You're Just In Love

I've been humming this a lot recently. Time to share the earworm (thank you, Irving Berlin).

Good soldier, bad soldier

An interesting hidden camera show from ABC exploring ant-Muslim bigotry here. But the best bit is the last, when the uniformed US soldier gives the guy a piece of his mind. Isn't it wonderful to be reminded that there are serving US soldiers (i would guess the majority of them) who don't disgrace their uniform the way Allen West did? Mr West (I won't call you Lt Col West as you lost the right to that rank when you committed a war crime), this guy is worth five hundred of a POS like you. maybe you do do as he suggests: just STFU and if you don't like America and its values, take your hate business elsewhere.

Bonni love, for f*ck's sake buy an atlas: nobody will pay you to post racist filth for them if you turn it into a clown show

As regular EKN readers will by now have realised, Bonni Benstock-Intall (the BareNakedImbecile) mostly posts racist trash which she is sent by the professional Islamophobes who fund her site. She doesn't usually bother to watch the video clips she posts, or to read the articles she links, which can lead the poor dear to some hilarious misunderstandings. As she is none too bright and has the grasp of geography of a rather slow six-year-old, anything to do with Europe is especially risky for her.

Take this post. The video she links appears to originate from the "Vlad Tepes" MRCTV stream. "Vlad", a well-known Canadian white supremacist, describes the cip as "Tardball", presumably because it shows black people who he considers "retards" because they don't belog to the master race. But Bonni can't resist adding her own little touches, for example her description of the commentary as being a "North African tribal chant". (This added extra has since been proagated to sites which copy Bonni's hate speech, such as those of the BNP.) Oh, and despite its being correctly spelled in the video, she screws up the spelling of "Maghreb". Not that is has anything to do with the Maghreb: the footage is of the violence that erupted at an amateur football match in Ivry-sur-Seine on the edge of Paris. The match (US Ivry Football v AS Val de Fontenay) was either followed or interrupted by a massive pitch invasion by gangs of local youths armed with clubs, pepper spray and paintball guns. See report here.

Well, nothing much there, you think. Bonni adds a little gratuitous racism to an already racist edit of a genuine riot. Ah, but it gets better. The "North African tribal chant" is actually Spanish, as is pretty obviously from listening to it. It's also clearly taken from a football match commentary, because, you know, Vlad or whoever produced the video was trying to be funny by using a football commentary to "describe" the riot. Obviously the joke was far too subtle for birdbrain Bonni.

But it gets better yet. One of her commenters points out that the commentary is in Spanish:

So does Bonni "correct" her description of the "North African tribal chant"? No, she "corrects" her original title which can be seen here in the cache

to replace the reference to France with one to Spain, because even when someone patiently explains that the video shows France but the commentary is Spanish, her brain can't cope with the idea that there is more than one country in Europe. Eventually someone must have pointed her cretinous mistake out to her, whereupon she simply gave up all hope of working out what country she was blogging about and took out the country reference altogether. The description of the "tribal chant" remained untouched throughout, however, because obviously if someone not from America is yelling something Bonni can't understand it must be something primitive, right? (And this cretin pretends to have a degree in Japanese!)

And finally, just to show how little attention Bonni pays to what she is paid to display, the fool had posted a still picture of the riot only two days earlier which she correctly locates at Ivry-sur-Seine (though Bonni seems unable to tell a paintball gun from a machine-gun)

And finally, some excellent news form the comments under the post. Some American racists have promised not to pollute Europe with their stench any more. Win!

From the creators of Thousand Island Dressing

For when you're stuck for something to put on that salad......

