I still don't understand what was wrong

This photograph depicts something extremely ugly indeed.

Not the humiliation and torture of Palestinians in their own country, horrific though that is.

Not even the pig-brutal munter in the Israeli Army uniform posing with a smirk in front of them.

Nope, the real ugliness is in her attitude that it was perfectly fine to act this way, to incarcerate Palestinians in their own land, then pose for a picture in front of them like a tourist snapping themselves at the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal.

This sub-intelligent bitch posted these atrocities on, inevitably, her Facebook page. Then took them down when the civilised world was outraged. But today, safe with the assurance that the Israeli occupying forces have no intention of reprimanding her, she has come out batting with the following jaw-dropping lines of madness:

"I still don't understand what was wrong. It was solely to show the experience of military service," she said.

For anyone with any lingering doubts about the illegitimacy of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the humiliation of that land's indigenous occupants and the dehumanising attitudes of the idiot occupying forces, this is all you need right here.

These pictures evoke not only the similar pictures taken by American knuckledraggers at the Iraqi torture centre Abu Ghraib, but also those of many Nazis, posing in front of piles of Jewish clothes and shoes, in concentration camps during the 1940s.

They too failed to see anything wrong in their photos posed before the torture they were committing, because they too failed to recognise what they were doing was torture, was evil, was wrong.

The history of the Zionist project brings to mind those famous lines from the end of Orwell's 'Animal Farm', because now it has become increasingly impossible to draw any distinction between the torturers of Israel and those who once tortured their antecedents in 1940s Europe.

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Who now can tell a Zionist from a Nazi?

Enough to make a Jackal puke

Dan Kennedy, writing in the Guardian, is spot on.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney, the real power in the White House during the Bush presidency, is attempting to claim that the invasion of Iraq has worked out well.

Not well for Saddam Hussein, obviously, who was caught hiding in a cellar some five years ago and subsequently executed rather than sent to the War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague.

And not well for the people of Iraq, unless one considers the faint autonomy of some of Kurdistan to be worth it.

Of course, the invasion and occupation of Iraq went really well for Dick Cheney himself, as he was able to transfer large amounts of US tax dollars into the hands of his old pals at Halliburton.

Increasingly, as one listens to the whining of Tony Blair about his anguish over the war, or indeed scoffs at corrupt old Bertie Ahern as he pleads to be considered the great peacemaker of Ireland, I have come to realise that the place to hurt these people is in their legacy.

Blair's not stupid, and now realises that his legacy will be ever ruined by his involvement in Iraq. Ahern is rather stupid, but his arrogance and ego demand that history credit him with things he had at best a tangential involvement in (peace in the North of Ireland and the boom economy), rather than the things he was up to his greasy little neck in (endemic Fianna Fail corruption, clientelism and gombeenism).

Cheney is also concerned about the legacy. And he remains in cynical denial about the wrongs he has committed.

His only out now is to try to persuade the rest of us to see things from his twisted point of view - a point of view which says that it doesn't matter if there were no weapons in Iraq, it doesn't matter if hundreds of thousands died needlessly, and it doesn't matter about America kidnapping and torturing people in third countries.

As Dan Kennedy says in his excellent commentary on Cheney's delusions, it is enough to make a jackal puke.

Blogs CAN make a difference!

I stand corrected.

I have been languishing under the delusion that blogs were a time-killing online goof, something that people slightly too intelligent for Bebo read and post in between checking their email compulsively and viewing hilarious clips on Youtube during the quiet times at work.

For sure, there is the odd blog in America or someplace that breaks news about political scandals. Or there's the occasional one by some British chick talking about her sex life or living in France, who got to turn her blog into a book.

But basically, apart from these rare and well-known exceptions, it seemed to me that blogs don't really make an enormous impact in the world. I can see their potential, the benefits of the medium and the format. But at this point in time, they're below the tipping point where they might genuinely be said to make a difference.

Generally, most blogs seem to be about people's private crazy thoughts or their cats, or their crazy thoughts about their cats. And they're about as Earth-shatteringly relevant as most people's crazy thoughts about cats might be expected to be - ie not remotely relevant or important at all.

Certainly not something you might describe as making a difference to this world.

Boy, was I wrong.

One English blogger has just made history in this regard. It appears as if his blog about pop twiglets Girls Aloud may have been instrumental in helping to prevent the kidnap, rape, murder, torture and mutilation of the band members.

Well done, that blogger.

