Wednesday - June 06, 2012

It must be sunny today

It’s been great grass growing weather here for the past 2 or 3 weeks. Damp, rainy, and cool most days with some glorious mild sunny days in between. And every time the sun comes out the roofers show up. They’re back again today, so that must mean it’s nice out.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/06/2012 at 08:28 AM   
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   Tuesday - June 05, 2012

Just Lurking Lately

Not much posting from me this past week and some. Wife had some unexpected vacation - beats getting laid off! - so we went nowhere (the mangled conglomerate American term is a “staycation") but did lots of things locally, including a very interesting afternoon spent at some people’s home where they turned out to be hoarders. Very creepy experience, but we stayed polite the whole day ... then ran like hell. So I’ve actually been quite busy, and haven’t had much time for BMEWS or even any attraction to the TV news.

Politics is still a boring let down. Obama is still the King of Fools. The Middle East is still a violent puss boil on the arse crack of the globe. Nothing really super exciting in science, although Corning is now making extremely thin flexible glass. Neat.

So here’s a pretty girl to look at, a tall natural blonde with hair down to her hips, even if she has made a bit of a botch of it with the highlights.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/05/2012 at 04:51 PM   
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here’s a followup to american use of english. interesting if true.

I’ve used up my store of words so this is just for the info. You might be interested. 

Posted by peiper     on 06/05/2012 at 12:56 PM   
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American words are mangling our English.

I read this the other day, posting because it bothers me. Darn if everything doesn’t bug me these days.
I read this and thought, hey guy. You make it look like we forced it on your country. Anyway, he has so much I think is wrong for a guy who actually is smart and writes books that are good etc. But I’m bugged anyway.
Take a look.

Don’t talk garbage!...or why American words are mangling our English

By CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

The most delicate tool ever invented is the English language. It is endlessly rich, subtle, mellifluous and diverse — a vast mechanism built from 220,000 words, perfectly formed components that work together like jewelled cogs.

To wreck that mechanism deliberately — and to teach our children to do the same — would be worse than obscene. But that is what is happening.

A survey of 74,000 short stories written by British children has revealed that Americanisms are destroying traditional British words.

Like the grey squirrels that were introduced into the UK from the U.S. 130 years ago — and have almost wiped out our indigenous (and much lovelier) red squirrels — American words are infectious, destructive and virulent. And they are taking over.

Yeah okay. Lets talk for a second about that miserable grey rodent. The grey squirrel.
Just who Mr. Stevens brought the itty-bitty cute little things to these shores?
One of your own. That’s who.

the first greys were brought here from North America in 1876. Over the years more were introduced, notably by the Duke of Bedford to the park at Woburn Abbey where they thrived.  http://www.squirrels.info/uk/in_uk.htm

Well pardon me if American English is not only meant to be easy to use but damn well descriptive as well.

American words are designed to be easy to use. They are simple to say and spell. They combine nouns and verbs, labels and instructions, so that they are convenient to pick up and apply. A country of immigrants, speaking a dissonant babel of Yiddish, Italian, Gaelic, Dutch, Norwegian, German, Polish and Russian, needed a common tongue.

Take sidewalk, for instance: it refers to that part of a road (the side) reserved for pedestrians (who walk). Two simple words are compounded to replace a third, pavement.

Yet pavement is a wonderful word, a fragment of old French that resonates with the ringing blows of medieval craftsmen as they laid a stone floor — pavire is the Latin word for beating or ramming down. Why must we in Britain discard a beautiful, meaningful word, and replace it with a Frankenstein creation?

American-English is a compound language — a language in kit form. Any word can perform any function. Listen to the jargon of a burger-flipper at fast-food restaurant: ‘Welcome to the drivethru,’ ‘What’s your order?’ ‘Do you want fries with that?’ ‘I’ve actioned it,’ ‘Have a nice day.’

Drivethru might be the worst of all possible words. It takes a verb and a preposition, and screws them together (Americans love doing that: walkup, stopover, hangout). Then it mangles the spelling.

Finally, it applies this hideous, mongrel expression to a place where the food isn’t fit for dogs.

