You are currently browsing the The English Guy's Personal Blog weblog archives for August, 2007.

Posted at 11:50 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

27 comments - Latest by:
  • Anna
    I loved James dearly, and he will be greatly missed in the world. May God bless him and ...
  • Kristel Bergstrom Oyebola
    I would just like to say a big thank you for everyones kind words, they really do help. He was ...
 

Aug 28
2007

Posted by richard

You may not know him, or recognise his name but he’s a former British heavyweight boxing champ. Sad news for this chap though, from the BBC:

A former British heavyweight boxer was shot when he asked customers at a club to stop smoking.

Yes that’s right, show because he asked three people to stop smoking (which is now against the law here in public places btw). Can you believe that? Shot over smokes.

I hope that they are caught and that whatever judge gets the case, doesn’t fold to weak sentencing laws, and puts these people away for 20 years+.

I also hope Oyebola survives.

Update, August 28th: As you may know, James Oyebola sadly died of his injuries. Someone posted in the comments that his funeral will be on September 10th, 2007.

Posted at 11:49 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in featured

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Aug 28
2007

Posted by richard

Does it not irk anyone when you see something reported, in a newspaper, official government “release”, or anything like that were they make a statement – then a few years later they go completely 180 degrees and say just the opposite? How are we supposed to trust them, if they just admitted lying, or at least proselytized a false point of view?

Years ago I remember seeing news reports about the Taliban, and although yes, they were bad, brutal, the one point in their favour was that they kept the opium crops to a minimum. Apparently strict Islam disagrees with drugs as strongly as our governments do. We have that in common at least, along with being human (although that’s debatable from some of their behaviour with captives, which the Koran strictly regulates treatment of).

Yet now – forward to 2007 – and I see this article in the NY Times: Taliban Raise Poppy Production to a Record Again. If they -are- a radical Islamic movement, wouldn’t they be following the Koran to the letter? Which means, no drugs, right? Nor any support of them.

If we were to also believe the governments that lead us, aren’t these radical Islamic groups getting their money from grass-roots Islam and muslims? So, why this article? Doesn’t the NY Times do their homework, or are they a mouthpiece for the US Government trying to get us to believe something that might not necessarily be true?

In fact, shame on us, the British ‘govern’ Helmland, where this vast majority of opium is grown. Is my own government doing such a piss poor job that they have let this happen?

Posted at 11:33 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in leisure

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Aug 28
2007

Posted by richard

After all this time, we’re talking nearly two years now, I’ve finally got my account set up again (what a saviour it is!). I used to use it all the time but it fell out of favour with me for some reason, now since I’m getting back into reading my friends’ blogs again, I thought I’d use it once more.

Seems like I’m building up my blogging, SEO work, website design, and other related work lately, so more and more I need labour saving devices. The RSS reader does the trick and more conveniently allows me one place to get it all rather than having to find the links or remember the URLs (you’d know what I mean if you are online as much, you just forget URLs).

Posted at 7:16 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in politics

4 comments - Latest by:
  • MrCorey
    IMO, the New York Times is one of the biggest and most successful Tabloids on the planet. They wanna ...
  • richard
    Mac, it boggles the mind, doesn't it? Yes but is the opium from Afghanistan used for that purpose? The report really ...
 

Aug 27
2007

Posted by richard

And by ‘high’ I just mean the opium levels produced. Never sample your product, isn’t that the drug dealer’s motto?

Anyway, I thought that this was one of the reasons that we (US + international community etc etc) ultimately sent our troops into Afghanistan in the first place? Oh no wait, it was to kill bin Laden… that went well didn’t it? You would think that being abject failures in that particular quest, we would at least have been able to prevent the poppy harvests.

What we’re told on the tube is that the farmers grow poppies because they make a lot of money doing it. Growing ‘normal’ crops doesn’t pay. So why aren’t the authorities (aka us) helping the farmers grow something useful and profitable? What we see is our troops patrolling these troubled areas, but that’s it. No videos of what help we provide (assuming we provide -any-), nothing showing us where our money goes (and recently we heard of schools built last summer that are now falling down after the winter, pathetic!), nothing except fighting. Poor old Afghanistan.