What? Oh, the blog was his sick fantasy about murdering the girls in the band and he was the would-be killer that his blog brought to police attention?

Well, it still makes a difference in my book. Carry on with the crazy thoughts, people. Just make sure to keeping blogging about them too. The future of slutty pop music could depend on it.

On Icarus' wings

Ever get the feeling that air travel is becoming impossible?

I don't mean that the physics underpinning flight has been found false. To my knowledge, planes do still take off.

But in recent years, air travel has come a long way from the luxurious pampering and glamour which it was known for in the Sixties and Seventies.

These days, Ryanair flights resemble cattle trucks, with the lame and the disabled abandoned on the tarmac as the other passengers scramble into the world's least comfortable space for a seat.

Other airlines are little different, and totally indifferent to the cares of customers as a recent run-in I had with allegedly decent airline Qantas revealed. (The allegation about Qantas being decent is one I can happily refute, incidentally.)

But now I get the impression that politicians are joining the airlines in making air travel almost impossible.

First the European Parliament decides to levy Green, 'Save the Planet', 'combat carbon emissions' charges upon air travel. In other words, their solution to climate change is that they're going to tax us.

That warped gnome Michael O'Leary warns that this could cost at least 50 euro on every ticket. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as he'll hike tickets at least that much and blame the Eurocrats, no matter what slice they carve off for themselves.

Then that bastion of democracy, the United States Department of Homeland Security, reveals that they want to replace air tickets and boarding passes with electric-shock bracelets, designed to torture any traveller at the press of a button.

For a lot of reasons, it looks like we're entering the endgame of the air travel era for the normal person.

Lack of fuel isn't one of those reasons (an excuse, but not a causal reason). The combination of shit service, prices hiked by state, superstate and providers, and finally conditions which now approach actual torture are the real reasons why we're going to start turning our backs on flight.

Which of course is going to make life interesting for anyone living on an unconnected island in the Atlantic.

Is Michael O'Leary the biggest cause of misery on Earth?

I know it's a hard call.

After all, malaria kills up to three million people and infects over 500 million every year.

Fundamentalist religious beliefs not only cause repression among those who espouse them, but also lead to the oppression, usually by violence, of those who don't.

But of all the evils incomprehensibly permitted by God to ravage this poor planet, is there any greater cause of human misery than that rip-roaring cunt Michael O'Leary?

We are informed by experts that experiencing misery is an essential part of truly comprehending happiness in life.

But surely there is absolutely no excuse, no lesson to be learned, no mitigating factor in the unremitting evil that is Michael O'Leary and his army of hellspawn?

By now you may have gathered that I broke a vow I made to myself, the promise that NEVER EVER AGAIN would I subject myself to the Auschwitz conditions of a Ryanair flight.

I had to get to Cork and back. There really weren't many options. Driving and the train would take too long. Aer Arann, who also ply the route, were asking for a truly silly amount of money.

So I made the mistake of booking a flight with Ryanscare. (You know, a fright with every flight.)

Firstly, the flight down to Cork was largely uneventful. It nearly arrived on time (and of course, an annoying tannoy message erroneously informed us that it had done when we landed.) That lulled me into a false sense of security.

The next day on the return leg, things were different. Despite checking in online already, the scum wanted another 4 euro of my money to check in. What???

Then to add to my confusion, and their blatant thievery, they demanded that I pay 18 euro more to check in my hand luggage.

"No thanks," I said. "It's my hand luggage."

They insisted it was too big, or the wrong shape, or too fragile or some such bullshit to be allowed in the cabin.

I informed them that it had been perfectly permitted by the same alleged airline on the way TO Cork, only a day previously. Nothing had been added or taken away from the bag in the meantime.

But they insisted, like the jobsworth cretins they are. And what can one do, in Cork airport at ridiculous o'clock in the morning, as a queue of other harrassed people grows behind you and starts mumbling, only give in to Ryanair's preposterous larceny?

"You can write to Ryanair's head office and complain," suggested a Servisair monkey who was insisting that it wasn't her fault that she was demanding my money for no good reason.

Yeah. I've tried that before. They don't answer. You have to take the scumbags to court to make them take your complaint seriously. And then they really try to treat you like shit on O'Leary's leather loafers.

Don't believe me? Remind yourself how they treated THIS poor woman.

I'm not going to write. Instead, I'm going to ignore O'Leary, and address myself instead to the hundreds of grunts and minions who man his evil empire.