In English, you can order your food, but food isn’t an order; you can fry potatoes, but they’ll be chips, not fries; you can take action and see action, but you can’t simply action anything.

The findings of the survey, by the Oxford University Press, revealed yesterday that British children no longer know the difference between real English and its half-delinquent American cousin.

Why isn’t sidewalk correct? It’s a walkway by the roadside. No? Yes?  Floor. Now there’s a great word. When I read articles about people being injured or knocked down, the Brit press describes it as, someone was knocked down to the floor. Never mind it wasn’t indoors but out of doors. So GROUND I think should be the right word but here it’s all ‘floor.’
Here’s another word that drives me bananas when I see it used or hear it spoken.

Pressurized. 

Over here, if I wanted to say for example that I felt pressured to do something or act in some way, the word used here is not pressured but pressurized.
I felt I was pressurized into making that chess move.  Instead of pressured. That just doesn’t look or sound right. But that’s how it’s used here. I guess Mr. Stevens wouldn’t approve of the American use.

Oh yeah and lets get chips and fries out of the way. Picky-picky. First of all they are fried damn it. So we call em the way we sees em. Chips are these, these
how do I describe a chip. A particle?  I don’t care if Brits want to call em chips. Go in good health and enjoy but don’t tell us that potatoes that are fried are not fries.  And I especially don’t care for his put down regarding the food not being fit.  Jeesh. I’ll let you guys fill in the rest.
I know Drew can pick it apart better then I will.

Hey .... why is “goods train” any more descriptive or any better then “freight train?” If it’s hauling a load somewhere it’s what?  Freight. No?

U.S. English is sometimes called globish, bundling ‘global’ and ‘English’ into one concept. And as we know, some Americans have a rare ability to bundle all kinds of words together.

George W. Bush was capable of saying: ‘They misunderestimated me,’ and ‘Is our children learning?’ This was a president who treated English the way a horde of squatters treat a stately home — barging in, kicking holes in the walls, and generally leaving it in a foul mess.

Uh huh. Excuse me sir but I believe the squatter thing is STILL an English problem your govt. hasn’t done anything about yet. They said they would.
And you won’t find Americans that would put up with that in the USA. But in your country it’s always open season.
And I don’t believe Bush ever said Is our children learning unless that’s one line taken out of a line or a paragraph.  I never heard him say misunderestimated either. Did any of you because he could have and I just missed it.

Of course, language is not a fixed thing that must not be tampered with. It has been evolving for 1,500 years, and in that time English has absorbed the vocabularies and grammars of half the world, as traders, invaders and refugees brought new words and ways of speaking to these shores.

It has been shaped and honed by the greatest poets who ever spoke in any tongue, from Chaucer and Shakespeare to John Betjeman and Dylan Thomas.

But the coarse, half-articulate version called American-English is not an evolution. It’s a degraded version.

Two centuries ago, British abolitionists fought the American slave trade. Now a new campaign of abolition is needed — to rid us of American-English.

For everyone who is fed up of hearing drugstore instead of chemist; windshield instead of windscreen; hood instead of bonnet; cookbook instead of cookery book; gas instead of petrol; cranky instead of irritable; smart instead of clever and subway instead of underground — we do not have to tolerate it. Throw these words out!

In Minnesota and Mississippi, the inhabitants are welcome to talk as they

Many words that seem American actually originated in the UK

wish. But in Birmingham, Blackburn and Barnstaple, we do not have to mimic them.

We need not replace our dustbin lorries with garbage trucks, our newspaper cuttings with clippings, our courgettes with zucchinis, our drawing pins with thumbtacks.

And we must resist all pressure to add prepositions to words that don’t require them. It’s fine to meet a friend — there’s no need to ‘meet with’ anyone. Why would you want to ‘reach out to’ someone when you can just ask?

When I was a boy, growing up in Stratford-upon-Avon, decades before the banking crisis and international terrorism stifled the tourist trade, Americans were everywhere. They came in homage to Shakespeare, while committing cheerful barbarisms on the bard’s language.

I admired their lack of hypocrisy — the way they’d buy the best seats at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, for instance, and then leave at the first interval, because they didn’t understand a word of it (I also liked the way this gave me a free seat for the second half.)

