The Anonymous Widower

A Left-Handed Prime Minister and US President

Watching David Cameron and Barack Obama, yesterday, it struck me as unusual that both are left handed.

Apparently, four of the last five US Presidents have been.

I also think that if you were at the sort of school attended by David Cameron, that they beat it out of you!

Perhaps things have moved on! I hope so!

May 25, 2011 Posted by | World | , | Leave a comment

The Queen Goes Walkabout

The Times indicates today that the Queen on her visit to Cork, broke away from her carefully scripted itinerary and actually met the Irish people.

I suppose at her age, after a life in which she lived through the Blitz and still rides regularly, she knows a threat when she sees it and sensed that in Cork, her biggest danger was from obsessive secutrity, so she did what she does best and just met and talked to the people.

The Times describes it like this.

In the closing hours of the tour – in, of all places, the rebel county of Cork – she broke off from her carefully choreographed itinerary to meet the cheering crowds gathered outside the city’s English Market.

And there’s this from the Irish Times! She even ended up on the Gaelic Football pages of the Irish Independent. That must be a real first, as usual the only sports pages she graces these days are the racing ones.

I think that in a few weeks time after Barack Obama’s visit, the vast majority of the Irish will remember her visit much more than that of the US President, as I suspect the number of ordinary Irish men and women he meets will be counted on the fingers of one hand.

I suspect bookmakers will be offering very short odds on the return of the Queen to Eire. Especially, after this piece in the Irish Independent.

I think we should all be prepared for a flood of adverts extolling the sites and virtues of Cork.

May 21, 2011 Posted by | News, Sport | , , , | Leave a comment

Was It Legal To Kill Osama Bin Laden?

The BBC asks this question on their web site this morning. Read it and draw your own conclusions.

May 8, 2011 Posted by | News | , , , , | 1 Comment

Has Justice Been Served by Bin Laden’s Death?

This is the header over the letter’s page of The Times today.

Of the seven letters they publish only one supports the execution of Osama Bin Laden.  Some are critical of a Times Editorial entitled Justice Served.

Even a Rear Admral is not happy about “rough justice” and states his military background does not stop him feeling uncomfortable about it. The last letter they publish, quotes that truly great American, Martin Luther King  as saying, “I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

If you get a chance the letters are very much worth a read.  I think credit should also go the paper in publishing letters that take a different view to its leading article.  Surely, this underlines one of the planks of a good democracy and that is a free and constructive media.

May 7, 2011 Posted by | News | , , , | 3 Comments

Obama’s Narrow Vision

Barack Obama visited the troops, who carried out the execution of Osama Bin Laden yesterday.  Read about it here and note this extract.

Speaking before cheering troops at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, Mr Obama said: “These Americans deserve credit for one of the greatest military operations in our nation’s history.”

It is not and  am reminded of President Kennedy’s words at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of a worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth.

Obama has risked more worldwide terrorism by his sanctioning of the execution.

On this of all days, I fear for the future, if the many headed hydra of Al Qaeda finds a more dangerous leader than Bin Laden.

May 7, 2011 Posted by | News | , , | 2 Comments

Execution Is Not Justice

It would now appear that the death of Osama bin Laden was a deliberate execution under the orders of Barack Obama. It also appears that it might have been possible to bring the evil Bin Laden out alive, as he was unarmed.

As I have said before he should have stood trial for his heinous crimes in The Hague. 

Read this article entitled “Bin Laden’s summary execution maketh the man, martyr and myth”,  from the Sydney Morning Herald. It makes a lot of forceful points.  Here’s an extract.

The US resembles the land of the munchkins as it celebrates the death of the wicked witch of the East. The joy is understandable but, to many outsiders, unattractive. It endorses what looks increasingly like a cold-blooded assassination ordered by a president who, as a former law professor, knows the absurdity of his statement that “justice was done”.

