Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

8 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

I got my first shot yesterday, though I was interested in trying that horse worming stuff that is all the rage in the US at the moment amongst many of those who won't have  the vaccine in case its dangerous...

.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/23/fda-horse-message-ivermectin-covid-coronavirus

 

 

The problem with it is that you have to take so much that it would probably kill you, and if by chance you survive you have an irresistible urge to eat only hay and oats for the rest of your life .....  

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

You could all go to somewhere completely safe from the virus like, I don't know, Alabama.

 

Last one to the airport ....

 

The strange thing, or not so strange, is that every social indicator from poverty to lack of education puts Alabama at the top of the list in the US as a leader in everything that is considered detrimental to civilized society.

 

Or to put it another way - if it isn't in the Book of Genesis then Alabamans don't believe it's true. You can't beat endemic stupidity of that kind.

[Hroth]

8 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The emerging suggestion is that your best bet is to make sure you catch it before your vaccine wanes, thereby boosting your immunity naturally.

 

 

So I'd better stop worrying about masks and embrace my Covid overlord, just to top up my immunity whilst the Government dithers over the scope of a booster programme?

 

Where's that pot of red paint?  I need to daub a cross on the front door...

 

[Edwardian]

8 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The emerging suggestion is that your best bet is to make sure you catch it before your vaccine wanes, thereby boosting your immunity naturally.

 

As parents of school age children, you and I should have no difficulty complying with ‘best practice’, in fact we will probably find it impossible not to.

 

I'll do my best, then!

 

7 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

Here they've given us viruses that make you want to run out and catch COVID in comparison.

 

And what cunning arses they are - check out the Hendra virus.  Taliban bat (the 'Talibat" as we call them) sits in a tree and does a poo. A horse eats the grass with poo  on it. Innocent person gets exposed to horsey fluid as you do especially if you are doing an autopsy on it or something,  gets crafty Talibat virus and dies.

 

Whats the fatality rate? 70%!  They really hate us.

 

Or the  Australian bat Lhyssa virus.  Insurgent bat  approaches dressed all endearingly in little robes,  you give it a bit of a cuddle or whatever because you cannot resist the cute and before you know it you're lying on a metal shelf with a tag hanging off  your toe  because the mortality rate is 100% for that one.

 

It's almost as if everything there was trying to kill you!

 

 

7 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

On a brighter note in a sad week for rock and roll what  with us losing half the Everly brothers as well as Charlie Watts I had such  a pleasant surprise this morning when Spotify sent me William Shatners new single. Who'd have thunk he'd be still rocking it at 90 as all the rest drop off the twig around him.

 

 

 

It's music, Jim, but not as we know it ......

 

 

7 hours ago, Annie said:

That's a bit of a low blow James.  

 

Sorry if offence was caused, just responding to the terror analogy that was raised by the Honourable Member for Sydney in my usual bitterly cynical way.

 

I'm still working out my real anger at the West's abandonment of Afghanistan and, having done so, of evacuating all those needing rescue. 

 

I am horrified by the bomb at the airport, but unsurprised; everyone who has tried to leave Afghanistan has taken casualties on the way out.  

[Edwardian]

4 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

The strange thing, or not so strange, is that every social indicator from poverty to lack of education puts Alabama at the top of the list in the US as a leader in everything that is considered detrimental to civilized society.

 

Or to put it another way - if it isn't in the Book of Genesis then Alabamans don't believe it's true. You can't beat endemic stupidity of that kind.

 

I think that it works on the basis that, if you believe in something, it exists - like Jesus was white and hated gays and the Federal government is a vast conspiracy to keep you down - or if you don't believe in something it doesn't exist - like Covid 19 and the results of democratic elections.

 

Life must be very simple if you're that, er, simple.

 

Sweet home, Alabama!

 

Or, as Tom Lehrer sang, all those years ago, apropos nuclear proliferation:

 

We'll try to stay serene and calm

When Alabama gets the bomb.

 

Then there's Florida, of course .... 

 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Edwardian
Mind Control by the Deep State

[Annie]

1 minute ago, Edwardian said:

Sorry if offence was caused, just responding to the terror analogy that was raised by the Honourable Member for Sydney in my usual bitterly cynical way.

