Spot the difference - Barack Obama and Tony Hayward

Barack Obama playing golf yet again and Tony Hayward yachting. The difference is that the media will publicise one 'PR gaff' but not the other.



Thanks to Instapundit for the image.

Happy Summer Solstice

The Earth's axial tilt is now most inclined towards the sun and is at its maximum of 23° 26'. Thus at 12:28BST (11:28 UTC) it is the Summer Solstice.

Dr Who - The Pandorica Opens

Now that was an intriguing one. Various things come to mind:

Rory was a far more convincing Auton than Mickey was, maybe the technology has improved. Still a shock that love couldn't win him over, maybe Dr Who is growing up and realising that love cannot conquer all. Although as Rory shoots Amy and Amy is in the next series I assume a way will be found...

Always nice to see Dr Who giving a nod to other SciFi. The Maldovarium bar scene was Star Wars light, the Chalmun's Cantina hinted at through a beaded curtain. Also the words cut into the cliff at the beginning of time was a little Hitch-hikers Guide to the Universe.

Having wondered who's in the Pandorica and hoping it was another Doctor, it finally struck me about 30 seconds before it struck the Doctor that it was to be a prison for him, sqwee... Wasn't convinced by the alliance of the enemies though, can't really see Daleks and Cybermen allying for any reason.

So an episode ending with Amy shot by an Auton from about six inches away, RiverSong in an exploding Tardis behind a wall of stone and the Doctor being locked away by his worst enemies into an unopenable box; hmmm looks tricky!


So what's the way out? Obviously Amy is the answer; although she was the trap set for the Doctor, I feel she may also be the key to his escape. Rory and RiverSong seem likely to survive; Rory for sure, he cannot die twice in a few weeks and I fear Professor RiverSong will be around to annoy us for quite a while yet.

Israel - Weathering the coming storm

An interesting article from Jewish World Review has reached me; entitled 'Weathering the coming storm', it is by Caroline B. Glick and I think it worthy of repetition. I have copy and pasted the whole article below, if that infringes copyright or the JWR want it removed for any reason then I will remove it.

'Israel is endangered today as it has never been before. The Turkish-Hamas flotilla two weeks ago precipitated a number of dangerous developments. Rather than attend to all of them, Israel's leadership is devoting itself almost exclusively to contending with the least dangerous among them while ignoring the emerging threats with the potential to lead us to great calamities.

Since the Navy's lethal takeover of the Mavi Marmara, Israel has been stood before an international diplomatic firing squad led by the UN and Europe and supported by the Obama administration. Firmly backed by European and largely unopposed by Washington, the UN is moving swiftly towards setting up a new Goldstone-style anti-Israel kangaroo court. That canned tribunal will rule that Israel has no right to defend itself and attempt to force Israel to end its lawful naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Fearing this outcome, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu bowed to US President Barack Obama's demand that Israel set up an Israeli inquest of the Mavi Marmara takeover and permit foreigners to oversee its proceedings. Netanyahu also agreed to scale-back Israel's blockade significantly, and allow international bodies to have a role in its far more lax enforcement. Netanyahu has made these concessions with the full knowledge that they will strengthen Hamas in the hopes that they would weaken the international onslaught against Israel.

Unfortunately, it took no time at all to see that his hopes were misplaced. Even before Netanyahu announced these concessions, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon already announced that they make no difference to him or to his friends in Washington and Brussels. They will move ahead with their plans to appoint a new kangaroo court charged with asserting that Israel has no right to defend itself.

As bad as all of this is, in truth, it is unimportant relative to the other consequences of the flotilla incident. The impact of the diplomatic campaign now being waged against Israel will be felt in the medium and long term. In the immediate term, Israel is facing two threats that dwarf what it faces from the UN.

Recent statements by the leaders of Iran, Turkey, Syria, Hamas and Hizbullah make clear that the members of the Iranian axis view the Mavi Marmara episode as a strategic victory in their ongoing campaign against Israel. The international stampede against Israel at the UN, the White House and throughout Europe exposed Israel's Achilles heel. The Mavi Marmara demonstrated that on the one hand the IDF cannot enforce its blockade of Gaza without the use of force. On the other hands it taught Israel's enemies that by forcing Israel to use force, Iran, Turkey and their allies incited a UN-EU-US lynch mob against Israel.

