Pasha Bulker on Noddy's beach is still afloat.

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Cash. Beautiful cash. This bread is supposed to be over 200 million US. In another country, another continent and another time, this amount in post war Germany would have bought you a few days food supply. In Zimbabwe, currently, this will get you approximately 5 months worth of rent in your 1 bedroom unit. We should see Mugabe run out of Zimbabwe or killed because he can't even pay his own bodyguards now. If he pays them it will be worthless by the end of the day. Good Job, Robbie Mugabeee!

So the question of the day as opposed to the soup or the catch du jour, is whether you would sacrifice half of the years of your life, for enough money to live in excess or very very comfortably. Lets say, would you, if you were 15 years old, take the offer of 200 million dollars US, and live like royalty until you were 55. At age 55 your life would end. No tricks, you get the dough, and give up your life at 55. You can take the money in gold, silver, oil, Euro's... whatever, but at 55..... GAME OVER! All you old farts... you are 15... what is your choice?

I noticed that Iran has enforced fuel rations today. They have all the oil they could ever want, but lack refining facilities. Citizens are now forced to live on 100 litres per month. Iran relies heavily on receiving imported fuel. Interestingly enough, part of the reason they have an inflation rate of nearly 20% is because they subsidise their petrol, which makes the cost per litre a mere 11 cents. The government is worried the US is going to sanction this foreign oil, which would throw their already teetering economy into chaos. President Happy Mood, a.k.a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is quite an unpopular character right now. How fickle the people are, as he was very popular just months ago while he defiantly told the world he was going to have his nuclear program and didn't care what everyone else thought. I can't help but wonder what would happen if he had some secret talks with, the Americans and suggested he would stop sending over suicide bombers to Iraq, and stop his nuclear ambitions in exchange for assistance in normalizing their fuel supply. Secondly, if he was to build a few refineries, it would create jobs, more stability, and a stronger economy. His people would be better for it, and the world would be better for it. How is that for a diplomatic solution? Will it happen? Don't make me gag.

Desolation in the Indian Ocean.

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HMAS Sydney was logging many hours acting as an escort ship. Its latest mission sent it to escort the ship Zealandia, a redesigned merchant ship carrying troops and supplies to offload, at Sumantra. As the Sydney was returning, it was advised to be aware of hostile ships. On November 19, nearly back to Fremantle, it spotted an unidentified cruiser, 20 kms away. It exchanged signals and after many errors and stalling, the signal that it was merely a Dutch Merchant ship seemed in order. The Sydney came closer to investigate. When it was 1000 meters away, the Dutch boat opened fire with concealed artillery weapons and torpedo's. It was actually the German auxiliary cruiser, the Kormoran. While the HMAS Sydney managed to return fire, and scuttle the german raider, it sailed south on fire, and sank, killing all 645 on board. The year was 1941 and the ship has never been found. This is the highest navy death toll in Australian history.

An unknown sailor, lying in a lifeboat, partially decomposed, washes up 2000 kms away onto the shores of Christmas island three months later. His boots have been taken off but otherwise the boat is empty. No handgun, no supplies. He is buried in an unmarked grave and the lifeboat burned. Japanese forces storm the island a short time later occupy until 1945. It appears that at least one man of the 645 which perished survived, for a time. Incredible detective work has narrowed the identity of the man down to three people. DNA testing will be done, to hopefully determine just who this man was.

Sub-Lt King's sister, Helen Blackburne, 84, said yesterday she was shocked to hear the sailor could be her brother.
"I couldn't believe it when they said they may have found him," she said.
"We've never forgotten him. We'd just like to know. It would be wonderful if it were Allen."
Mrs Blackburne's son, Allen, 57, was named in honour of his uncle.
He said news that one of their family could be the sailor was "more than amazing".
"It's completely out of left field," he said.
"Our family has been following the Sydney story for many years. We know the identity of the sailor is yet to be proven, so we are not jumping to conclusions. But it is pretty amazing." Quoted from Sun Herald June 24th 2007

Last November, on the second attempt a navy team finally found the grave site. After examination it was determined the man survived for days after the attack. There was an injury to the skull. A bullet to the brain.

If you were an armed soldier sitting in a heaving lifeboat in calm seas, with no food or drinking water, would you wait for death's dark slumber to overtake, or would you end the struggle to live? Did he commit suicide, or was he killed by a surfacing Japanese submarine suspected in aiding the German ship and defeating the HMAS Sydney?