That's alright James.   There's so much madness loose in the world at the moment as well as abject cruelty by madmen towards our fellow human beings that a little bitter cynicism is likely to leak into any of our interactions with one another.

[alastairq]

10 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

No......, they are just the weapons. For the actual Talibans you need to look to the bats mate! Remember they started all this.

 

We have our own cells. Look at them here, our tiny home-grown terrorists. 

 

They even dress like little Osama Bin Ladens so thats a giveaway.

 

 

Here they've given us viruses that make you want to run out and catch COVID in comparison.

 

And what cunning arses they are - check out the Hendra virus.  Taliban bat (the 'Talibat" as we call them) sits in a tree and does a poo. A horse eats the grass with poo  on it. Innocent person gets exposed to horsey fluid as you do especially if you are doing an autopsy on it or something,  gets crafty Talibat virus and dies.

 

Whats the fatality rate? 70%!  They really hate us.

 

Or the  Australian bat Lhyssa virus.  Insurgent bat  approaches dressed all endearingly in little robes,  you give it a bit of a cuddle or whatever because you cannot resist the cute and before you know it you're lying on a metal shelf with a tag hanging off  your toe  because the mortality rate is 100% for that one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The one on the left is definitely acting suspiciously.

[alastairq]

7 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

The problem with it is that you have to take so much that it would probably kill you, and if by chance you survive you have an irresistible urge to eat only hay and oats for the rest of your life .....  

 You mean, become vegan????

[Compound2632]

4 hours ago, Edwardian said:

I am horrified by the bomb at the airport, but unsurprised; everyone who has tried to leave Afghanistan has taken casualties on the way out.  

 

Local to me:

 

 

[QuentinUK, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.]

 

 

[rocor]

10 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

The problem with it is that you have to take so much that it would probably kill you, and if by chance you survive you have an irresistible urge to eat only hay and oats for the rest of your life .....  

 

Those horse worming compounds are very potent. They need to be, as horse worms can be rather large and sturdy critters.

 

 

Be.

Edited August 27, 2021 by rocor

[Edwardian]

35 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Local to me:

 

 

[QuentinUK, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.]

 

 

 

Maiwand was a nasty moment, a battle in the Second Afghan War (1878-81), in which the British were defeated and suffered very heavy casualties. British battalions suffered over 60% casualties, which is unusually and shockingly high (the Light Brigade at Balaclava had suffered 40% casualties in the 'Valley of Death').

 

One of those decimated battalions was the Berkshires, so, I assume, that is the reason for the monument in your locale. 

 

The survivors were then bottled up in Kandahar until General 'Bobs' Roberts made his epic march to Kandahar, culminating in the battle in which Bobs decisively defeated Afghan forces and effectively won the war.

 

The British did not attempt to occupy the country, but saw the reinstatement of an Emir who 'owed them'. 40 years of a stable Afghan rule free from Russian influence and encroachment was the result. I would call that a 'win' in the circumstances of the region.

 

Sort of the opposite of now. 

[Compound2632]

54 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

One of those decimated battalions was the Berkshires, so, I assume, that is the reason for the monument in your locale. 

 

Yes, and explicitly a war memorial (names of the dead on cast plaques around the base) rather than a celebration of empire.

 

55 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Sort of the opposite of now. 

 

There are some parallels though; not least the Afghans embracing western technology - such as Armstrong field guns - and social media - or at least photography:

 

 

Afghan commanders after their victory at the Battle of Maiwand [

[alastairq]

Correct me if I'm wrong [a habit of you lot, I note?] but with the above, it was  'British' [and Indian?]...effort , alone?

Whereas the current situation was/is primarily a US issue, with the British [and others] acting in 'support?'

In other words, the original, most recent, 'push' was in response to what? The 11/09 affair?

 

Would the UK have ever 'gone in alone', with our own agenda? Would we have had a need to?

 

I reckon we might have got it right in the 1930's, when the-then US govt drew up war plans for an eventuality of going to war with the UK?  [And, as it happens potentially losing?]

Certainly the Canadians, on a minuscule budget, were actively conducting reconnaissance in the USA at the time, as they 'feared' invasion by said US of A....and, even if they could not have stopped the US from invading, they certainly had plans to pee on the US bonfire in the process.