I learned that we were, as the playwright George Bernard Shaw put it, two countries divided by a common language.

What the tourists seemed to think, though, was that we Brits were putting it on, that our accents and vocabulary were an act, an entertainment for the benefit of U.S. visitors.

‘Do y’all really say “fortnight”?’ a woman once gasped at me. ‘How do ya even remember a word like that?’

In 1921, American journalist H. L. Mencken argued that, as his nation comprised twice as many citizens as our little island, and was a burgeoning superpower compared with our fading Empire, his language outgunned ours.

‘When two-thirds of the people who use a certain language decide to call it a freight train instead of a goods train, they are right,’ he wrote. ‘The first is correct usage and the second a dialect.’

That’s provocative and witty, but wrong. Linguists estimate that a working knowledge of American globish needs just 1,500 words, not even 1 per cent of the content of the Oxford English Dictionary. The rest is wasted.

If I am writing in dialect, it’s a dialect that is 100 times more beautiful and precise and fascinating and expressive than the debased version that Mencken wanted to foist upon us.

It contains words such as foist, for a start. And burgeoning. And mellifluous, a word I used at the top of this page: it comes from the Latin words mel, or honey, and fluere, meaning flow.

Flowing like honey — that is just what our language does. And that’s the way that British children should learn to speak it.

AMERICAN USE OF ENGLISH SOURCE

I let the darnedest things get to me. 

Posted by peiper     on 06/05/2012 at 11:44 AM   
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   Monday - June 04, 2012

not quite Hi-Yo Silver

The sun comes in VERY BRIGHT and very strong at this time of evening, in the kitchen which is located at the back of house. Which is on the other side of the wall behind me. So I went in and made the dumb mistake of looking straight at the window for some odd reason. Now I am typing betweenh the damn sun spots which I can’t shake. Frustrating.
None of which is the subject of this post. Oh wait. I just made it a subject.
I have something just as frustrating to share. Not that anyone beside myself will care. You’ll most likely think this is a waste of time and space. But it isn’t to me.

We have been at this location since April 28 of 2004. I’m not great on dates but I remember that one.  I wonder if people who are in jail remember the date of their incarceration after X amount of years, in the same way.
But this isn’t about jail and loss of liberty.
It’s about the mesmerizing and welcome clippity-clop of horses hooves as they travel through our little street. And it’s frustrating because, ever since we got here I have wanted to photograph them. Better still, a little video so the sound could be recorded as well. And for all these years, each time I have heard them, I have missed the chance because by the time I hear them, they are gone.

It does not happen every day and very often it can be a few months with no sightings or sound. And each time I hear them and look up they are going past.

Sometimes it’s a carriage with a single horse and sometimes a two horse carriage. Once a few years ago, there was a very large carriage with a bride being brought to her church for her wedding. As I have mentioned in the past, we are in semi horse country here. And due to the huge overgrown hedges and and such, I have not got many pix because there is no clear view. So anyway, one went by today and as usual I missed it. Crying in my tea I told my wife, well there’s another one missed. And she said, why don’t you call them and see about the price for getting a ride?  Say WHAT?  Am I hearing things? What are you talking about? How do I do that?  Oh she says.  They advertise in the Parish Magazine and I think they’re here in our village. 

SAY WHAT?

Here?  You mean, here as in the country or here as in Winchester?  No she says. Here as in our village but I’m not certain where. Huh? Here? In our village?
Yes says she, and hands me a copy of the little paper bound forty page 8x9 inch paper magazine. She opened it to the page with a badly printed ad and shiver me timbers.  A small ad and an address. Been here all these years and they’re only down the road. Not on the main road but a side road. It’s just down the hill from the end of our street. They even have a web page. It could be a lot better designed I think. And the photos are too small, but apparently they are not hurting for business.  So I think before the summer is over, and with much depending on my wife’s health, I want to contact these folks with the hope that their price for a short ride around the village just so I can video everything, is not too costly.  Meanwhile, in lieu of photos I’d like to have taken over the past years, here’s a screen shot of part of their page. Click on it for info and some postage stamp sized photos. There a tiny photo album there also.Click on the gallery tab at the right. You will notice also that the tab marked prices has an invite to contact them for that direct. Must be expensive then. I guess we’ll find out.