Trade is more important to us.....(pause) than Aid.

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Aaaaaaaaah. Isn't the taste of a cold coke just divine? It is like black gold. Of course Black Gold is usually thought of as oil.... http://www.blackgoldmovie.com/ .... isn't it? Where are my values? I am spruiking the great drink, Coca Cola, talking about black gold, advertising on this site.... Where does it end. Has the Chank sold out? ( Heck while we are at it, do you think U2 sold out?)

Principles. Do you stand up for an ideal, a better way or a principle? I am editing, tonite, one of my earliest blogs because I am not prepared to die for my words. I know, that I am but a half of a half microspeck in the world, in fact I am a bit less than that, however, if these words here are ever read on a large scale, I would not want them to cause any harm to myself or anyone else. So does that make me an unprincipled, weak, insignificant person? Or does it make me common? We are not getting a clear unbiased look at the situation in the Middle East because of reporting that is unprincipled, and does not tell the whole story, simply because reporters are not willing to die for what the write. Trust me, they die, if they are based in the Middle East and they write the right story against the wrong people. Isn't that right, what I write. Right? Do you agree? If the mainstream media sources were smart, they could hire some aspiring suicide bombers to give some unbiased, identifying, good quality reporting. Of course that sounds like a Monty Python sketch gone wrong. The other opportunity open is to acquire Salman Rushdie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie

BTW, FYI, the picture above features disgruntled Mexicans on a twice yearly naked protest. On this day, they are protesting against alleged corruption by members within their House of Represntitives. Wow, is it true that politicians are highly esteemed in every country? Is it true that most people who are willing to bear it all in public, shouldn't? Is it true that the pictures on the uh, ends of the uh, middle section...are in fact the pictures of dost?

Would Brigitte Bardot cry?

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The smart man who is Robert Mugabe has driven his country into despair. Today it was reported that Zimbabwe will collapse within six months. Aid workers were briefed about this and told to prepare for crisis. An aid worker is making more money than the police. Whilst RM (Robert Mugabe) is making shrines in honour to himself, and giving his friends land, the rest of this formally great country suffers. It seems that the dummies, or the evil farmers who initially balked at giving up their land for free to Mugabe's cronies were right. They claimed, and it would have been about 8 years ago, that the country would go into ruin. Inflation in this country is the highest in the world. It could arguably be said it is as bad for Zimbabwe as it was for the Germans after WWII. I bet the next thing we hear from ole' Robbie is there is a plot against him and it is just propaganda spread against him by Westerners. Tell ya what Robbie boy. Why don't you go take a walk, without your bodyguards, down the streets of Harare for an afternoon. If the people are too hungry to fight against you does that mean you get to keep being the leader? With your permission, I will move Robert Mugabe from his comfortable position at number four, on the worst living Dictator's list, up a notch to three. Do you concur?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6751671.stm

Kyoto Protocol. The United Nations convention on climate change is a step in the right direction. I do not fully agree with it because it allows the two most populous countries in the world, who incidentally contain nearly half of Earth's humans to be overlooked in their responsibilities for climate change, simply because they have a weaker economy. You can paint it any which way, but that is the way I see it. I have seen many rivers which are considered polluted, and unsuitable to drink from but have never seen pictures like the ones above. The second one is located in the Citarum River in Indonesia where the people are collecting the plastic and is the source of drinking water for many cities. The first picture is located in Wuhan, China where they have lost approximately 125 thousand kilos of fish in three days because of pollution in the water. Does a government in China, who has killed people for expressing their own views, who throws people in jail for criticizing the government, who spends a great deal of money censoring the internet, have a responsibility to make laws against those who display wanton cruelty to the environment?

Aeneas flees burning Troy-- Federico Barocci

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Some time ago, I shared a travelling companion for a period of over 2 years. Every time we passed a certain building that had the following address in big huge numbers she would exclaim "two, five, four, four" until someone would go berko and ask her to stop. Sometimes she would stop, other times we just heard the wonderful soliloquy of.... "two, five, four, four, two, five, four, four........" I confess that I am very 2,5, four, foured when people whine about Dubya. It will be nice when he is finally out of office, so we can no longer hear about him and his failings. I nearly put down an article today, in the Canberra Times, because it appeared as just another rant by another columnist. However, it was good, and forms the thought du jour or kernel of this BS (blogspot.)