Maybe even counter-invading, which was a possibility..the US not understanding at the time, how to be in two places at once?

 

I firmly believe the US had the same attitudes towards 'life' as the Chinese....in other words, sodd the casualty figures, keep going until at least someone manages to achieve the original objective?  Numbers didn't seem to matter to the US command. Or the Chinese? They mattered to Monty though, and the americans vilified him for it.

[Nearholmer]

55 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

40 years of a stable Afghan rule free from Russian influence and encroachment was the result. I would call that a 'win' in the circumstances of the region.

A mega-win!

 

interesting to hear a US political analyst who had been in the country for many years on the radio an hour ago. She was talking about how the US effectively had a total blind spot to “the civilian problem of government”, i.e. that they totally failed to incubate any stable government that was beneficial to and respected by the people.

 

Bombing things back into the Stone Age is a piece of cake compared with bringing them forward even as far as what we might recognise as Anglo-Saxon governing arrangement c1000 years ago.

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, alastairq said:

Correct me if I'm wrong [a habit of you lot, I note?] but with the above, it was  'British' [and Indian?]...effort , alone?

Whereas the current situation was/is primarily a US issue, with the British [and others] acting in 'support?'

In other words, the original, most recent, 'push' was in response to what? The 11/09 affair?

 

The only US intervention on the North West Frontier in the 19th century that I'm aware of was in the person of Lauren Bacall.

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, alastairq said:

Correct me if I'm wrong [a habit of you lot, I note?] but with the above, it was  'British' [and Indian?]...effort , alone?

Whereas the current situation was/is primarily a US issue, with the British [and others] acting in 'support?'

In other words, the original, most recent, 'push' was in response to what? The 11/09 affair?

 

Would the UK have ever 'gone in alone', with our own agenda? Would we have had a need to?

 

 

The army was the Indian Army, but had British Army units, e.g. the Berkshires, attached.

 

I say "British" in general as regards British policy regarding the security of British India, and specifically when referring to the British Army battalions present. 

 

Bobs was an 'Indian' General, and there was great rivalry between them and the 'African' Generals.  Wolseley,  who got the top job, was an 'African', but they had to call Bobs in to sort out South African, which put noses out of joint. 

 

 

2 hours ago, alastairq said:

 

I firmly believe the US had the same attitudes towards 'life' as the Chinese....in other words, sodd the casualty figures, keep going until at least someone manages to achieve the original objective?  Numbers didn't seem to matter to the US command. Or the Chinese? They mattered to Monty though, and the americans vilified him for it.

 

In WW2 the US lost vast numbers of men through the inexperience at all levels of its massively expanded army.

 

By the time the US joined the party, the British and Commonwealth and Empire forces had sustained great losses and were more wary of losing men they could not, by that stage, replace.

 

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

A mega-win!

 

Yes, British aims for Afghanistan were secured for 40 years.  To put that in perspective, that is the same period between the end of the 'Great War' against Napoleon and the Crimean War, in which the Napoleonic combatants next fought a war (albeit not on the same sides!)

 

Contrast that with the pro-Soviet government collapsing just 3 years after the Russians left and the recent pro-US government collapsing even before the Americans have left. Both exits, particularly, I suspect, the present one, constitute long-term political failures.  

 

By the way, that 40-year period ended in 1919, when the Afghans invade India!

 

The Germans really did try to start a jihad against the British from Kabul - see John Buchan's novel Greemantle - but it didn't amount to anything. 

 

The need to send numbers of Indian troops overseas and the credibility-busting defeats by the Ottomans in Gallipoli and Kut, no doubt encouraged the Afghans, but the casus belli was Afghan seizing this moment to assert its independence in foreign affairs and to take a seat at the Versailles peace conference.   

 

A pretender popped up and murdered the Emir and took that other usurper, Henry IV's, advice to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels and invaded British India.

 

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

interesting to hear a US political analyst who had been in the country for many years on the radio an hour ago. She was talking about how the US effectively had a total blind spot to “the civilian problem of government”, i.e. that they totally failed to incubate any stable government that was beneficial to and respected by the people.

