Open thread
Not hugely inspired today, so I'm open to suggestions for issues worth discussing. However, I am intrigued that the Sunday Times is making so much of the prospect of Israel going for the nuclear option against Iran, given that the same story ran in The Spectator on Friday.
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on Sunday, January 07, 2007 at 12:09 pm.
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Dull day isn`t it C.I`m somewhat unispired myself.I suppose the big story of the last couple of days has been the end of our Navyand Broons hatred for the armed forces
I expect that the powers-that-be are encouraging the media to big this story up for all it's worth. This will provide a good backdrop to back channel discussions with the Iranian religious establishment (Supreme Leader Khamenei and the council of religious) persuading them that they have made a gigantic mistake backing the lunatic Ahmadinejad as president. Fortunately, the recent elections in which the Ahmadinejad faction came 4th or 5th with very respectable overall turnout (compared with the last presidential election!) gives Khamenei a very good pretext for calling on Ahmadinejad to step down 'having lost the confidence of the people'. That really is their only hope of avoiding an Israeli military strike. Fortunately, they can also explain this away by reference to the way in which Madanejad is trashing the economy _ huge capital outflows, midlle classes exiting in droves noticed the huge rise in Iranian restaurants in London over the last few months _ and the huge rise in Iranian mini-cab drivers here too in recent months?)
The extra strand in the Speccie's report was the theory that the Iranians already have 'suitcase nukes' acquired in the wake of the collapse of the USSR and actually want the IDF to blow up their installation so that they then have a 'reason' to do something ghastly to Tel Aviv.
Most of the cab drivers round here are Iranian. Very nice people, too.
not up to date with iran - what's happening next? 9and yes my left shift key is playing up and i'm lazy9
Yes, it's a bit boring today. I've finally got round to reading Freakonomics. What a great book. The bit about how legalised abortion in the US apparently caused a huge reduction in crime was noteworthy. Thinking about it, it provides a very powerful argument for whole-life tarriffs for first offenders: you can't commit any more crimes and your lineage dies out. PrisonWorks anyone..?
The soft left of the Tory Party comes out to play.
C - could do with N's mail address.
I quite enjoyed Freakonomics but didn't feel that it lived up to its hype. You might enjoy David 'Son of Milton' Friedman's 'Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life', which covers such important issues as the solution to being chased by an angry mob while having an insufficiency of bullets. Anyone care to guess what our wanted man should do?
Just noticed the fact, and wish to congratulate you on it, that you have banned that horrible creature, Hirst.
Shall we say that my regulars are not keen on him, so it seemed like the right thing to do, albeit pre-emptively.
if you have a gun the mob won't know how many bullets you have
Tell us what the cornered person with a scarcity of bullets should do, Croydonian, in case we ever find ourselves in that parlous situation.
I wrote a post directed at Hirst over on Iain's, which he's all over like a rash, trying to be one of the gang, trying to get his big break on Doughty St. I doubt that Iain would have let it through because it was quite venomous. At least he will never get a voice on The Croydonian.
(Do you find a way of doubling back and joining the angry mob? Is that it?)
Is it take a hostage..?
The thing to do is to shoot the person leading the mob. Keep doing that and no-one will want to lead it, as the cost of leading the mob becomes too high.
Re Iran, I believe unless we can force a change of government in Iran - meaning unless America can force a change in government; for God's sake don't let the cack-handed, moronic Blair anywhere near it, the only alternative is a nuke.
Not only will this destroy whatever arsenal they've managed to build up, but will serve the concentrate the minds of those financing terrorism in the West. It is time they had a very sharp lesson.
If we (meaning the US) can find a way of handling Iran without real violence, that would be best as the Iranians really are charmers and highly intelligent. If we can, tant mieux. But we still need to put an end to this mass immigration to the West, violence, intimidation by people like the noxious Muslim Council, CAIR in the US, and, I'm absolutely certain, similar organisations embedded in other Western countries. That means mecca.
And take over the oil fields "for safekeeping, just until things settle down".
Mobs don't have leaders do they? That's why they're mobs.
Also you said insufficient - that could mean none.
who here has seen a real-lif mob. I had a friend who got caught up in a mob in South America once.
Thread topic change - has any one moved over to Recess Monkey's blog of late. The Simian appears paralysed. The last time I remember a similar situation was when he took the piss out of Tessa Jowell.
OK, OK. Let us one has about a dozen bullets and twenty people in pursuit. Taking out the leader each time is the better approach.
I do wonder what the best approach is with Iran, as I tend to think that Ahmadinejad is merely the dead cat bounce of the Iranian Islamic revolution. I do not suppose that the man or woman in the street of Tabriz or Tehran is that keen on a Ahmadinejad-inspired nuclear conflagration.
Are you trying to take out the leading comment there?
Say you have 20 angry bloggers...
Even if the mob had a leader (which it wouldn't), I think that shooting him/her would just make the mob angrier. You'd then have an angrier, leaderless mob. I still think that taking a hostage would work better.
As for Iran, the Cold War showed us that facing down your opponent is the best solution.
V _ you are right about the (non-Arab) Iranians being in a different league to their Arab neigbours in terms of intelligence and culture. I remember a few years back going to an exhibition on Saudi history and culture _ what a joke! A few bits of broken mud brick and tile with the coarsest of designs..... The great flowering of Islamic art usually owes more to Persia, Turkey, the non-arab Kurds (wasn't Saladin a Kurd?), the Jewish minority within Islamic lands _ and reached its apotheosis when it fed off earlier classical influences (e.g. in North Africa) and other European influences e.g. in Spain. Has any great art or architecture ever been produced by arabs in the arabian peninsula?
