Just a thought!

If North Korea launches a pre-emptive strike against the US, will it trigger other conflicts started by Countries taking advantage of America's preoccupation with defending its own territories and that of  its ally, South Korea? Might China, for instance, invade Taiwan and the Spratley islands in the Pacific, the latter, comprising territory disputed by amongst others by Japan? Will Iran attack Israel, further stretching US military resources and might Argentina chance their arm again by again attacking the Falklands? The british, already stretched in Afghanistan, will find it hard to respond with limited or no US aid and even less sympathy.
So great is the possible escalation of the conflict is it beyond the realms of possibility that another Country is sponsoring North Korea's aggression, thereby creating the right environment for expansionism? It seems improbable, to me, that the North Korea leadership believes that they can win an all-out war against the United States without help and are therefore, in effect, a client state. But who believes, with the world suffering a financial crisis, now is the right time to strike?

The Gethsemane Prayer

On a recent BBC's Songs of Praise programme, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, told of the harrowing time of his daughter's death following a road accident. As her life slipped away he confessed that the nature of his prayers changed to match those of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. From praying for her survival he asked that God's will be done, as did Jesus before his death and repeated since at each rendition of the Lord's Prayer.

There can be no denying the sincerity and piety of Welby but his cofession demonstrates the problem one has in persuading the religious community that there is a spiritual side to mankind but one without God. In praying, 'That God's will be done' he is effectively saying or asking that nature will take its course. It reminds me of the song:

Que sera sera,

Whatever will be, will be,

The future's not mine to see,

Que sera sera.

The blogger, (His Grace) Cranmer said in his blog;

Archbishop Justin has come to build, teach, preach, train, supervise, maintain and act. And the task is urgent, for we are sinking in a morass of cant, hypocrisy, double standards, cold formality and the denial of reality - not only outside the Church but within it. He is right in much of what he says but, 'denial of reality'? Do me a favour! It is the Church that is denying reality, insisting that the 'Truth' is anything but that. If Archbishop Justin is to build, teach, train, supervise, maintain and act then before he preaches he must re-examine his stance on prayer. He told the programme that prayer was at the heart of the Church and if one didn't have prayer, one had nothing or words to that effect. After billions of prayers to the Jewish god of Abraham, the holocaust occurred: after trillions of prayers to the Muslim God of Abraham, look at the current state of Gaza: after trillions of prayers to the Christian God of Abraham, the Anglicans still can't decide on the role of women in the Church. Don't tell me that prayer works above the statistical levels of probability because I simply don't believe it and therein lies the problem. To my mind, Archbishop Justin must take the God out of religion and replace it with another spirituality - that of mankind itself and promote, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed as prime examples of Goodness and Virtue.Maybe, just maybe,he may then draw people into the pews; appeal to those disillusioned with religions whose servants sodomise youngsters and those whose adherents kill women and children of differing faiths through blind intolerance.

Good luck Archbishop Welby (and Francis I) and peace be with you.

Treasonable behaviour

A foreign national has had his extradition to his own country quashed by British judges on the grounds that evidence in his own trial may have been obtained through torture.

No matter that the legal aid he's received to fight the extradition order has cost British taxpayers a fortune or that the accused despises the very people who have been so generous with their money and hospitality, the bewigged snooties at the pinnacle of British justice continue to frustrate the will of Parliament in this regard. In doing so they appear, to me, to be, firstly, interfering in the internal affairs of another country and, secondly, giving succour and comfort to an enemy of the state.

If they are guilty in the first instance of gross bad manners, in the second, they are surely guilty of TREASON!

Detain them immediately, Home Secretary. Let the Law Lords languish in jail until they come to understand that nothing in law should jeopardise the safety of the citizens of the realm.

Send 'em down!­

Who is promoting the inept?

The failure of the Stafford Hospital Trust and the UK Border Agency raises the question of who is promoting the bosses of these organisations, with their generous salaries and employment packages, into their positions? Surely, it is almost as bad a dereliction of duty to make these appointments as it is to actually fail in the post.
It strikes me that the system of civil service promotions supports the advancement of the mediocre by the mediocre in a push to advance the inept out of key positions. It wouldn't be so bad were in not for the fact that these people are virtually unsackable and will receive overly generous retirement packages.

One breed of people who have a proven record of leadership and could be parachuted into these high profile positions are to be found in the military. With the contraction of the armed forces there must be a surplus of men and woman above the rank of Major, say, who by their very promotion have demonstrated special qualities of leadership. There can be no better filter of ability than the military system which promotes men and woman who can be trusted with the safety of troops in difficult environments.