Dear Ryanair Staff:

Are you proud of what you do and who you work for? Are your parents proud?

Is harrassing the public something you aspire to achieve in life? Is there truly nothing else you could do to make a living?

Just because your name badge says Servisair doesn't mean that you're not a Ryanair employee.

Just because O'Leary's memo told you to treat the public like lepers does not mean you are obliged to.

Just because it says in your contract that you should, at every possible opportunity, attempt to steal money from the public to line O'Leary's capacious pockets with, is not reason in itself to do so.

Have some fucking self-respect. Do something useful with your life instead.

Become a student, even. Sign on if you must.

Try prostitution or drug dealing.

Torture Zimbabwean democrats for Robert Mugabe if the inkling grabs you. Suppress Tibetan freedom protesters with Chinese special forces if you're so inclined.

Whatever you do, it's bound to be more useful to society, create less misery on this Earth, than working for that butt-munching goblin O'Leary and his Empire of Evil.

You can give it up. And if you start, others will follow. Eventually, the whole thing will collapse.

It can be done. Start now. Resign your Ryanair job, or your proxy Ryanair job with Servisair and their equivalents, and begin to live a decent life.

You know you want to.

P.S. Has anyone else noticed that Ryanair's staff are some of the ugliest people on Earth?

I remember when the vocation of airline hostess was one almost entirely populated by amazing, gentle, kind, generous women with model good looks. That's still the case with proper airlines like SAS and Singapore Airlines.

But Ryanair seem to do their recruiting down dark alleys late at night, in the rougher parts of town.

Seriously, some of those trolley dollies make the Manchester United first team look attractive. I guess it's all part of O'Leary's masterplan to add misery at every turn.

Lhasa is burning

Lhasa is burning today. The town on the roof of the world, the inspiration for Shangri-La, the spiritual home of Tibetans is aflame.

Tibetans are demanding their freedom, which was taken from them by a military invasion nearly fifty years ago by the Chinese communists.

Tibet is NOT part of China. It NEVER WAS part of China historically. The Tibetans speak their own language, have their own venerable history, their own religion and their own rich culture. They aren't Chinese and never will be.

So instead, China seeks to eradicate them. This is the world's quietest genocide, a murder of an entire culture by the slow process of murder, arrests, tortures but also mass immigration into their land from Han China, the Sinization of their towns like Lhasa.

In an astonishing display of compromise, the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual and political leader, has long sought to negotiate a deal with China that would prevent the Sinization of Tibet by allowing Tibet autonomy within China.

In other words, they are prepared to sacrifice their independence forever in order to obtain a limited freedom in which their culture and people might manage to survive. China's response has been to close more monasteries, kill more Tibetans, and move millions more Han Chinese into Tibet.

In this Olympic year, even the profoundly pacifist Tibetans are not going to accept the ongoing murder of their culture. That is why Lhasa is burning today.

The fires over Lhasa are a much more genuine symbol of human endurance and the quest for freedom of expression and achievement than any sullied Olympic torch spluttering in the Beijing smog ever could be.

Boycott the Beijing Olympics. Show your support for the people of Tibet.

See also my account of visiting Lhasa last year.

UPDATE: It didn't take long for the Chinese to start murdering Tibetans, sadly.

Grass up this nonce

This piece of walking faeces has been raping young boys for years and posting the pictures for other perverts on the internet.

Interpol are very keen on finding him, so much so that for the first time ever they've publicised the pictures of him.

If you know this man, or know where he is, or can identify him in any way, please contact your local cops ASAP.

Or, if you prefer, simply torture the prick to death, since he clearly doesn't deserve to live. No jury on the planet would convict you for doing that.

When is torture not torture?

When it's conducted by the American government, of course!

If I kidnapped you and held you against your will, slapped you repeatedly about the head, held you in freezing conditions and plunged your head regularly under water threatening drowning, you wouldn't be best pleased.

In fact, you might well describe such behaviour as torture.

And it would be, as long as I'm not a member of American security forces. If I was, then I could slap you around the head all I want, deprive you of sleep, humiliate you, keep you in freezing cold conditions, and simulate drowning by holding you underwater as much as I liked.

And it would only be 'taking action to protect the American people from further attack.' And I would be a 'highly trained professional interrogator', not the medieval torturer you thought I was.

Glad to have cleared that up for you all.