Iran, Turkey, Syria, Hamas and Hizbullah are moving rapidly to exploit their new discovery. In the very near future, Israel will face off against Iranian, Lebanese, and Turkish ships complemented by ships full of Israel-hating German Jews and other Jewish and non-Jewish Hamas supporters.

The Mavi Marmara showed Iran and its allies hat they can win strategic victories against Israel by giving the IDF no option other than using force against them. This means that Israel can bank on the prospect that all the ships they are dispatching will be populated by suicide protesters. Indeed the Iranians have openly admitted this. Mohammad Ali Nouraee is one of the regime officials involved in dispatching the Iranian ships to the Gaza coast. In an interview this week with Iran's official IRNA news agency Nouraee said that the passengers aboard the ships, "are willing to become martyred in this way."

The Lebanese ships are being organized by Hizbullah-affiliated individuals and the Turkish ships are being organized by the IHH terror group that organized the Mavi Marmara. Hizbullah's penchant for dispatching suicide squads is of course well known. And the IHH showed its devotion to suicide protests on the Mavi Marmara. So it is fairly clear that the passengers aboard the ships from both countries intend to force the IDF to kill them.

The intensification of the suicide protest campaign against Israel is dangerous for two reasons. First, it is a model that can be and in all likelihood will be replicated on air and land and it can be replicated anywhere. Israel can and should expect mobs of suicide protesters marching on Gaza to force Israel to surrender control over its borders. Israel can expect mobs of suicide protesters marching on Israeli embassies and other government installations around the world in an attempt to increase its diplomatic isolations.

In the air, Israel can expect charter flights to take off from airports around the world with a few dozen kamikaze protesters who will force the IAF to shoot them down as they approach Israeli airspace.

Iran and its allies have found a weak chink in Israel's armor. They will use it any way they can. Israel needs to quickly develop tactics and strategies for contending with this.

The second and far more dangerous implication of Israel's enemies' aggressive adoption of suicide protests is that by ensuring violence will be used, they increase the chances of war. Indeed, Iran and its allies clearly believe that suicide protests are a vehicle for initiating a full-scale war against Israel on what they view as favorable footing. According to Bahrain's al Wasat press service, Hussain Amir, Iran's ambassador to Bahrain threatened this week that, "If the [Zionist] entity dares to direct any aggressive attack [against the Iranian ships] then it is certain that [Israel] will be met by a much stronger and firm blow."

Syrian President Bashar Assad told the BBC Wednesday that the region is moving towards war. And the Turkish government is continuing to escalate its assaults on Israel. On Thursday Turkey threatened to cut off diplomatic relations with Israel if Israel does not issue a formal apology for its takeover of the Mavi Marmara and pay restitution to the families of the terrorists killed on board the ship.

Obviously the most disturbing aspect of the war threats is the specter of Turkish naval vessels attacking the Israeli navy. If Turkey — a NATO member -- participates in a war against Israel, the repercussions for Israel's relations with NATO member states, including the US, as well as the EU are liable to be unprecedented.

While going to war against Israel would be a major gamble for Turkey, in recent years it has not shied away from high stakes challenges to its NATO allies. Indeed, one of Turkey's ruling AKP party's first actions upon taking power in 2003 was to deny the US military the right to invade Iraq from its territory. The deleterious impact of Turkey's refusal to come to the aid of its NATO ally at the time has been felt by US forces in Iraq ever since.

In the days and weeks to come, Israel's political and military leaders must move resolutely to prepare to withstand these new threats that arisen in the aftermath of the Mavi Marmara episode. To meet the expected deluge of suicide protesters on sea, land and air, Israel must immediately acquire non-lethal means to disperse these protests. This involves purchasing and producing tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and other non-lethal weaponry. These non-lethal weapons must be rapidly distributed to IDF units deployed along the frontier with Gaza and to the Navy. They must also be supplied to Israeli security teams tasked with protecting government installations worldwide. Forces must undergo intense and immediate training in crowd control and mob dispersal to be ready to meet what is clearly on the way.

Diplomatically, Israel needs to hold its new line on the Gaza blockade. Netanyahu's buckling to US-EU-UN pressure has encouraged them to redouble their assault on Israel. The new line must be held at all costs. Otherwise, Israel will have no diplomatic line of defense as the approaching threats become reality.

Strategically, our leaders need to consider what our aims will be in the coming war. For instance, as far as Turkey is concerned, Israel's aim will be to end the war as quickly as possible. Here the tools of diplomacy with NATO members and public diplomacy with the American people will be crucial to convincing Turkey to stand down. They must be aggressively and energetically utilized without delay.