Dr. David Kelly update

It is an inconvenient truth that the Dr. Kelly incident of 2003 still poses problems for the so called 'Democratic' government of the UK.
A report in the Daily Mail says:

'A former British diplomat has revealed he was ‘warned’ by the senior civil servant running

the Iraq Inquiry not to mention the late biological weapons expert Dr David Kelly when

giving evidence.

Carne Ross, the UK’s Iraq expert  at the UN Security Council between 1998 and 2002, said he

was told by the ‘very aggressive’ official that if he discussed Dr Kelly during his

testimony, he would be silenced.

It is understood the official who delivered the order was Margaret Aldred, secretary of the

Iraq Inquiry chaired by Sir John Chilcot.'

Read more:  Daily Mail
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Dr. Kelly remains the only person in English legal history not to be accorded an inquest on his death. What does the Government fear? In not holding an inquest did they really have the family's interests at heart? Now, almost ten years after his death, it is surely right for the Government to be frank, like Chancellor Osborne and the economy, with the british people about what really happened that July day.

Tank Regiments to lose their tanks

It is sad that we hear that the Tank Regiments are to be incorporated into Infantry brigades and lose their main battletanks.
The heavy battletanks, developed during the First World War were game changers and continued to influence the battlefield for almost a century, until as recently as the last Gulf War. Logistics dictate that in the changing face of warfare, tanks are no longer needed in the defence of an island nation like Britain. Indeed, with their ever increasing vulnerability to attack helicopters and mines, it is difficult to see how they can be used, as before, to consolidate any gain in ground, even with air superiority.
The Armed Forces, with the emphasis on adaptability and speed of deployment are changing. Increasing use of expendible drone aircraft instead of manned multi billion pound jets points the way to a battlefield populated with computerised robots and it is to this technology that our Defence industry should surely turn. Most of the work must be done in secret but one has to believe that the Government is getting on with new and ever more powerful means to defend our 'sceptred' isle and also reduce the cost in terms of lives lost in conflict.

Thank you, all those who have served in the Armoured Brigades with conspicuous gallantry on battlefields around the globe.

 'Through the Mud and the Blood to the Green Fields Beyond'.

Judges and the cost of justice

So, top judge, Neuberger, presumes to tell the Government that the plans to reduce taxpayers expenditure on Legal Aid will lead to people taking the law into their own hands and ought to be scrapped. It seems to be a one way conversation because judges are apparently wilfully ignoring Parliamentary guidelines on the deportation of foreign criminals, preferring instead to rule on their rights to a family life. Why the judges don't ask themselves why the criminals didn't think of their families before committing the crime, I don't know, but what we do know is that the bewigged Snooties know no bounds when they commit public money to the legal process as if the cost doesn't matter.
Amongst the costs of the legal process are those dedicated to maintaining the jury system, despite much recent evidence that it is a waste of tax-payers hard earned cash. A jury was dismissed in a case which the judge described as straightforward after failing not only reach a decision but understand what they were meant to be doing. Stupid jurors have been caught flirting with the defendants and playing with their mobiles when they should be paying attention, totally out of touch with the concept of DUTY. Already we have complicated trials that are deemed beyond the intelligence of lay people, so why not extend the practice, because, and I hate to say this, but a great many people are uneducated? The main reason is, of course, judges such as Neuberger want to keep the legal profession at the lofty heights of social acceptability, where from their ivory towers they can pronounce on the animal behaviour of those whose lives they can never hope to suffer. They are so far out of touch that they continue to put the needs of the guilty before those of the victims, even if it means flouting the will of the Law-Makers.
I think that the legal process must change to make it more cost effective and speedy use of court time. The Crown Prosecution people make assessments of the likelihood of a conviction on the evidence found by the police. People sent for trial should all be pleading guilty, especially with the better quality of evidence available, especially scientific. The proof of guilt shouldn't need to be as stringent as it is at the moment with the guilty often escaping justice because of procedural malfunction, rather than effective refuting of the evidence, for instance. In the past, the judges have proved too strong for the system to be changed but I believe it is time to make a root and branch reassessment of the judiciary and prison system especially with regard to costs because citizens who have to pay for it through the tax system can automatically be classified amongst the victims.
For those who think this may be a step too far should remember that Barristers and solicitors, create or manufacture nothing. Their income nearly always comes either directly or indirectly from somebody elses creativity, somebody else's hard work!