’s poor, especially in Africa, whilst the threat of dwindling energy to fuel our cars, TVs, Games consoles etc galvanizes us into action.

The race to produce these bio-energy crops is ill-thought out and lead primarily once again by people out to make a fast buck.

What sort of society are we if we allow our governments to procrastinate over the need to both nourish and supply proper medical assistance to the needy. The Bush administration in the US has at least tried to make inroads into this field and must be congratulated for doing so [whatever you think of the man himself], but we can still do more for all the right reasons and continue to increase aid year upon year.

As the Chinese economy continues to pull itself ever quicker out of poverty and demand the same high quality products and food stuffs as the western world we must ensure that in doing so we do not create the reverse elsewhere by not apportioning crops throughout the world markets.

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Our household continues to try to use less energy and make changes to our own lives in order to help our aging planet. One of the next changes for me has to be a serious rethink of where my political leanings take me.

See no

Following this report on the BBC news site I am quite disturbed by a religion and a country that can hijack and ban the use of an internet site that is monitored for unsuitable material by its owners and is acceptable in most of the Countries of this World. I often wonder what it is people are afraid of or are trying to hide if they cannot accept that others will have differing opinions to those held by them selves. I am not advocating outright religious or racial abuse but I defend the right to free speech and open debate.

Surely the way to prevent material from being viewed on a website is to apply through the proper channels and indicate certain materials from being inappropriate?

With the banning of some internet search engines in China we now this latest hijack of YouTube in Pakistan due to the apparent offence its content may cause offence to Islam. Who is it that makes these decisions? Is it the ruling authority, a dangerous move if it is, or is it religious leaders? The latter would be even more disconcerting.

In the UK we are sometimes over zealous in our attempts to defend the human-rights of the individual yet we can watch Countries deny the human rights of their own peoples, or even encourage the continued abuse of citizens by others in taking part in sporting events such as the Olympics.

If I am condemned to any ones idea of unearthly hell because of my beliefs than I can accept that for I believe that a far worse form of hell can be found on this earth without looking too far for any of us, especially if we continue to treat people and act like 'The Three Wise Monkeys’.