Old Europe grows a set of balls

And about time too. German prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for the CIA spooks who kidnapped a German man and took him to be tortured in Afghanistan.

Mr Masri, right, is German of Lebanese descent. He was kidnapped by the CIA while living in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, on New Year's Eve, 2003.

Happy new year, waking up in Kabul about to be tortured by America's proxy medieval inquisitors, I don't think.

Obviously Mr Masri wants compensation for being flown across the planet with a bag over his head and being subsequently tortured for no good or legal reason.

Italian prosecutors are also about to indict CIA operatives and Italian nationals for arranging and carrying out a kidnapping on Italian soil.

The whole world knows that America is kidnapping people at will in any country they choose and taking them to remote parts of the world, beyond media scrutiny, to be tortured. All in the name of the war on terror.

In fact, this is the war OF terror. Remember Paster Niemoller's famous statement about the climate in Germany during the Thirties:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Will you demand that your Government stop being complicit in kidnap and torture and start prosecuting US agents and troops that kidnap, torture or transport kidnap and torture victims through your country? Will you do it before the CIA start kidnapping you, or your family or your friends or neighbours?

Germany is remembering that it is a sovereign nation that upholds the rule of law. So is Italy. When will Ireland and Britain remember they are not the 51st and 52nd states, and begin to insist on inspecting the shady planes full of spooks that come in the night to refuel at Shannon and Prestwick?

If your Government won't listen to you when you ask them to stop supporting kidnap and torture, then it's time to get rid of them. Their hands are as equally covered in blood. Tell your local political representatives that. And keep telling them until you can remove them from office or until they decide that human rights and the rule of law are worth respecting again.

Idiots rule

Like the song goes, idiots rule. But for them to rule, then a large proportion of the rest of us have to follow. Which makes us the even bigger idiots. How does this work? Let's examine a few current examples:

1. China expects to be short by about 30 million marriageable women by 2020. This one's not rocket science. They couldn't have seen it coming?

Okay, so first the Government tells you to stop breeding under pain of death and prescribes stringent laws punishing people for having more than one child. What to do? Overthrow your mad-as-a-brush government is what.

Don't listen to the idiots - if you do, you end up killing your girl children and your sole son will have no one to marry when he grows up, which he will have to do entirely surrounded by other lads, which will probably make him gay.

2. A thousand Poles have applied to join the PSNI. Again, when you throw the doors open for half of Eastern Europe to come in, sooner or later those people are going to want the nice public sector sinecure jobs instead of the nasty meat-packing ones. This one could have been predicted.

But again, idiots rule. Why? Well, primarily because such is the endemic xenophobia in Northern Ireland that Polish officers could expect plenty of trouble everywhere they go.

Also because there does not appear to be sufficient vetting of the candidates, and because even Poles with police experience back East are unlikely to be suitable due to the fact that up until not very long ago their police were psychos suppressing the people.

Not unlike the PSNI, you say? Fair enough. As you were, gentlemen.

Don't listen to the idiots who reckon you deserve a yellow-pack police service, people. My suggestion? When PC Pawel comes knocking on the door, conduct your conversation in Irish or Ulster-Scots. If he arrests you, appeal to Nuala O'Loan. You'll get off, you'll get millions in compensation and Pawel will be deported.

3. Also, little Albania has shown up the rest of us so-called civilised countries by taking in as refugees those people who, after five years (Happy Birthday, Gitmo!) of incarceration by the US in Guantanamo Bay, have been proved innocent but are unable to return to their homelands for fear of death.

America is sending these people to Albania because, of course, it fears for their safety and is concerned about human rights in their countries of origin, which include Uzbekistan, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

According to the US State Department's deputy director for War Crimes (yes, they really have such a role in Government, and no, she isn't pursuing George W!), one Sandy Hodgkinson, "The US position is clear."

Tell us what that position is please, Sandy?

"We will not send individuals to places where we believe it is more than likely they will be tortured," she says. So that's nice and clear. Except for one thing: The US sent them to be tortured BEFORE they got to Gitmo, and the entire time they were held against all international law and human rights IN Gitmo.

Among the places, Gitmo incarcerents were sent to be tortured by the CIA are Uzbekistan and Egypt, ironically enough. So why the sudden crisis of conscience when letting them out?

Yes, idiots rule alright. Don't listen to the idiots who tell you they're concerned about torture and human rights while they're simultaneously practising torture and ignoring human rights. Their double-think permits them to rule you despite their being idiots.