... all armed with comments, pursuing you. And you only have three opinions of your own ... what would you do?
The idea of my having only three opinions takes us well and truly into the absurd....
V _ a blogger with 3 opinions? As if!!
re. the mob: the point is not whether it has a 'leader' as such _simply that someone has to be at the front. If the guy at the front keeps getting picked off, then that mob will tend to hang back _ over time the distance between hunted and hunters should grow thus making an escape easier to effect...
David Allen - Yes, but when they hear you shooting blanks, they will be all over you.
I think my original guess was best. Dodge round a corner or behind a bush and, without breaking stride start shouting and join the mob toward the back of the crowd and march with them. Eventually, allow yourself to be pushed to the back and, when the moment is right, bugger off.
Yes, I apologise for my suggestion that a blogger might find himself armed with only three opinions. It was theatre of the absurd.
Verity: You are probably right _ but, give a boy a gun and his trigger finger gets itchy!
Women like shooting guns as well, David Allen.
I don't believe that any muslim country with the exception of Persia - now Iran, but it was Persia then - has ever produced anything. I could be wrong, but think of the Maghreb. Think of Saudi Arabia & Co. Oh, and the Moghuls, who were actually descended from Ghenkis Khan, from Mongolia. Definitely not Arab.
The Pakistanis did a nice line in gardens, but nothing else. Teh great creators were the Persians.
Everyone who frequents this blog is pretty well informed, but for anyone who missed this piece of information, the word Iran actually derives from Aryan. They are the same general race as us. Not Arabs. Also, they are a rather good looking people.
c's suggestion is clearly the best, but i was expecting something more insightful.
...and one of the titles of the late Shahanshah (king of kings) was 'Aryamehr' _ Light of the Aryans!......
PT - Ah well, I liked it....
Actually, I think the Pakistani line in gardens was copied from Persian gardens. So they don't qualify (even though they're not Arabs, either). The Persians truly were a font of civilisation and created and appreciated beauty. The Arabs think only allah can create things. (That must be why he made Saudi Arabia such a tourist magnate as a beauty spot.) Moghul architecture was breathtaking.
I come back to the Joranians. They are such a different kettle of fish. They're urbane, intelligent, fashionable, very, very humourous. I think they're probably not really Arabs.
Jordan? _ confess I know next to nothing about the place or its people. My only contact was 20 years ago when I had a job briefly with Harrods (pre-Fayed) and had to process the orders of 'sensitive' acocunt holders: King Husseing (or someone in his palace) clearly had a fetish for linens. Every week they must have spent £,000s on towels, sheets and pillow cases. (I wondered if he had a Ceaucescu-style obsession with using new every day). Keep promising myself a trip to Petra....
....of course I meant ACCOUNT holders (and King HUSSEIN!)
I know nothing about the late King Hussain's household arrangements, but as I have mentioned here before, I have been a guest at his palace in Amman.
His brother, Crown Prince Hassan as was, is highly intelligent, informed and witty.
King Abdullah seems to have his head screwed on and is a firm friend of Britain. (He's Sandhurst, I believe.) Queen Rania is simply beautiful, doesn't wear a veil of any kind, sports lovely hair-dos, wears make-up and fashionable clothes, takes her turn as a Red Cross ambulance driver and is just an all round good egg.
Fuck Israel!
Another bluff to try and con that numbskull Bush into committing more american Lives to protect their shitty little fantasy country.
I propose another highland clearance, this time we kick all the jocks out, every single one of them, hand the place over to the Jews. even better with money than the dour ones, fucking brilliant with fish (five for one) that sorts out the cod problem and better neighbours (unless you are called Mohammed)
5 years time it will be Switzerland with matzo balls .
Oi!
OK - I have something for the Open Thread!
Keith Ellison, the black American muslim who is the first muslim to have been elected to Congress, did manage to get permission to get sworn in on the koran, but he touched it with his LEFT hand, doubtless causing intense foaming at the mouth for anyone who saw it on al Jazzeera.
What's more, for any muzzies crowing in the ME because they'd got one of their own elected to the American Congress, this guy is an aggressive promoter of gay rights. It must seem to the Saudis that some days absolutely nothing goes right. As Gordon Lightfoot sang, "Sometimes, I think it's a sin when I feel like I'm winnin' but I'm losing agin'."
(Also, what kind of a muslim name is Keith?)
A bona fide Muslim can't be an aggressive promoter of gay rights. I think Keith needs to give the Holy Quoran a bit of a re-read.
Re: Israel and a possible strike against Iran. The Turks are most agitated about the possibility of an over flight by the Israel air force on the way to Iran....
Yes, I know that, Stamboul Tory, and that is why I find this fellow's maverick attitude so entertaining. He is diluting the islamic message, which must be causing them some distress. One trusts.
It's a hoot! He swore on the koran with his left hand. This whole thing is a hoot.
The reason I'm so amused by this, Stamboul Tory, is, although he doesn't realise it, this Ellison fellow is as anarchic as the Marx Brothers. A Night at The Mosque.
This, over on Laban Tall's blog under the headline, "Well, it worked".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lincolnshire/6238579.stm
Oh whoops... Looks like Ellison needs some remedial lessons with his neighbourhood imam.
This is what is so great about American black muslims. They are on a planet of their own. It must drive the Wahabbis crazy. They make up their own rules as they go along and, because they are American and powerful, they colonise the islamic religion, as that religion has stated it intends to do to us. An amusing diversion.
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