Ronald Reagan started program back in the eighties called Star Wars. It essentially is a missile defence shield. In short, if a long range missile is fired at the United States, it can be shot down before it reaches its intended target. Opponents don't like it because it may start another nuclear arms race. I don't read of any proponents other than the US government. The author in the Canberra Times, mentioned above, stated there is no reason for a program like this to commence because he feels it gives the US another weapon to play with, will potentially start another cold war and argues that the countries America is concerned with, Iran and North Korea, only have short range missles. "Dubya" a.k.a President George W Bush, practiced diplomacy this week with a President Putin. ( by the way AV, if Putin gives up power as he is scheduled to I don't know if we could really put him in our top ten diktators) Mr Putin was a master of diplomacy when after vigorously opposing the newly proposed Star Wars program he generously suggested that the Americans use his ( russia's) radar outpost as a means of monitoring potential threats. It would enable him to keep close watch on the program and being that he is a former KGB man......

I ask, do you support Star Wars? If not why not. I also ask if the US should not even look at this program until other countries develop long range tactical nukes? Would that be a good idea? Would I do that if I was head of the military? People say, that many inventions come about as an offshoot of military research. Could there be a possibility there would be a great and valuable invention other than destruction reaped from such research? Many questions. Many answers.

http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=your%20say&subclass=general&story_id=595622&category=Opinion

Finally, I have deleted one post, which I feel didn't quite belong here, and was a bit offensive. I am going to edit another post by the end of the week because...well I will explain later. We are in the mid nineties now, and maybe, with your help, we will do something different for the next one hundred. I am considering printing copies of our first one hundred, and the comments, binding it up into book so you can put it in your living room, and have a laugh. Would there be any interested?

http://chankslee.blogspot.com/2006/03/discussion-only-take-no-offence.html#comments

Dicks (or is that Richards) who govern.

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Okay fine, yes it happens. Targo, thanks for bringing me back to my senses. I think there are times when I go off into limbo. I am learning, slowly, that you have to be using the kiss principle when writing these things.

So let’s start slowly. ( Stops. Pauses. Takes a swig of courage. Resumes. )

In this world there are goodies and there are baddies, left versus right, people who take the high road and those who venture taking the road not taken. I choose to look at some baddies today. I think, in the present state of today’s politically correct world one cannot criticize even the biggest of boofheads unless they have a huge big bad lawyer sitting beside them. In the old days the little guy would have a gunslinger but I don’t have that, and I don’t have any big lawyers… I do have my opinion so yeah, enjoy.

The last few weeks I have gone on the Afrika tangent again. Noticing there are oodles of Diktators here has prompted a list. Who are the worst? I don’t have any interest in the hall of fame idiots, like Stalin, Hitler, Mao and the like because they are dead. While they will have their place in hall of fame dictator guys, we will focus on those who are alive today. To make this list, you have to have persecuted your people, killed them, violated rights, took away freedom of expression, fought against change of leadership, and really have been a pompous, self absorbed, inconsiderate, vicious jerk. I have taken my data from the sites below, but this is my own. Please feel free to question it.

The worst.

1. Omar al-Bashir. Sudan. Wanton killing of any who oppose.
2. Kim Jong-il. North Korea. Very cunning and now with Nuclear power.
3. Than Shwe. Burma. Highest use of child soldiers in the World.
4. Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe. Hanging onto power. Using starvation as a tactic.
5. Sayyid Ali KhamEnei. Iran. Highest use of suicide bombers for influence.
6. King Mswati III. Swaziland. Highest AIDS rate in world. 40% of people
7. Islam Karimove. Uzbekistan. Ruthless. Massacred 10000 who were protesting.
8. King Abdullah. Saudi Arabia. Contoller. Even phone calls are recorded.
9. Teodoro obiang Nguema. Equatorial Guinea. High Torture rates.
10. Hu Jintao. China. Power through enforced poverty. Human rights abuse.

Honourable mention. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan otherwise known here as the Poodle. Hugo Chavez will probably move up the list if he continues ransacking the media to put it under his control.

http://authoritarianism.blogspot.com/

http://www.newstatesman.com/200609040067

http://www.dictatorofthemonth.com/English/English_welcome.htm

http://www.arthuredelstein.org/worlddictators/

http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2007/edition_02-11-2007/Dictators