Papa Don't Teach

Sunday was Father's Day, and I received delightful cards from both my grown-up children. Friday, OTOH, was the last day of my teaching contract at Edinburgh College, and I received a very nice (and unexpected) card from my colleagues along with a bottle of wine. I hope to be asked back next term: it looks as though there should be some teaching hours available. I'll still be in college for a day or two, as I'm finishing off my end-of-term paperwork (and chasing up late submissions from students who have suddenly realised that actually, if they don't hand in that essay, they will fail the course). I'm happy to say that most of my students - at least, the ones who bothered to turn up - passed their various courses. I even got a card for "being an awesome tutor" from some of the trainee social workers I've been teaching about the internet. If they - and my other internet students - remember nothing else from my lessons, I think they will remember the origin of the term "spam" as applied to unwanted emails (it comes from this).

Dragon Drop

Almost six years ago I wrote this post to begin my LiveJournal blog (long since mothballed) and I was moved to think about it again this weekend. Not the sight of Barbara Windsor's breasts in a transparent top (I require no moving to think about them) but the phrases "dragon drop" and "head on a stick". Because on Saturday morning I was at a Dragon Workshop run by the Edinburgh Taoist Tai Chi centre, learning how to walk - then run - a Chinese dragon, the kind you see Chinese folk operating at festivals.

After my introduction to the dragon I know that it is led by the person (traditionally female) with the ball on a stick (who is called the "Pearl"). I know how to pick up and put down a dragon, and the various commands (among which "dragon drop" does not feature, though after a while you begin to feel it should). I know how to request a substitute if I get tired, and how to provide that service for someone else. I know how to do a wave and a zigzag, and after a further session in a week and a bit, I will know how to do even more. Which is just as well, as on August 10th we will be running our dragon in public at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens, and I won't be able to attend any further practises because I will be in the USA. Still, on 10/8 the dragon (by then at its full 25-man size - we were using just half of it on Saturday) will be manned by a mix of people ranging from the very experienced (who were training us this weekend) to total novices turning up on the day, so I should be somewhere in the middle of the ability range. It's more complicated than you might think: your movements are constrained by those of the legs ahead and behind, and if you forget to swap hands on your pole before dipping your piece of dragon you could end up talking in a high-pitched voice for a while. It all reminded me rather of carrying the processional cross for my church choir as a teenager, though when doing that I was rarely called on to carry out waves or zigzags.

The best part of all, though, was when we were asked if anyone would like to learn how to do the drumming for the dragon. Well, you don't need me to tell you that I leapt at the chance, and now have the basic skills of hitting a hunk of dead animal with two pieces of wood the size of a large carrot. It's a bit like being bass drum for a marching band: you're responsible for the timekeeping and co-ordination of the dragon, There are a few basic riffs, of which the most easily described has the rhythm "The WORkers, uNIted, will NEver BE deFEAted" and one or two special rhythms for particular manoeuvres. I took to it like, er, a dragon to water, so now as well as being able to operate as a leg for at least the basic moves, I have joined the cast of drummers.

I look forward to wowing the August crowds on Princes Street. Oh, and I just found this picture of our very own dragon on the Taoist Tai Chi society blog.

Normal service restored

...and we can return to laughing at Bonni Benstock Intall, who in another post today opines:

Here’s a headline I bet you never thought you’d see: ‘Cross dressers arrested at Saudi Gay Wedding’

Gee, no, Bonni, the story came as a shock. Just as it did when the same thing happened in 2004. And in 2005. And 2011.

Still I don't suppose a homophobe like Bonni (whose terror of anything gay even exceeds her hatred of Muslims) takes much interest in the doings of Arabian homosexuals unless instructed to make fun of them by the folk who fund her. And anyway, who ever caught a Holocaust denier doing historical research?

Bonni Benstock-Intall applauds the cold-blooded murder of a schoolteacher

As you will have spotted by now, I enjoy poking fun at the imbecility of Bonni Benstock-Intall, the Holocaust-denying Hitler fan from Queens. But when I dropped by her site today, the headline brought me up short. Try as I might, i couldn't find anything funny in this.

YAWN. Why should anyone care that a Muslim teacher was shot to death in a classroom in Thailand?

