29 Mar 2005

THE RIGHT TO KILL?

What say you re Teri Schiavo?:

"If it is true she is vegetative and lacks all conciousness, she cannot be in pain and can neither recognise her "right to dignity" nor recognise the fullfillment of any invented "right to die". Indeed she does not even know she is alive,lacking all cognition. Keeping her alive at the expense and for the benefit of her parents thus gives two lives, theirs, more dignity and purpose-- at no expense of anyone's feelings.

If, on the other hand, she can recognise in any way the "rights" attributed to her (including the right to life), or simply recognise she is alive and cared for, then she has sufficient conciousness, and is being killed without the ability to express her consent to it." (PG)

Is this argument sharp or senile? I ask my friends!

19 Mar 2005

WALES,WALES,WALES

It's been 27 years since I revelled in the breakneck, high risk and super-skills style of Welsh rugby. That was the last time they won a Grandslam of the Six Nations Championship. Today is another chance and I have reserved a good Romeo & Julieta cigar for the occasion. Let's hope Ireland don't spoil the party.

A TALE OF TWO TYRANTS

The response of the world's oldest socialist buffoon, Fidel Castro, to being named among the 2005 world's richest men has been to threaten to sue Forbes magazine for listing him. The absurdity of a communist leader who supposedly owns nothing using expensive lawyers to sue for millions of dollars speaks for itself. Forbes is quite right. Castro and his gang of political criminals a.k.a. the Cuban Communist Party control all wealth in Cuba and the people have none. While Cubans stand in queues sucking pebbles as they wait for food rations, and waiters beg you for spare asprins in this land of the supposed 'world's best medical system', Castro is the darling mascot of the world's left and chatterati classes. Well, they liked Saddam too.

Here at home, fellow tyrant Robert Mugabe has got his kangaroo High Court to disbar 3.4 million Zimbabweans abroad from voting in the 2005 general election. Uncle Bob is well known as a democrat of note and (dis)enfranchisement is something he understands. This represents about one fifth ( or even a quarter) of Zimbabwe's population. They have fled his 're-distribution' of land, the starvation and his thugs in the ZANU party he heads. Every Zimbabwean exile would vote against Mugabe. The ruling by his legal minions ensures the mad Marxist will continue his ruination of Zimbabwe for another 5 years.

7 Mar 2005

HISTORY IN THE MAU-MAUING?

Acres of coverage in Kenya over Harvard historian Caroline Elkin's 'Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya'. Typically for a 'progressive historian' Ms. Elkins was able to offer no evidence for comments like, 'We know 11,500 people officially died in the Mau Mau uprising, but it could be 100,000'.

Mau Mau was not a pleasant episode in Kenya's history; the gangs were mostly ruthless and barbarically cruel, as were many British or settler counter-insurgents. Ms. Elkins has chosen to be an advocate for one side, but history has two.
Many would argue Mau Mau unneccessarily interfered with Jomo Kenyatta's political independance movement. Radicals wish to remake it into a neo-Marxist 'liberation war'. In truth Mau Mau remains an enigma, part Maji-Maji style African 'magical rebellion', part liberation struggle and certainly a civil war within the Kikuyu tribe of modernists vs traditionalists.

Thousands of Christian Africans were slaughtered in terrorist intimidation by the Mau Mau, as well as tens of thousands being interned in camps by the British. Conditions ranged from vile to quite reasonable. Torture and counter-torture were rife. The British did themselves little credit and the Mau Mau likewise.

Resemblances to the
true Soviet gulags are overblown. Mau Mau was broken within 5 years and the detention policies wound down. There must have been many untold atrocities on both sides, but the biggest public scandal was 8 detainees 'disciplined' to death at Hola detention camp. Unlike Russia , this was openly investigated in the House of Commons and by the press. The British government nearly fell in the ensuing Abu Ghraib-type scandal.

Most of Stalin's millions of prisoners in Siberia would have happily swapped places with many Mau Mau detainees.

3 Mar 2005

CHERIE THE SHEEP




Another weird legal decision (U.K. Court of Appeal), this over the right of a Muslim girl to wear a full jilbab ( a head to toe garment) at school. The school was mostly Muslim and allowed the Muslim headscarf, integrated into a uniform. Muslim scholars testified the headscarf alone was fully "Islamic". Not enough for the voiciferous little Islamic-radical wannbee, one Miss Shabina Begum, aged 15.

Said she was a victim of what she called "a general vilification of Islam since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States". No word of course for the true casualties of that Islamic mad-moment. Yet, as we know, when Muslims bleat, the multiculti sheep will surely follow.

So now you can attend school in a nun's outfit, a satanical dress with horns ('Satanism' is a recognised 'religion' in British legal practise), a Bhuddist robe, Druid outfit and so on, presumably as long as these "manifest your religion"? The whole idea of school uniforms is uniformity and equality, not arrogent exceptionalism.

Who led the legal team for Shabina the Jihadista? Cherie Blair QC, wife of the Prime Minister. There are lemmings and then there is the sea. One sees sometimes a moth and often a candle. Then there is the British neo-left establishment.

2 Mar 2005

POWERSPEAK!

Many thanks to the famous Powerlineblog, voted Time Magazine's "Blog of the Year", for mentioning RightSpeak in a recent post. I had pointed out the little matter of Eichmann's 'efficiency' in the eyes of Associated Press. They re-posted my ideas and linked to my humble blog, which has brought quite a few hits. It feels great and is a perfect example of the inclusive nature of the blogoshere, and why it is changing the exclusive MSM.

THE VANISHING FEW



Posted by Hello

This is Orwells_Ghost with Daniel. He's a Loita Maasai I met on my Febuary 05 walking safari. To my amazement he turned out to be a guide on Robert Vavra's 1980's expedition to the Loitas, one I recommended to him and which features in his book, The Unicorns of Kilimanjaro. The walkers were (as I had warned) attacked by a large cape buffalo and one of Robert's American assistants was gravely wounded as the buffalo knocked him flat, then stood over him proceeded to pound his back with it's huge horn boss.

Robert and the other two Maasai porters had fled up trees, but Vavra threw his jacket down to distract the bull. It worked, and Daniel, who stayed on the ground, put a spear into the buffalo, followed by 2 more and killed it. The assistant took weeks to recover in hospital from cracked bones.

Daniel knows all the old time hunters, it was a pleasure to meet such a brave man from the old days in Africa, their numbers are dwindling fast. At the same time I got news my father's old hunting tracker, Kinashora, passed away near Entesegera recently - Daniel knew him too.

1 Mar 2005

CEDARPOWER

Hmm......... the government of Lebanon has just resigned, shades of the Ukraine. Unprecedented scenes of people power on the streets of Lebanon, Syria in utter disarray and probably about to respond the only way it knows how, by a diversionary bombing of some kind. Syrians desperatly reaching out to Iran for "closer ties" in a last ditch effort to shore up support for it's collapsing brand of Arab fascism. All for this was unimaginable in a pre-Iraq war world.

The more one looks at it, the more it's not GWB is out of touch, but the entire European and US leftist intelligensia and political class.

Even the hapless, ignorant MSM is beginning to ask the question: Is this not down to Washington's clear leadereship on democratic values in the region? The answer is obvious.