From a military perspective, evasion is preferable to confrontation. This understanding must guide naval operations towards Turkish forces.

As for Iran, Israel's aim must be to prolong the war as long as necessary to secure its strategic objective of denying Iran nuclear weapons. Moreover, it is important to use both kinetic and non-kinetic means to change the relative power balance between the Iranian people and the Iranian regime. While in all likelihood today the Iranian opposition green movement is unable to overthrow the regime, if Iran initiates a war against Israel, Israel must use the opportunity the war affords to change that balance of power.

Once Israel's political and military leaders determine the strategic goals of a regional war, they must move swiftly to outfit and train the IDF to fight it. This war will certainly be different from its predecessors and Israel's strategic goals — and the clear strategic and tactical preferences of its enemies — dictate the training that the IDF must initiate immediately.

The longer term lesson of the Mavi Marmara incident, and the threats that emerged in its wake is that war is too serious a subject to leave to generals. The IDF and the Defense Ministry clearly misunderstood the nature of the threat posed by the Turkish-Hamas flotilla. Indeed, recent reports that until the Mavi Marmara Israel wasn't even collecting intelligence on Turkey despite its obvious, multiyear transformation from ally to enemy underlines the fact that the IDF is woefully incapable of assessing, understanding and preparing for the threats Israel faces.

In light of the IDF's failure to understand Turkey's transformation from ally to enemy in a timely manner, its incompetent planning for the Mavi Marmara takeover and its problematic performance in both Operation Cast Lead and the Second Lebanon War, Netanyahu must create an external body empowered to assess and dictate the means for preparing for emerging threats. This body can either be a new department in the Prime Minister's Bureau or the National Security Council can be empowered to perform this function. While this is not the most urgent matter on the national agenda, the establishment of such a body should be a central mission of the government.

The Iranian ships are already en route, and the ships from Lebanon could appear at any moment. The mass demonstrations against Israel throughout the world and the threatened violence from the Hamas-supporting Israeli Arab leadership indicate that mobs of suicide protesters could appear anywhere with no prior warning.

Time is of the essence. No, Israel does not want another Goldstone kangaroo court. But right now, kangaroo courts are not our biggest problem.'

JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.

The BBC and Peter Mandelson

This Telegraph piece sums up so much that is wrong about the symbiotic relationship between the 'impartial' BBC and New Labour, especially Peter Mandelson 9my emphasis):

'Lord Mandelson may have lost power, but he appears to retain a remarkable degree of control over the BBC.

Mandrake hears that the former business secretary has been given a veto over a fly-on-the-wall documentary about him by Hannah Rothschild, the sister of his close friend Nat Rothschild.

Excerpts were due to be broadcast at the Hay literary festival, but the screening was cancelled.

"Hannah Rothschild's film The Real PM: A Portrait of the Real Peter Mandelson has been withdrawn on the insistence of the subject," said the organisers.

The peer cancelled the showing, I understand, because a separate interview with him had not yet been recorded.

"He wants to nuance the final version as much as possible, so has insisted that nothing can be shown until he is certain that it will include an interview with him," I am told.

It can be disclosed that the BBC agreed a contract with Miss Rothschild this month after the documentary was rejected by Channel Four executives who were concerned about its independence.

The BBC insists that it is adhering to its strict editorial guidelines: "We look forward to showing the film as part of BBC Four's Storyville strand when it's finished." '

Words fail me...

Barack Obama loses construction workers a day's pay

Don't expect to hear about this on the BBC.




Thanks to Jammie Wearing Fool for the spot.

Today is the longest day

Enjoy it, it's downhill from today!

What?

Two books found on Amazon.com, both by Keyser B. Soze. First 399 Breasts: The Ultimate Boobs Photo Collection and second 199 Vaginas: The Ultimate Photo Collection. Curious, very curious.

Here are extracts from the books' product descriptions:

'Topless, Topless, Topless! Color photos clippings of over 399 breasts from around the world. If you think you have seen one teat and thus seen them all, you will need to think again. Female breasts (also slang "tits") vary in size, firmness, color, and nipple shape... which has never been more apparent. How they sit, how they tilt, how the muscles are structured, how the chests muscles pull... There are pretty breasts, fat breasts, skinny breasts, perfect breasts... and frankly breasts from every possible angle and direction and position, aroused or not...'