Posted by peiper     on 06/04/2012 at 01:40 PM   
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A MOTOR TRIP INTO THE PAST

No escaping the USA in the pages of the Mail. (on line or hard copy) These folks cover everything American like a blanket. To the anger of some of their readers who say, rightly, hey. Isn’t there any news of note here in the UK.  Thing is, I often see things in the Brit press with regard to my home country, that isn’t covered much at home. No complaint from me. I’m happy to see things like this. Well, not happy that people killed or injured but the photos are really striking.
She’s have used a speed graphic camera I would imagine.  I had an original Speed Graphic over 40 years ago, and swapped it for a small tape recorder. At the time, I had a great need for the recorder and none for the Graphic.  Began to miss that old camera as soon as the tape recorder began having problems.
They are not worth a lot of money today.  But I’d still like to have that camera back. Oh well.

Some of these cars look like they just crumbled like they were made of tin foil.

From the Laurel and Hardy school of motoring:

Fascinating photos capture the thrills… and spills of the golden age of American motoring

By IAN GARLAND

Wrapped around a tree, nose down in a ditch and dangling precariously over water.

Fascinating photos from the 1920s and 30s show the dramatic and tragic side effect of the golden age of American motoring.

The pictures were taken in and around Boston, Massachusetts by Leslie Jones, who was staff photographer at the Boston-Herald Traveler newspaper from 1917 to 1956.

Mr Jones captured everything that happened in the city for five decades and when he died in 1967, his family donated a vast collection of 34,000 prints to the Boston Public Library.

They included these fascinating photos of vintage car wrecks from the great motoring boom.

Motor cars became affordable to the masses for the first time in the 1920s. By the end of the decade a Model T Ford cost $298, just a fraction of the $1,200 it cost in 1909.

The introduction of hire purchase also made it much easier for members of the public to buy cars, and by 1929, 20 per cent of Americans were on the road.

Ford, Chrysler and General Motors were all competing for the boom in business and by the time the depression hit in 1929, Ford was producing more than one car every minute.

Technology meant these early cars were capable of achieving speeds of up to 50 miles per hour - but safety measures were nowhere near as advanced as they are today.

Add in the fact drivers didn’t need to pass a test before they got behind the wheel, and it’s easy to see why accidents were frequent and often spectacular.

HERE FOR LOTS AND LOTS MORE. AN INTERESTING VISIT TO THE PAST

Posted by peiper     on 06/04/2012 at 10:25 AM   
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MISS AMERICA ….. OLIVIA CULPO …. RHODE ISLAND EYE CANDY

The Daily Mail featured this today and it surprised me. I wouldn’t have thought it was anything a Brit audience would have interest in. Oh well. Perhaps the guys?
Anyway .... the feminazis just hate this kind of thing and have been trying to halt it for years.
Personally, I really think the hoops and questions and speeches are dumb as a box of rox. But who really cares?  The ladies aren’t forced to enter, it’s all a bit of fun and harms nobody that I’m aware of.  And besides, I am almost always for, whatever those on the left are against. Within reason of course.

We have a lot of ppl who surf this page outside the USA and so I hope this is enjoyed by them as well.
She’s a beautiful lass and well deserving of our best wishes as well as our ogling. With appreciation and respect I hope.

Congratulations and much good future luck Olivia.
I love that name.

The cellist who became a beauty queen: Rhode Island stunner, 20, crowned Miss USA

Olivia Culpo topped a field of 51 beauty queens to take the title
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and DAILY MAIL REPORTER

A 20-year-old cellist from Rhode Island won the Miss USA crown and will represent the United States in this year’s Miss Universe pageant, after she made it clear that she embraced all beauty queens- transgender or otherwise- during the interview portion of the competition.