I mean, one becomes used to Bonni's cheering whenever a boat full of refugees sinks, but after the Newtown CN massacre it still shocks me that even an NRA-loving gun-toting bitter-clinger like Bonni can be so dismissive when a death squad guns down a primary school teacher in front of her pupils. Still, it's not as though she was a human being, with her slanty eyes and her headbag and all.

To sum up. Two guys murder a white British soldier in cold blood, and it's the end of civilisation as we know it. Two guys murder a brown Burmese schoolteacher in cold blood, and it's boring.

Edinburgh College Music Box Summer Concert

On Thursday evening I was at the Queen's Hall for the Edinburgh College music department's summer concert. This one showcased the classical musicians: the pop ones had their own show the previous night at Electric Circus, at which my son and his band reprised highlights of his degree recital. He featured in Thursday's show too, sitting in the back playing drums for the Big Band and cahon for the Folk Group (who did one of his compositions as well). OK, yes, proud father, guilty as charged.

The concert was very good, with material ranging from part of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas to the arrangement of The Best Is Yet To Come that Quincy Jones made for Frank Sinatra and the Count Basie Orchestra. Singer in that, and a couple of other numbers, was Stephen Duffy, presenter of BBC Scotland's Jazz House and also compere of Thursday's concert. I would have to say that his set with the band was the high point of the evening. I didn't know him before, probably because when the Jazz House goes out I'm usually rehearsing, but he was really good. As of course were the band.

Pats on the back all round to the staff and students at Edinburgh College's Music Box.

Got my modem running...Heading out on the Information Superhighway.....

Hi. There was a short pause back there as last weekend our internet connection died. I was still able to get some connectivity (rather s.l.o.w.l.y) via my old Vodafone dongle. (The only reason I still had it is that I'd forgotten to cancel the account: Hilary reminded me just last week about it.) It seems our cable provider (Virgin) have greatly increased our bandwidth: so greatly that our old cable modem was unable to cope and just sat there flashing pitifully. Cue a call to the helpline, where after much running of online diagnostics my cable modem was officially declared antique and an appointment made with an engineer.

'Twas on the Monday afternoon the engineer came along...... and very efficient he was too. We now have a "Super Hub" with a built-in wi-fi router. There may be things about Virgin which are irritating: it took me a bit of web searching to find the helpline number as they assume you'll contact them online (tricky when your cable is offline), and it might have been more helpful to have known we would need a modem upgrade before it stopped working. But their customer service is mostly very good indeed. Go Richard Branson!

Tea, custard creams and a kick-around: Muslims educate the EDL in the British way of life.

York's Muslims really know about the British way of life, and give the English Defence League's thugs a lesson in it.

Africa, Turkey, Spain, the British Commonwealth: is there no part of the world about which Bonni Benstock-Intall the Holocaust denier isn't prepared to show her unbounded ignorance?

Now I understand why Bonni the Holocaust Denier has such a poor grasp of geography (remember: she thinks Rome is in Spain?) It's because she gets her information, on that as on so much else, from fake ex-terrorist Walid Shoebomber Moonbat Fruitbat. In this post, for example, she uncritically reprints a screed of stupid abuse about President Obama's half-brother from Fruitbat's site. It includes this (and I checked, it really is what Shoebomber wrote):

Malik Obama is the Executive Secretary for the Islamic Da’wa Organization (IDO), which is stationed in Khartoum, Sudan, and which has its primary focus in expanding Wahhabist Islam in the African subcontinent

Now I know where the Indian sub-continent is (though Bonni doesn't - more of that in a minute), but I'm damned if I know what the "African sub-continent" is supposed to be when it's at home. You see, when I was at school, Africa was an actual continent. What's that you say? It still is?

Maybe Moonfruit and Bonni should try this quiz about the African continent. I just had a go and scored 110 out of a possible 165, which I was pretty pleased with. I suspect geographical geniuses who reckon there is something called an "African sub-continent" won't manage to get 50.