Posted at 11:03 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in humour

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Aug 23
2007

Posted by richard

Ok here’s two jokes for you. One sent to me by Oli, the other is a link to one on Mac’s page (very good).

Doctor Dave had slept with one of his patients and felt guilty all day long

No matter how much he tried to forget about it, he couldn’t. The guilt and
sense of betrayal were overwhelming.

But every now and then he’d hear an internal reassuring voice in his Head
that said, “Dave, don’t worry about it. You aren’t the first medical
practitioner to sleep with one of their patients and you won’t be the
last…. And you’re single. Just let it go.”

But invariably, another voice in his head would bring him back to reality.

Whispering……

“Dave…….”

“Dave……..”

“You’re a vet, Dave.”

Posted at 2:15 pm • Trackback Trackback

Posted in technology

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Aug 22
2007

Posted by richard

We had a problem at work the other day which took some working out to actually figure out what was wrong.

Some of the computers had gone down for no apparent reason. They lacked access to the server and to the internet, yet others had access. I thought that it might be the firewall license, or a virus, or something wrong with the server itself.

Anyway the 24 port switch that we use, with 3 banks of 8 ports (grouped for convenience/design more than anything else), had only 1 bank functioning. What a bother that turned out to be… Drove me up the wall trying to figure out what the problem was!

Posted at 9:28 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in politics

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Aug 20
2007

Posted by richard

Is it just me or is anyone else disgusted with the current situation where courts are siding more and more with the ‘human rights’ of convicted killers?

Frankly I think that if you kill someone intentionally (not to be confused with say, manslaughter) then you should automatically have your human rights suspended upon conviction. No TV in your cell, no special privileges. And for this person, if you are a foreign national, ship ‘em back to their own nation so they can stump the money for their incarceration.

How this person, , would have his human rights breached by sending him back to his own nation, Italy of all places, is beyond me. Aren’t they a party to all the EU treaties etc., regarding prisoners and human rights? Is Italy -that- bad that his human rights would be violated if he served his life sentence there?

How can we do something about this? Can we get the EU to intervene, or alter treaties, or are we powerless as some people suggest? Can anyone suggest a course of action for people like me who want to get action on this?

Posted at 9:23 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in featured

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Aug 20
2007

Posted by richard

It’s a strange state of affairs when a well-respected news agency (the BBC) reports on a natural event (Hurricane Dean) and misses out the first part of the story. Consistently. Which part you may ask? The part about the hurricane passing right over the islands of St. Lucia and Dominica (not to be confused with the Dominican Republic).

The Telegraph managed to report it, albeit in a little sentence or two at the bottom. Why can’t the BBC manage to mention this? Their news coverage really only started when it was bearing down on Jamaica. Why is Jamaica (and now Cancun, Mexico) so important whereas St. Lucia and Dominica aren’t? Could it be the large banana plantations in Jamaica, or the tourist industry in Jamaica and Mexico that might be affected? Perhaps St. Lucia and Dominica don’t have such a large industry to be concerned about?

That BBC link I just posted incidentally, had the headline ‘Mexico resorts braced for hurricane’ on the front page, but the article is actually entitled ‘Mexico coast braces for hurricane’. No agenda there, I suppose, BBC?

Posted at 7:15 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

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Aug 19
2007

Posted by richard

If you’ve seen the movie 300 you’ll notice how the Spartans all look so ripped. They obviously trained quite hard for the role, and here’s a quick link to show how Vincent Regan did it, video from . Clearly it doesn’t show everything he did but it shows a transformation at the end.

Posted at 6:15 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

2 comments - Latest by:
  • richard
    I know, we thought the same thing. But still, makes you wonder what cowboys do these jobs.
  • macbros
    Let them bash their heads. Less of them in the gene pool the better.
 

Aug 19
2007

Posted by richard

dsc00071.JPG

Thought I’d share this photo with you, just to show you how seriously some workmen take their health and safety on the job. At work, the signfitters wear safety helmets, safety clothing and so on, religiously and every photo I have of them for the website shows them wearing it.

But this photo here (to the left), is of workmen next door putting the roof on a new building. Not only are they not wearing any safety gear on the top of the roof, attaching them to it, safety clothing, or safety helmets (which are mandatory, are they not?), but the work area itself isn’t marked off.

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