Olivia Culpo topped a field of 51 beauty queens on Sunday to take the title at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

LOTS AND LOTS OF PHOTOS HERE

Posted by peiper     on 06/04/2012 at 09:33 AM   
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   Sunday - June 03, 2012

A Long Way From Home

Lost wallaby found on rural Pennsylvania road

CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS, Pa. – Pennsylvania authorities were searching for the owner of a runaway wallaby Saturday, after officials captured the animal on a rural road in the state’s far northwest.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission said in a statement the native Australian marsupial—which resembles a small kangaroo—was tranquilized Wednesday afternoon after being found on a road near Cambridge Springs, Pa.

“My landlord saw it, so I went down and took a photo of it,” former Game Commission biologist aide Sarah Dippold said.  “I forwarded the photo to the Game Commission’s Northwest Region office.”

The animal is currently being cared for at a licensed animal facility until its owner is identified.

Poor little critter. Maybe he should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.



Which way to Harrisburg, mate?

Posted by Drew458     on 06/03/2012 at 11:38 AM   
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   Saturday - June 02, 2012

BAD white lady. Naughty. You may not complain about dark nurse just cos she’s incompetent

The usual, here we go again you’re a raaaaaaaaacist.  Says the BIG MA-MOO. You will of course know who ma-moo is but here’s a clue.
It ain’t the clean and well groomed white lady. No. She was a patient in a hospital and complained about the treatment given her and a blind patient on her ward.
She reported the nurse in question which it turns out was a great mistake because, that nurse is a member of a holy fraternity or in this case I guess sorority, whose supervisor the nice white lady spoke to, also happened to belong to that holy and much favored minority (not for too much longer unfortunately) and the supervisor who only a year or so before was taken from her tree happily eating bananas and given cloths and made a nurse supervisor, got very angry at the nice white lady and accused her of being ,,,, all together now.  Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacist.  Well now kiddies, if she wasn’t before she got a good taste of why so many white folks are.  But so damn few of em understand that.  Screaming race always shuts down the debate.  I would say that by today’s standards and how that silly word has been applied, anyone can be a racist for merely preferring one group to another. I mean, like seeks like and always has.  So I suppose there’s a certain degree of racist thinking there. So what? Big deal.  Take a look.

Patient who complained about black nurse after treatment left her with punctured lung is accused of racism

Sandra Hynes, 50, went in for acid reflux treatment but following complications was left with a punctured lung

Nurse fed hot soup to a blind patient leaving her blistered and screaming

By NEIL SEARS

A patient who complained about the treatment she and a frail blind woman received at the hands of a poorly-trained nurse was branded a racist.

Sandra Hynes, 50, had only gone into hospital for a simple operation to relieve her acid reflux, but following complications was left with a punctured right lung.

She had to stay in for an extra two weeks and was put on morphine and oxygen to cope with her pain.

But further problems arose when her morphine drip and oxygen needed replenishing over a weekend.

Astonishingly, the staff on duty had not been trained in how to insert a ‘cannula’ needle into her hand, and struggled to provide new oxygen, leaving her in excruciating pain.

When she was given morphine orally instead, and began hallucinating and crying, a member of staff told her off.

Her patience finally snapped when a nurse fed hot soup to a blind patient in the bed next to her, leaving her blistered and screaming.

Mrs Hynes told the junior nurse – who happened to be black – that she should have tested the temperature of the soup before serving it.

Moments later the nurse’s superior, Staff Nurse Maureen Nwadike – who is also black – arrived in the ward, and told horrified Mrs Hynes: ‘You’re racist.’

Despite being in great pain, the patient grabbed a Zimmer frame and tried to leave the hospital.

Now, following a complaint, the Chelsea and Westminster hospital in West London has apologised for her appalling treatment.

Last night Mrs Hynes, of Grays in Essex, said: ‘I was called a racist for complaining about a lady getting scalded, and because no one was able to fix my morphine over the whole weekend. It was a horrific experience.

‘I was in terrible pain, and because it was over the weekend no one could do anything about it.

‘I was scared to be on the ward, and about what might happen while I was asleep.
‘At one stage I even took a Zimmer frame and tried to get out so I could call for help on the street.

‘I never want to go there again, however ill I am.’

Following her complaint, Senior Nurse Sian Davies admitted in a long letter:

‘It is recognised that there are indeed less doctors working at the weekend, which unfortunately resulted in a severe delay in reviewing your pain relief, which is not acceptable.