Other recent examples of Bonni's fractured grasp of geography include a post on anti-government protests in Turkey entitled "Could this be the start of the 'Anti-Arab Spring' protests?" Er, no, Bonni, it couldn't, because the Turkish government had nothing to do with the "Arab Spring". And you know why? Because Turks are no more Arabs than the Chinese are. You may think all Muslims are Arabs, but they're really not.

And on that subject, there was this wonder, where the New York Nazi-worshipper instructs the British that we must stop referring to British Asians as "Asians". (Well, OK, Bonni pet, we'll just call them British if you prefer.) You see, Bonni believes that referring to Asians as Asians is a distraction from the fact that some of them are Muslims. Bonni, once again, needs a geography lesson. I don't know where the Muslim Americans in New York hail from, but it's a fair bet it's mostly not Pakistan, Bangladesh or India (I suspect there are a lot of Americans of Turkish or Arab heritage there). Well, in Britain almost all our Muslims originated in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. Some came directly from those Commonwealth countries: for example in 1963 the Conservative Health Minister Enoch Powell (yes, that Enoch Powell) specifically called for doctors from those countries to come and fill vacancies in the National Health Service. Many more came to work in the restaurant business: most of Britain's "Indian" restaurants are actually Bangladeshi, so I expect the thugs of the EDL and the morons of Liberty GB who wail about the evils of halal meat have been eating the stuff all their lives (LOL). And of course they came to work on our buses, in our factories, in our offices, banks, schools: to become part of Britain. Then in 1972 President Idi Amin expelled all the Asians from Uganda, and most of them came to Britain as well (Uganda being yet another Commonwealth country).

So when a crime is committed by a British Asian, we say so. Sometimes the criminal's religion is evident (a woman in a hijab, perhaos, or a Sikh in a turban) but usually the police have better things to do than ask the guy they're handcuffing whether he's a Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu or an atheist. So they call them Asians. Because that's where their fsmilies come from: Asia. Specifically, the Indian sub-continent (now that one does exist). It's not misleading, and not insulting: just a fact. (Don't you just hate it when pesky facts get in the way of your white supremacist ranting?) So no, Bonni, we're not reconsidering our ban on the "M" word: we've always called homeschooled imbeciles like you "morons" and we always will, however many fake degrees you claim to have.

Keep up the stream of hilarious ignorance, Bonni, because for those of us who really are British (as against the pretend Brits and ex-Brits who litter your comment streams) it's very funny indeed to watch foolish foreigners getting it wrong. If you keep on getting your geography lessons from Wacko Shoebomber (who thinks Jerusalem is the capital of Israel FFS) you're sure to continue delighting us.

I'm So Excited

In a month from now I will just be making my way through immigration at Chicago O'Hare Airport having flown from Edinburgh via Heathrow. I wonder whether our in-flight entertainment will be as, er, entertaining as these guys from the new Pedro Almodovar film I'm So Excited. (The only clip I could find doesn't have English subtitles, but the music is in English (the Pointer Sisters) so it really doesn't matter.



The film is great fun: not a masterpiece, or a film with any pretensions to being great art. Just fun. Oh, and as rude as fuck.

Reputations

The genocide of Rohinga Muslims in Myanmar has been going on for some time now, much to the delight of Bonni and her fellow Hitler fans (OK, I suppose they'd like it even better if the genocide was of Jews, but Muslims are a good second best and when they've been burned to a crisp it's hard to tell the difference). Well, now one region of Myanmar has taken its genocidal policy one step further (and all from the Adolf Hitler Playbook too) by imposing breeding limits on Rohinga families.

Meanwhile, where is Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi? Surely she has been speaking up for the thousands of her countrymen being slaughtered in the name of religion? She's no longer in prison, she's the leader of the official parliamentary opposition, so even if she felt it risky to campaign vigorously, surely she will have made some statement condemning the violence. Something like "Now now, chaps, play nicely and if you have to burn down buildings full of Muslims at least allow bystanders to throw water on them when they fall to the ground smouldering: keeps down the smell, don't you know." Yes?