'Vaginas, vaginas, and even MORE vaginas. Feel like a gynecologist when you see how close some of these photos take you to the love canal, also known as the "pussy". These color pictures range from three inches away to three feet away. Men and lesbians alike will love comparing the different vagina pictures, all fully nude / naked, all in full color...'

It would seem that Keyser B. Soze has some other tomes available to purchase, including 199 Asses: The Ultimate Female Butt Collection and 99 Penises: The Ultimate Photo Collection.

Sharia law excess?

'This is an actual photo of a women’s clothing store in Tehran. The manikin breasts have been removed on orders of the vice police during the current crackdown on “un-Islamic” bad hejab practices. Isn’t this a shocking image? I believe volumes could be written about this.'

Thanks to Iranian and Creeping Sharia for the spot and Islam for the inspiration.

Every disaster is an opportunity for the EU

Marta Andreasen, the European Commission's former chief accountant knows more about the workings of the EU than most people. So her article in today's Telegraph is well worth a read if you want to know what the EU is up to:

'At last week's EU summit David Cameron, in his first Brussels outing as the newly-elected Prime Minister, made clear that the UK was not happy at the prospect of having its tax and spending "peer reviewed" by other EU members before it could be put into effect.

But within minutes of the meeting ending, and despite signs that other countries recognised the problem for Britain, the Commission said it would bring forward its proposals just the same, by the end of this month.

...

on Thursday the EU leaders met to discuss the "peer review" plan, which would require all countries to submit annual national Budget details to Brussels before presenting them to their own MPs. The proposal is that from 2011, "in the interests of strengthening budgetary discipline across the EU", member states would have to present their budgetary plans to the Commission each spring, "taking account of national budgetary procedures".

I cannot say I am surprised to see the EU taking the opportunity to increase its powers. Yet it is almost unbelievable that it now demands the power to intervene in our own national budgets when it cannot properly manage its own. One could not make it up.

...

Now picture the situation at budget time. Once a year the EU's Budget Commissioner will sit around the table together with his "expert team" of civil servants - all well paid and with jobs for life - holding 27 booklets containing the draft budgets of all the member states.

They will have no clue about the diverse public sectors of all the different states, but will nonetheless attempt to give opinions on how many staff the Germany defence ministry should employ, or what costs Italian social security should cover for families with a handicapped member, or how many state schools should be closed down in Poland.

Then their recommendations would be passed to the Council of Ministers. A curious meeting would take place at the Justus Lipsius oval room where the Greek finance minister would be able to question the British chancellor about how much he spends on equipment for his troops in Afghanistan, or the Portuguese minister might tell the French that they should reduce their unemployment benefit.

Would this exercise solve the crisis? No. But it is the thin end of the wedge, and a big step further towards economic and political integration which the EU has been seeking since 1950, without our knowledge.'

Not great is it?

What is happening at the World Cup?

Germany lose one - nil to Serbia. Spain lose one - nil to Switzerland, France draw nil - nil with Uruguay and then lose two - nil to Mexico. Meanwhile Italy draw one - one with Paraguay and now one - one with New Zealand. It looks as though England are not the only 'fancied' European team to be underperforming. The received wisdom is that the less fancied countries have learnt how to play the top teams. I am not so sure as Argentina seem to have had few problems with Nigeria and South Korea and the Netherlands likewise defeating decent teams from Denmark and Japan.

Cute poppy meets a very large beetle

"I am a Liberal Man"

Jeremy Taylor - "I'm a Liberal Man" - Don't we all know someone like the 'voice' of this song - "I bet he isn't even English, he's another bloody Jew" - I wonder if he works at the BBC?

Wind power, just not reliable enough

I have blogged before about Wind Farms not producing enough or often any electricity on still days so I was intrigued to learn that also Wind farm owners will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing. This is because The National Grid fears that on breezy summer nights, wind farms could actually cause a surge in the electricity supply which is not met by demand from businesses and households.

Maybe Chris Huhne could find the time in his busy personal life to honestly re-evaluate the practicalities of increasing reliance on wind power.

Criticism of the goose does not mean criticism of the Obama

The BBC report that:

'BP CEO Tony Hayward has faced fresh criticism for taking time off to go sailing with his son instead of dealing with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The White House said the move was one of a "long line of PR gaffes and mistakes" by Mr Hayward. '

Oddly the long article has no mention of Barack Obama's 6 rounds of golf in 58 days; I wonder why not...