‘You also described how Nurse Hannah did not know how to change the oxygen. She was relatively new to the ward, not very confident, and has learnt from the experience.

‘And you described how Nurse Maureen Nwadike accused you of being racist.

‘The behaviour you described will not be tolerated and is not acceptable. I will be monitoring her communication skills.’

Contacted at her home in Thamesmead, South-East London, Mrs Nwadike, whose husband Anthony, 54, is a director of a private nursing business, refused to comment.

source

Posted by peiper     on 06/02/2012 at 01:42 PM   
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sat cultural eye candy

I never heard of her before this morning when her photo was in one of our papers.

What is it with foxy Opera singers lately?  Can’t stand Opera. And they never looked this good when I was a kid.

MARY BEVAN

Posted by peiper     on 06/02/2012 at 10:31 AM   
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An Unexpected Oops

Nice catch by Right, Wing-Nut! for this. Go visit and read his post, and a half dozen more well written recent posts on the economy and the O-regime.

Employers probably created 150,000 jobs last month, according to a Reuters survey of economists, after generating a paltry 115,000 positions in April - the fewest in six months.

That would bring nonfarm employment growth closer to its 176,000 a month average of the past three months and temper fears that economic activity could be stagnating...

Turns out that a mere 69,000 jobs were created in May.

(news item from the day before ...)

New claims for unemployment benefits rose last week for the fourth straight week, which could heighten concerns the labor market recovery is softening.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 383,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

The prior week’s figure was revised up to 373,000 from the previously reported 370,000. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims unchanged last week.

Claims have now risen in seven of the last eight weeks. Most of those increases were marginal and the overall level of claims has held at levels consistent with a modest recovery in the labor market.

But the steady increase could add to the concerns raised by April’s disappointing 115,000 gain in nonfarm payrolls. A Labor Department report due on Friday is expected to show employers added 150,000 jobs in May.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/02/2012 at 10:21 AM   
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   Friday - June 01, 2012

SS, DT

Posted by Drew458     on 06/01/2012 at 01:31 PM   
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they got the wrong man. and they have experience doing just that.

Looking for the right words to convey how hypocritical not to mention stupid the politics of various statesmen are.

I don’t know if the news from Syria and the claimed “massacres” are big news in the USA.  I imagine they are as a report here says the govt. (USA) is very unhappy with the Assad regime.  Like Britain and the USA haven’t got our hands full in Afghanistan and other troubled places around the world, now our unwanted noses are sniffing around Syria.  Why?  Ah. The buzzword of our new century. CIVILIANS.  Right. Washington, London, Paris and paid ‘friends’ are concerned that civilians are suffering boo-boos like they did in Libya.  And every atrocity committed is all done on the orders of Mr. Assad, we are told to assume.
One Brit official is even now openly saying military option is open. In fact, British Foreign Minister William Hague said military intervention against Syria’s President Bashar Assad would be on a much larger scale than in Libya.  So there.  What I would like to know is, why should we care?  Why is it the business of outsiders as to how Assad deals with his internal problems? 
I hate to say this but I will risk the slings and arrows because saving one group of foreigners from their fellow citizens in what looks more like a brewing civil war,
is not only none of our damn business.  If it comes to what Mr. Hague suggests, then I hope that the Syrians will prove to be a tougher foe and much better prepared and more willing to fight then was the case in Iraq and Libya.  Unless our leaders can come up with a better reason for intervention in a sovereign country, like our own national security interests, instead of this uman rights BS, I see it as another ill advised waste of money and resources that benefit a few.
I don’t really care if Assad wipes out half his population to stay in office.  Those folks are less then nothing to me. If on the other hand there’s some proof of some kind that has to do with the support of terrorists operating against us and the west, then the proper response is a nuclear strike.  If we aren’t willing to go that far, then we need to keep ourselves to ourselves and let those folks sort out their own problems.

OK, speaking of human rights and atrocities and thuggery and the oppression of civilians.  Assad of Syria faced with armed insurrection kills a few thousand ppl.  That’s bad and we must go in and stop him.