No.

Nothing.

Not a word.

I am beginning to think that Aung San Suu Kyi is no more deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize than Barack Obama. On the one hand, a President who executes Americans and non-Americans alike without trial (or even much attempt at identification, et alone avoidance of civilian casualties). On the other, a political big-shot who has parlayed her Peace Prize into power and status, and whose silence in the face of genocide is to all intents complicity in it.

Perhaps we need a regulatory body which could strip such people of their undeserved prizes in the same way that Lance Armstrong and Ben Johnson were stripped of their Tour de France and Olympic titles when their cheating came to light. I'm not suggesting that ASSK and BO have done nothing worthwhile (for that matter Lance Armstrong's tactical skill wasn't drug-enhanced, and he was racing against equally doped-up riders so he must have had considerable raw talent). But they don't deserve the prizes: and only Johnson and Armstrong have paid the price. Tha really should change, and soon.

A puzzle solved

Remember this picture?



I posted about it here, and wondered which ship the old ship of the line was. A commenter sugested HMS St Vincent, which I had considered but ruled out because by the time the picture was taken the St Vincent was permanently moored at Haslar near Portsmouth and being used as a training ship. However, thinking of training ships gave me some more ideas for search terms, and before very long I found this article about HMS Impregnable. Impregnable went though a number of changes of role, ending up in 1888 as a quarantine hulk for use in an epidemic. At this point her name was given to HMS Bulwark (which had started out as HMS Howe - I hope you're taking this in as there will be a short test later). In 1891 HMS Bulwark was renamed as HMS Caledonia and moved to Queensferry (by the Forth Bridge) for use as a training ship.

Here is a picture of HMS Impregnable (formerly HMS Bulwark, formerly HMS Howe) around 1900. It certainly looks like the same ship.

Murder most foul. But not terrorism.

Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian has an outstanding piece entitled Was the London killing of a British soldier "terrorism"? Of course the answer to that question (his as well as mine) is "Of course not", but sadly there are plenty of people happy to call (or not to call) any killing "terrorism" if it suits their purpose. But specifically targetting a serving member of the armed forces while taking care to avoid hurt to civilians (and indeed apologising to them for making them witness the murder) is no more "terrorism" than the Fort Hood shootings were. After all, deliberately targetting soldiers and avoiding collateral damage to civilians is what the IDF claim to do, though like Barack Obama's drone strikes they seem to be less good at it than the Woolwich killers or even Nidal Hasan (who killed one civilian who charged at him while he was murdering 12 soldiers, shot only to wound when confronted with an armed civilan policewoman, and deliberately avoided shooting several other civilians). Was this guy, who deliberately targetted a civilian, a terrorost? A war criminal certainly, but not a terrorist. And how about this chap?

There are buffoons in the US Congress (OK, no shocks there....) who believe that Hasan should have been charged as a "foreign terrorist". How a Virginia-born American is "foreign", or how someone who deliberately tries to avoid civilan harm when attacking serving US soldiers is a "terrorist", is presumably something they teach you on the advanced talking-with-my-head-up-my-ass course for new Congressional representatives. Some members of Congress believe that it is necessary to define the Fort Hood shootings as an act of terrorism, or Major Hasan as a foreign combatant, in order that the dead and wounded can meet the criteria for award of the Purple Heart medal. Well, I can at least understand why they might wish that, but wishing doesn't make it so. Hasan's victims were no more wounded in combat or by terrorism than anyone else whose co-worker suddenly pulls out a gun and starts shooting. There's a reason why Fort Hood has been described as "workplace violence", and that's because it's workplace violence. Hasan didn't even have a political motivation like the Woolwich killers: he simply didn't want to deploy overseas to Afghanistan. I don't have much sympathy with that view: you sign up, you take the money, you go where they send you. But it makes him a bad soldier, not a terrorist. (I must admit I am surprised that he's still drawing his full Major's pay pending trial, but the Army say they are treating him the same way as any other soldier accused of a crime (well, not as well as Allen West, but Nidal Hasan doesn't have powerful friends in Congress to pervert the course of justice).