BP - humour from the jaws of despair

Logo contest, 800 entries and counting to redesign BP's logo, post Gulf oil leak.

">BP Bringing people togetherAnd a reworking of BP's 'Bringing people together' advert.

Pet Shop Boys + New Order = Delphic?

Dr Who - The Pandorica opens

Just got home so Dr Who will have to wait until tomorrow.

A plot to transform the USA

What worked for Labour in Britain is, it is being claimed, is being tried by Barack Obama's Democrats in the USA:

'Democrat Party strategists, politicians, labor leaders, and a host of left-wing “social justice” organizations all across the country are engaged in a strategy to drastically transform America’s population through mass immigration in order to guarantee their own and their allies’ dominance in U.S. government, society, and culture. The plot itself is simple: reshape the American electorate through mass immigration to reduce the political clout of the native white middle class.'

Do read the whole article...

BP Gulf oil leak - the 'real truth'

Above top secret:

'It seems that oil from deep eart, coming up through the BP spill, is RADIOACTIVE too !! This is just another bad feeling on top of all the other bad feelings this spill is conjuring up. So not only do we have the process of Sulphuric Acid (when O2 and water combine with sodium hydrate), methane pools, massive plumes of sludge and oil, physical changes in the floor of the Gulf, a destroyed and lost well casing, leaks coming out of the seabed, and the potential of a methane cloud in apocolyptic proportions seeping out too. I'm just not liking this whole drilling thing. And to add to it, BP was told a year ago not to drill because of the highly dangerous result probabilities. So, they did it anyway...'

David Icke says:

'...Death from the depths

With the emerging evidence of fissures, the quiet fear now is the methane bubble rupturing the seabed and exploding into the Gulf waters. If the bubble escapes, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will instantaneously sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists measuring the oil plumes' advance will instantly perish...'

Various including

'the fake BP account that posts updates like: "Sending our lawyers down to the Earth's crust to deliver a Cease and Desist. That oughta do it.'

and BP has murdered SpongeBob SquarePants...


Free Thinkers report much that is of interest...:

'recently I flew over the staging areas where the reports allege that BP has been engaged in these secretive operations. What I saw from the air over Shell Beach and Hopedale, Louisiana was what seemed to be military protected staging areas where whales can be brought in from offshore, processed under huge white tents, then carted off in trash trucks owned by a collaborative of oil companies, including BP.'

Hinterland voice believes that:

'Right now the Earth’s crust is collapsing under the wreckage of the oil rig. A cavern the size of Mt. Everest has reportedly formed (which could result in a killer tsunami in the Gulf region). I’m afraid something of this nature–even a 25-foot-wave could take out the oil refineries in Galveston.

The “dome” is a failure. The oil flow is too high. Only nukes can seal the leak and, as I just said, a collapse into the huge cavern could generate a massive wave. Nukes should have been used in the first 24 hours. The surface oil slick is only 10% of the oil volume, maybe less. And the U.S. Government has 16-miles of oil booms when it needs 2200-miles. (How may miles do the oil company scofflaws have? Very few, I’ll wager thanks to GW Bush.)

When an oil tanker leaks, the oil is relatively cool and floats on the water. This oil is superheated by magma rifts to as much as 400-degrees centigrade where it hits water of 15-degrees centigrade (or less). The oil is 30,000-feet down and 5000-feet under the Gulf. It was not created by biological decomposition. (I won’t get into my personal belief here that Earth is artificial and that God put the oil down there so Earth could function as an oil-filled capacitor–mighty convenient accident!) Much of this oil is DISSOLVING into the sea water, forming a toxic blend (probably because some of the hot oil is producing glycerols, which act as surfactants).

The toxic sea water WILL circulate around the entire planet within 12-18 months. It will produce oxygen starvation in the water (due to bacterial decomposition of the oil), massive red tides and death of marine life and mammals. Any regions dependent of marine proteins for survival will definitely be facing starvation. Tom Mysiewicz'

The Gulf Restoration Network has some more scientific worries:

'NOAA is confirming that part of the oil slick has entered the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico. The Loop Current transports warm Caribbean water between the Yucatan and Cuba northward into the Gulf of Mexico, and then loops to the southeast towards the Florida Keys (eventually meeting up with the Gulf Stream). It's also one of the fastest moving currents in the Atlantic Ocean.'

Rich fish, 'kerching'