 

Bombing things back into the Stone Age is a piece of cake compared with bringing them forward even as far as what we might recognise as Anglo-Saxon governing arrangement c1000 years ago.

 

Yes, there is a pattern there!

 

 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Edwardian

[alastairq]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Yes, there is a pattern there!

Patton?  {Not Patten, he was a reasonable fella, not a gun-totin' yahoo]

[Regularity]

5 hours ago, Edwardian said:

WW2 the US lost vast numbers of men through the inexperience at all levels of its massively expanded army.

 

By the time the US joined the party, the British and Commonwealth and Empire forces had sustained great losses and were more wary of losing men they could not, by that stage, replace.

My mother’s late stepfather retired from the British Army in India in 1938, and was put on the reserve list, to be promptly called up the following year, and he ended up in North Africa. He didn’t talk much about WW2 (not many did) but did comment on the number of pointless deaths he saw once GIs started arriving.

[drmditch]

Please can anyone remember why the USSR invaded Afganistan in the second half of the 20th century?

[Edwardian]

Just now, drmditch said:

Please can anyone remember why the USSR invaded Afganistan in the second half of the 20th century?

 

Don't know the details, but it was sort of similar concerns to those the British had in the Nineteenth Century position.  I think the Afghan government at the time was looking to the US and the USSR was concerned it would leave its sphere of influence. 

[Regularity]

To have a port with access to the Indian Ocean - they weren’t necessarily going to stop at Afghanistan.

[CKPR]

My probably half-remembered and incomplete understanding was Afghanistan had a relatively liberal reform-minded government in the late 1960s-mid-1970s that ran into opposition from the highly conservative rural 'elders' [ the fathers and grandfathers of the current Taliban] and ended up on the verge of civil war. At which point, the Afghan government asked the USSR for support, which was forthcoming but the Soviets then effectively deposed the government  with Afghanistan becoming a Soviet satrap by the late 1970s and the rest is history.

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

To have a port with access to the Indian Ocean - they weren’t necessarily going to stop at Afghanistan.

 

Another point made by the very knowledgable woman interviewed on the radio earlier was that Pakistan has a long-held ambition to anschluss Afgahnistan ( reading around, it seems that the talk is more of confedracy than annexation, and my surmise is that this is partly to create a greater state to balance India, partly to allow borders that can be effectively secured by putting the Pashtun areas under one umbrella, and partly to be able to offer Russia the outlet that it seeks, or to be able to influence the west by intimating that it might be necessary to do that if things don't go the right way).

 

I guess the modern Great Game is even more complicated than the old version, given that India hadn't partitioned, and wasn't then three countries, each with an ability to pursue their own interests.

 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

Instead of the past in Afghanistan sometimes we need to look to the future. The interesting thing from both the Taliban's and our point of view is that the airport bombing revealed that the group that carried it out IS-K IIRC is by all accounts opposed both to the Taliban and to westerners. That does not bode well for the Taliban Government.

 

We tend to ignore that the vast majority of terror attacks launched by terrorists in the Islamic world are by extremists against moderates, and also by Sunnis against Shiites.  Pakistan has incurred an enormous death toll amongst its citizens because of this, as did Iraq, during the rise of ISIS. Al Qaeda was a Sunni fundamentalist groups with roots in Egyptian Sunni extremism (IM) and also Saudi Sunni extremism (Wahhabists). Al Qaeda is by no means extinct and they will cleave to IS-K given their similar ideological basis. 

 

Whatever our feelings about the Kabul airport bombing we have had no choice but to leave - no one wants this idiotic war to continue any longer than it has. However, if the bombing is an indicator the Taliban are going to be facing an increasing internal insurgency from both the IS-K on the one hand and also some remnant non-Taliban forces in the northern provincial areas. It may well be that the Taliban will be forced to reach out diplomatically for western aid, so I'd suggest that despite the ease by which they walked into Kabul and the other provincial cities their current future does not look optimistic.

[Nearholmer]

11 minutes ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

I'd suggest that despite the ease by which they walked into Kabul and the other provincial cities their current future does not look optimistic.

 

TBH, I can't readily see why they should find it a great deal easier to control the place than anyone else!