Amoral diplomats and triumphant politicians join in applauding the summary execution of Osama bin Laden because they claim that real justice – arrest, trial and sentence – would have been too difficult in the case of public enemy No. 1. But should it not at least have been attempted?

This execution might bring closure and even vengeance to many, but it could turn out to be just a small victory in the struggle to defeat Al Qaeda. After all the death of people like Bobby Sands, was very good for recruitment to the IRA.

It was Churchill who said.

Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in manoeuver, the less he demands in slaughter.

Barack Obama is no great Commander-in-Chief, but he might just have done enough to win the next Presidential election.

May 4, 2011 Posted by | News | , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The Shootings in Arizona

The United States is the sick nation of the world, when it should set standards that everyone should look up to. We all looked on in horror, as Salman Taseer was murdered in Pakistan and now there is an almost more horrific shooting in Arizona. You have to be really sick to shoot a nine-year-old girl.

Like Pakistan, the United States needs to accept a new set of morals.

Guns should be controlled for a start and cruel punishments like the death penalty should be abolished, as this has no place in a civilised society.

So what do we have instead? Just Sarah Palin and her ilk pouring petrol on the fire. Mark Mardell of the BBC has some well-reasoned thoughts here.

Let’s hope the horror of it all, brings the United States to its senses.  But I doubt it will! Especially after the idiocy of Dubya and the dissappointment of Obama.

But violence is just one of America’s problems.  It has an unsustainable budget deficit, a virtual drugs war overspilling from Mexico, an enormous energy deficit, that it is trying to solve in the wrong way, without counting the problems of Iran, Korea and Afghanistan.

January 9, 2011 Posted by | News | , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Has Obama Blown It?

I was optimistic, when Barack Obama became United States President, but after the setback in the mid-term elections has he blown it and given the initiative to the Republicans and especially the Mad Hatters.

Barack Obama had a lot of goodwill when he was elected, but his rather lacklustre performance since hasn’t done him any favours.

Some of his policies, like the closure of Guantanamo and health care, may have been laudable, but they just don’t appeal to many Americans, who have attitudes that are too far to the right for my liking.

I can’t help feeling that the United States is going to have a large fall, when the money is just not there anymore. The Republicans are now saying that they will defeat Obama’s Climate Change Bill as the Mad Hatters believe that global warming doesn’t exist and we should all carry on partying.

Nero only let Rome burn, but the Mad Hatters want to burn the world!

Years ago, the world needed American products.  Now, those products come from everywhere and even those hi-tech ones are now coming from the other developed countries. And to make matters worse, some of their best brains are developing their new companies in Europe and the Far East.

November 4, 2010 Posted by | News | , , , , | 2 Comments

Teenager Banned from the US over E-Mail

A teenager from Bedford has been banned from the US over an abusive e-mail to President Obama.

He shouldn’t have done what he did, but is a lifetime ban and all the police time used up on this indiscretion right?

The trouble is that the United States is never creative in things like this! If they’d just rapped his knuckles in an appropriate way, and used the publicicity properly, they would have been seen as smart, rather than vindictive.

September 15, 2010 Posted by | Computing, News | , , , | Leave a comment

Cameron, Obama, BP and al-Megrahi

I have just reread all of my posts about al-Megrahi.  Even with the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight, it is a mess.

But I wouldn’t want to change any of the words I wrote.

The guy who is lucky in all this is Obama, as he now can blame BP for the mess, and give them a good kicking to boot whilst they are down. This all helps to move the guilt from Americans and American agencies and companies, who have failed. These failures started with those that were responsible for shooting down the Iranian Airbus.

David Cameron may be lucky too, but as he will have to preside over the dismantling of BP, he may feel that he has been placed between a rock and a hard place.

I do hope we have a full inquiry into all of this, as I feel we’ll see the dead hand of Prudence in all the mess!

It has been a sorry affair and those that died at Lockerbie and in the Gulf deserved a lot better.

July 22, 2010 Posted by | World | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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