Mugabe steals farms and kills a few hundred white farmers and multiple thousands of his own ppl.  Yawn. Ho-hum. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
What?  Aren’t we going to go in armed to the teeth to protect the remaining “civilians” he’s been persecuting for years?  zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Of course not. Not a bit of it. In fact. Why not an award or something?  Ya think?

Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe is honoured by UN as a ‘leader for tourism’
By JASON GROVES

DURING his three decades in power, Robert Mugabe has dragged once-wealthy Zimbabwe into the gutter.
His forced seizure of white-owned farms precipitated the collapse of the economy, leading to devastating poverty.

He has the blood of tens of thousands of his people on his hands and is banned from travelling to most parts of the world because of his regime’s human rights abuses.
Strange then that the United Nations has honoured the tyrant as a tourism ‘ambassador’.

In a move prompting condemnation, the UN’s World Tourism Organisation has invited Mugabe to join its prestigious ‘Leaders for Tourism’ group.
The UN agency last night claimed the accolade did not bestow any honour on the despot. But critics last night attacked the decision to recognise the 88-year-old.

For a man who has destroyed his country’s infrastructure and cynically engineered hunger to be an “ambassador” for tourism is disgraceful – particularly as he has been personally responsible for the downward spiral of the economy and destroyed the hotel, travel and tourism industry in the process.’

Tory MP Oliver Colvile added: ‘I’m afraid the UN has something of a track record of making silly appointments without due regard to the circumstances.
‘Mugabe has destroyed Zimbabwe’s economy and does not deserve any recognition, least of all for encouraging tourism.’

Kumbi Muchemwa, a spokesman for Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change, the main opposition party, said: ‘Robert Mugabe is under international sanctions, so how do you have an international tourism ambassador who can’t travel to other countries? The UN is losing credibility. Does it think people should go to a country where the law is not obeyed?’

Mugabe was honoured on Tuesday as a ‘Global Leader for Tourism’ in a special ceremony at Victoria Falls. Taleb Rifai, secretary-general of the UNWTO, made the presentation and endorsed Zimbabwe as a ‘safe’ holiday destination.

The US however is among a number of countries that have issued advice warning about the dangers of travelling in Zimbabwe, despite its natural beauty.

The UNWTO claims to promote ‘ethical’ tourism around the world. Its 155 member states include such unlikely tourist destinations as Afghanistan and North Korea.

A spokesman for the agency denied Mugabe had been made an international ambassador. It said he was one of a number of world leaders who had been presented with a ‘leaders for tourism’ letter inviting them to do more to promote tourism. He said there was no legal commitment or title attribution to the head of state in question.

source

Further proof that the United Nations is a corrupt circus designed to allow tinpot tyrants to masquerade as world statesmen. Robert Mugabe, the blood-stained Zimbabwean despot, has just been appointed the UN’s ‘tourism envoy’. Perhaps he could start by organising bus trips of the killing fields in his own country. Making Mugabe a ‘tourism envoy’ is the sickest joke since Gaddafi was appointed to the UN’s ‘human rights’ commission.

Littlejohn at the Daily Mail

Posted by peiper     on 06/01/2012 at 08:57 AM   
Filed Under: • United-Nations •  
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Get Up, Get Out

The roofers are back, in earnest. They’re up there now, scraping the old shingles off with shovels. They started work at 7:30 in the morning. A steady rain of garbage is falling past my windows.

Egads.

We have never had excessive amounts of parking here. With the roofing project going on, it’s much worse. If you have a job to go to in the morning, you’d either better leave at Oh God early, or you’d better park outside. Once the crew shows up with their skid loaders, trucks, crane lifters, pallets of shingles, trailer mounted air compressors, etc., there is no way you’re getting a car in or out of here. And they took half of the close-by parking spaces and roped them off for their dumpsters. So that means we’ve all got to park about a quarter mile away in the big lot down at the end of the street. At least it isn’t raining.

Ack. The noise. The mess. The building shaking thuds when Large Things land on the roof and then get pushed around. Pray this cheese box condo with it’s minimum truss roof doesn’t collapse. I have to get out of here.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/01/2012 at 07:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life •  
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