To return to my title: Macbeth was a murderer, and had a political motive (he wanted to be king). But he wasn't a terrorist, and not even his detractors have tried to pretend he was.

It isn't dhimmitude when they're not trying to kill me

Nothing much of interest from Bonni the Holocaust denier this week, as her hate blog s full of how the Woolwich murder and our failure to exterminate all British Muslims shows that we are now an Islamic Republic, or something. Same old, same old Britain-hating stuff, including a few clips of passport fraudster Stephen Lennon (who goes under the alias of Tommy Robinson when he isn't trying to sneak into the USA, which had the good sense to ban him years ago as a terrorist sympathiser). She also quotes unindicted war criminal and disgraced ex-soldier and ex-Congressman Allen West, who reckons we had it coming because we hadn't kicked out all the Muslims. Personally I will sleep more soundly if I know that West is banned form entering Britain: unlike most British Muslims he is a torturer and killer who glorifies genocide. Oh, and he's a woman-hating bully too, but I suppose we can't keep him out for that.

I suppose we should expect the far right to be capitalising on what is after all the first act of "Islamic terrorism" in Britain since 7/7/2005. I put quotation marks because (a) there is nothing Islamic about murder and (b) I'm not convinced that targetting a serving member of the armed forces and killing only that person and nobody else can be classed as terrorism, whatever David Cameron thinks. Is it terrorism whenever an army sniper kills a member of the Taliban? Having your head cut off is distressing, but so I imagine is having it converted to an aerosol by a quarter-kilo of metal at two-and-a-half times the speed of sound. Murder, certainly, but far more targeted a killing than a drone strike.

Here is an excellent article on the real terrorists.

In other news from the far right, the EDL demonstrate that they are so "British" they can't tell Brighton Pavilion from a mosque. I'm sure any one of the actually-British Muslims they hate so much could put them right there.



And an Israeli government minister forgets that he's supposed to pretend that his regime hasn't adopted most of its policies from the Third Reich by absent-mindedly joking about striking dock workers beng ants who need to be exterminated. Well, this stuff is still made under license as "Uragan D2" in the Czech Republic.

Books, books, books, books, marchin' up and down again

After enjoying Joe's description of his grand-daughter's fun with her Kindle, I enjoyed finding these short films on Neil's blog.





While I love my Kindle (a present from my children last Christmas) and indeed just bought a book for it which Neil had enthused about, I have to say that real books are awesome. These days I tend to have a couple of real ones and one on the Kindle all on the go at once so I can read whichever I'm in the mood for. Current real books are this and this, while on the Kndle I'm reading this. Something for every mood there, then.

....and still more music

last night Hilary and I were playing for Edinburgh Light Orchestra in the Queen's Hall. It was a busy night for Edinburgh concerts: the Edinburgh Choral Union were doing the Brahms German Requiem in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh Players were doing Haydn's Creation in St Cuthbert's, Meadows Chamber Orchestra were playing Bach and Handel in the Canongate Kirk, and somebody was doing the Nelson Mass in Greyfriars. Meanwhile we were playing The Big Country and the like. A few fun bits and bobs: we did Shostakovich's arrangement of Tea For Two which is ace, and "Where Is The Life That Late I Led?" from Kiss Me Kate.





And while we were playing a selection from Phantom of the Opera the violins had a little figure in the overture that reminded me (out of nowhere, in the deep recesses of the memory) of this blast from the past (1967!)


Keith West - Grocer Jack by Franc_6

The weirdest thing about that is that as recently as 1967 there were still ordinary grocers who hadn't been replaced by supermarkets. God, I feel old.