Michael Jacksons children

I am bemused by press suggesting a custody battle for the 3 Jackson children is imminent. What custody battle?

Children are not chattels whose ownership is defined by possession.

So clearly in the case of the Jackson children (The first 2) the fact is Michael is obviously not the (biological) Father and Debbie Rowe is definitely the Mother.

Unless she is so unfit as a Mother that it is clearly in the childrens best interests never to see her, which is on the face of it extremely unlikely, is there any possible argument for the children not to go to her?

And what kind of Wacko decides its in his (and in this case not even biologically his) kids best interests never to see their Mother.

Must the wacko-ness continue even now, when the deleterious consequences of the wacko lifestyle have become so painfully obvious?

It is very unusual that the children's best interests are not served by being with a biological parent.

Guantanemo Bay

As readers of the BBC web site are being invited to propose suggestions for Guantanemo Bay, here is mine:

Turn it into a tourist monument to illuminate the consequences of corrupt leadership.

A glass cage in which the top ten of the Bush administration would be displayed for 24 hours a day, in orange suits, for the remainder of their lives would be a fitting return for the harm the Bush men have visited upon the planet and a small step towards rehabilitating Americas image within the expedient of transparent accountability.

I think this would attract huge crowds - this living monument to the extremes to which corrupt power was enabled by the greed of a few and the compliant idiocy of another.

Americans could vote on who the top ten who should occupy this cell would be. I am guessing Dick Cheney would be a shoe in.

Chikurubi Prison.

'You judge a nation and its people by the way they treat their prisoners.'

Chikurubi prison lies 12 miles east of Harari. Chikurubi prison is a monument to the relationship between Zuma and the guest of honor at his recent inauguration, Robert Mugabe.
Without Zuma's support for Mugabe it is a certainty that Chikurubi prison would not provide so chilling a testimony to Mugabe's malign influence.

Of the 1,300 inmates at Chikurubi in the past year, more than 700 have died of what is described in the Daily Telegraph as 'revolting conditions.'
The revolting condition most affecting the residents of Chikurubi is the inescapable fact that Zuma and Mugabe's ongoing friendship is directly and unavoidably at the heart of every Zuma/Mugabe sponsored death in Zimbabwe.

In a nutshell - while Mugabe quaffs champagne (Imported from France and not the excellent South African variety) with Zuma - inmates of Chikurubi prison are left to ruminate on how Black African leaders continue to demonstrate their inability to rise above the constraints of the Muntuism that is their legacy.

More than half of those admitted to Chikurubi in the past year are dead.

And the irony is that the same ignorant halfwits whose attitude of 'I didn't vote for the ANC - I voted for Zuma, because he understands us' represent the same demographic as those populating Chikurubi prison. The ignorant deluded poor empowering the morally bankrupt rich leadership to kill off the ignorant disempowered poor.

Go Jacob Zuma. Sponsor of Chikurubi, proving every action has a reaction.

Leonard Cohen.

This is the greatest rhyming couplet I have heard today. I think it will become Barack Obama's theme.

From Leonard's song 'Everybody Knows.'

Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old black joes still pickin cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

Religion, delusion and prison

Here's a great statistic that I came across earlier.
10% of Americans are Atheist (or Agnostic). However .25% of the prison population is Atheist. I checked a registry of UK Prison population and found .2% of the prison population are Atheist, and in the UK the percentage of Atheists/Agnostics is approaching 50%

My conclusion is that the neediness and weakness that leads believers into choosing a value system that is so clearly disempowering, divisive and at odds with basic common sense, as is the case with the major religions, results in the non-accountable delusional belief that accompanies crime of a prison worthy nature.

Atheists on the other hand have accepted personal accountability and do not seek to apportion blame for their personal inadequacies on spurious notions like 'Original sin' and penitence leading to forgiveness. They are therefore more likely to not commit criminal acts because they are not trained to believe someone/something else is responsible for everything they do and will forgive them for the price of a few spoken words.

It is interesting to see the top and bottom list of the Countries by percentage of Atheists:

Most Atheist are:
Sweden. Vietnam. Denmark, Norway, Japan, Czech Republic, Finland, France.

Least Atheist are:
Somalia, Tanzania, Yemen, Western Sahara, Philippines, Romania, Pakistan, Cambodia, Iran

Success in Afghanistan

While American and British forces put in place by the Bush/Blair axis of evil continue consuming Billions of dollars that may or may not be helping fuel the global recession in Afghanistan, I have to admit at this point that I have for some time felt that:
1. Making War without provocation threatening survival is indefensible and should be treated as a crime.
2. People who justify and support war (unless when facing a threat to survival) are not acting for the highest good and
3. Dropping expensive bombs by remote control on poor people and their children, is an open invitation for karmic return that will mean returning as a mosquito - or worse.

So I have been clear from the outset in my disgust at the barbaric abuses of power by the Bush and Blair regimes of terror, especially in their inhumane use of expensive technology to bomb a Country already more bombed than any other. Afghanistan is an almighty mess. As if they weren't buggered enough by centuries of exploitation by the evil cult of submission that mires them in a dark age mentality, requiring the men to grow beards, wipe the poo off their bottoms with their left hands, avoid pork whilst simultaneously praising the deified memory of a 53 year old fellow who had sex with a 9 year old, but is not considered a pedophile. This same fellows book designates all women inferior status to men, requiring them to dress in Burqas and legally sanctions assaults by their husbands at a whim.

Easy then to see why Western conscience would be outraged by stories of Taleban men raping 10 year old boys and committing all kinds of Muslim themed atrocities on defenseless civilians. That outrage was used to raise the Christian Armies of Bush and Blair to go 'teach the Talies a lesson.'
Years have passed and now we can review the outcome of the Blair/Bush zealotry.

Since December 2004 Afghanistan's leader is Hamid Harzai.
We should remember his name as our tax dollars were the cause of his election.

Hamid is a Muslim and so sees nothing untoward about his most recent contribution to Afghani law. A bill which legalizes rape in marriage. The law, which has not been publicly released, is believed to state women can only seek work, education or doctor's appointments with their husband's permission.
Only fathers and grandfathers are granted custody of children under the law, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

Opponents of the legislation governing the personal lives of Afghanistan's Shia minority have said it is "worse than during the Taliban".
Mr Karzai has been accused of electioneering at the expense of women's rights by signing the law to appeal to crucial Shia swing voters in this year's presidential poll.

So in a nutshell. We raised an Army to go teach the Taleban that their Muslim ways were not acceptable. Bush explained how we gave them democracy - out of which came Karzai to give us this new consideration.

Islam. Whats not to love about it?

Burqas have many practical advantages

Those of us who have looked upon the wearers of Burqas with horror, seeing this barbaric assault on that most basic of womens rights, the right to choose a public persona, as yet another instance of how poorly Islam treats its female membership whilst wondering as to the mental state of any woman willingly submitting to this abuse of a life experience, will be heartened by the following insight, told to me by a Security guard employed by Harrods.

He said 'Women in Burkas frequently and happily poo on the floor of Harrods from the safety of their black robes because they do not want to pay £1 for the toilet despite spending a fortune on hand bags.'

Its worth a little ponder.