Disposable Barbeques: COVID Part Deux.

And so it starts. It has been reported that a man in Wales has been fined £200 for using a disposable BBQ. In his own garden. On a table, off the ground. 

He was grassed up by his neighbours. I suspect they are the type of people that gleefully grassed up Anne Frank to the Gestapo.

But here we go again, it's the pandemic part two. More draconian measures. A national message sent to all mobile phones on a system that is designed to inform us of national threats like nuclear attacks. 

A ban on disposable BBQs is overkill. A simple announcement to not use them would be sufficient. 

A ban on using them is just draconian. Especially when you are using them in a manner that isn't a fire risk. Especially when using a different type of BBQ in the same exact circumstances is legal. 

I smell another experiment from the ex-government, now independent Behavioural Insights Team or GCHQ's classified nudge unit the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG). I mean, let's ban an innocuous thing like a BBQ. Yes, there are fires around the country, not all started by disposable BBQs, but ooooh, it's a scary threat we can ramp up and do another one of our experiments on. 

We'll issue fines for people using them even when a normal BBQ used in the same circumstance is not a finable offence. 

I mean, how can a fine be justifiable when the charcoal from a disposable BBQ can be emptied into a non-disposable one and lit and the fine can be avoided. It's the same charcoal, the same location.

But that's the BIT/JTRIG experiment: issue fines for nonsensical scenarios and see if the public comply. Not only that, note how zealous the public are to dob in their neighbours.

And I bet the results will still come back the same as COVID: the working class are less liable to dob in a neighbour, but the middle class will relish the sense of power and pride in a job well done. Especially middle class women.  You know the type, the ones that would have been at the front of the crowds at Nazi rallies shouting "My Honour is Loyalty". 

Anyway, BIT and JTRIG can do one after this week. Thunderstorms and flash floods on the weather menu this week. Should dampen any enthusiasm for using the bloody BBQs anyway. 

Of course the weather would break just before I'm due to go camping with the extended family. 

5 tents including the wife's ex (we hold no grudges). 

Step-daughter gets to try out the canvas mansion I bought her to house her family. Lets hope it's waterproof.

I'm just hoping the weather cools off a bit, and doesn't turn into a humid heatwave.

Is The Disposable Barbeque Really a Desperate Enough Problem to Ban It?

Considering the headlines today, you'd think disposable barbeques are teh spawn of Satan and are quite literally causing hell on Earth.

But are they? Reports say they are the prime reason for wildfires. But I know of at least two major incidents that weren't caused by disposable barbeques (yet the BBC list them on their fire map).

This week's closure of the A31 was due to a fire caused by a van catching alight. 

There A couple of months ago there was a major fire at a festival. Caused not by a BBQ, but by someone lighting a camping cooker in deep brush without tamping down the brush first to create a break. I know, because I know an eyewitness who watched the girl light the cooker and the conflagration start.

But hey, lets blame the disposable BBQ, the devil incarnate. Sadly you won't be able to use one to have a quick BBQ in your garden now. Instead you're going to have to go to the whole rigmarole of buying an actual BBQ, then buying the charcoal, etc.

Of course those of us bemoaning the ban must hush our mouths for the greater good, as with COVID, because the Government has become our parent and tells us not to.

It does make you wonder how many Psychopathic people with Daddy issues there are in the country, that they would allow the Government of all people to become a surrogate parent to them. There must be millions of adults from broken homes just wishing for that parental-style intervention, to set those boundaries for them.

Instead of what they should do and tell the Government to righteously Fuck Off with their Draconian Ban, like we should have during COVID.

How about telling the government to stop borrowing money to pay off it's debts? That's a fucking important message. Nope, BBQs are the most important issue of the moment.

And it's going to rain torrentially within the next 14 days, so brace yourself for flooding. Maybe the government will ban swimming pools and rubber ducks then.

I watched Some Interesting Videos This Week.

I watched a few interesting videos this week. 

The first was on Theo Von's channel and featured John Kiriakou as a guest. He was asked about 911 and if it was preventable and if America had prior knowledge. I have a lot of time for John, I like his analysis and he basically talks the talk. You can't get much more authentic: he was jailed for whistleblowing on illegal CIA activity. So provably CIA ands not some Walter Mitty wannabe.
The link is to a short clip from the video. I might watch the full video this weekend.

His answer ties in very nicely with my analysis. He mentioned the al-Saud connection and the funding of terror plots by high-level individual in Saudi Arabia. He did say that the CIA never got to interrogate the individuals, they all mysteriously died days after America flagged them up to the Saudi Government as persons of interest. So they couldn't be interrogated and implicate the Saudi Government?

But this is where it gets murky, because you have private individuals with immense wealth bestowed to them by the state, funding (supposedly privately) terrorist organisations that support the extremist Wahabbi sect of Islam (that is the Islam of Saudi Arabia). In John's words, there was no smoking gun. But you know that it's just a set-up to avoid a direct link between the Saudi government and international terrorism. That money won't be moving without approval from someone.

And that's where the link is with my story about the assault on the compound in Afghanistan that went a bit pear-shaped on the night of Operation Rhino, the parachute drop into Afghanistan.  I'm convinced the senior Taliban and al-Qaida figures that were at that compound were meeting with individuals from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and possibly one other Gulf state to discuss matters of funding and the impending political situation regarding America and the imminent arrival of ground troops in strength (special forces had been in Afghanistan for weeks prior).

I believe that's why the (normally lightly armed) compound was so well armed that and why the defence of that compound was so fierce. As the West train the Saudi army amongst others, I would love to talk to someone that was at the compound that night and hear if they got "Western vibes" from the fighters inside the compound.
It's still coming to light the number of casualties from that particular operation that night. Initially The Yanks said one person injured, the tally has now risen to half a dozen injured as the truth slowly came out. But the real figures on casualties have yet to be made public. 

But, it's nice to see correlation kind of leaching into the public domain. 

The second video was on Chris Williamson's channel, he interviewed Ex_seal DJ Shipley. DJ has some unorthodox ideas about the war with Iran and how to solve the Iran problem. It involves nukes. 

Which is my take on things. If I was PM, I'd be ruthless. The advantage of being a sociopath. 

Iran is a problem because the leadership is dispersed and hard to hit with conventional weapons. The only solution is to eradicate the leadership by eradicating whole cities. Do you want to win the war or not? War is fought using any means necessary to win. There is no second place, no compromise.

If I was fighting the war, I'd be dropping tactical nukes along the Iranian and Yemeni coast to eliminate the missile and drone launch sites. I'd drop a nuke on each launch site after they had launched. It removes the launch site and any supporting infrastructure and personnel around the site. 

If I'd been PM during the time of 911 and I'd found out that Saudi individuals flew the planes into the Twin towers and that Saudi individuals were financing the Taliban and al-Qaida? I'd be having a serious talk with the Saudi government on how it would be a pity if Mecca disappeared in a mushroom cloud. And that I would lose zero sleep over it's loss. 

I might not need to do it, but I'd make damn sure the person I was talking to believe I would do it.

Which make you think that's the game Trump is playing. Except I don't think the death cultists in Iran believe him, or are that bothered. They're continuously push the boundaries, as they always do. 

If I were Trump, I'd target something far enough away from civilians, something important to the regime. possibly one of their facilities to make nukes, or ballistic missiles. And I would nuke it. A small tactical nuke. Just enough to make the place unusable for a couple of decades.