The Lunatic's Cookbook : a Blog of Revelations

Monday, November 28, 2005

By way of a small diversion...

Aah! It's nice to be back at work in Asylum Earth. I had to make a mercy dash to the wind-swept East Yorkshire coast to minister to the needy of the parish, and spent a few very relaxing days in the good company of Nurse Riches Snr. (Yes, Nurse Riches DOES have a father!), and had several exhillerating walks along the wild, fossil-strewn paleo-beach. It sure as hell blows the cobwebs away!


I thought I'd share some of my snaps with you whilst I do some catching up in Patient's Records, as I had no time for TV or newspapers whilst up there, and the Internet connection at Riches Towers is a scandalously primitive 56k dial-up, which drives me into a state of impotent fury.

Simply checking my emails made me feel like I was having one of those horrible dreams where you're trying to run from a hurtling monster, but seem to be stuck in slow motion... or maybe being buried alive. You get the picture, I'm sure.

I have promised a Broadband revolution next trip up. Viva Routers!




Tuesday, November 15, 2005

In the words of the Maharishi

Whilst you're all waiting for me to put down those catheters and get down to posting my next blog, I'd like to share with you some words of wisdom imparted to me by my personal mentor, a Zen master with Chakras the size of George Bush's budget deficit:


Maharishi Phucknuckel’s Guide to Zen

  • Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just fuck off and leave me alone.
  • The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a flat tyre.
  • The darkest hours come just before the dawn, so if you're going to steal your neighbour's milk and newspapers, that's the time to do it.
  • Sex is like air. It only becomes important when you aren't getting any.
  • Don't aspire to become irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
  • Remember: No-one is listening to you until you fart.
  • Never forget that you are unique, just like everybody else.
  • Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
  • If you think nobody cares whether you're dead or alive, try missing a couple of mortgage payments.
  • Never judge somebody until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That way, by the time you judge them you'll be a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
  • If at first you don't succeed, don't try skydiving.
  • Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
  • Have you ever lent someone £20 and never seen that person again? It was propbably worth it.
  • If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
  • Some days we are the flies; some days we are the windscreen.
  • Don't worry - it only seems kinky the first time.
  • Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
  • The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket.
  • A closed mouth gathers no feet.
  • There are two theories about how to win an argument with a woman. Neither one works.
  • Generally speaking, you aren't learning much if your lips are moving.
  • Never miss a chance to shut up.
  • Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
  • The most wasted day of all is one in which we have not laughed.

May the Flying Spaghetti Monster touch you all with His Noodly Appendage.


Friday, November 04, 2005

Mr. Galloway in the Lion's Den


Mr. Galloway in the Lion's Den


So there I was in the Sluice Room the other day minding my own business and rinsing out the bed-pans when Maureen came crashing through the double doors, her turkey-neck flapping wildly, and waving a copy of our local free newspaper, “Harrowing Times”, like she was beating off a swarm of Africanized Bees.

“Look! Look at THIS!” she squawked, jabbing her finger at the front page, “Can you believe this?”

Fully expecting to be shown an editorial on the exciting events a couple of days ago in the US Senate when Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid forced the Senate to shut down into a ‘closed session’ and demanded that the Senate Investigation Committee complete the report promised one and a half years ago into the information and intelligence used by the Smirking Chimp to hoodwink America into the illegal, now-intractable Iraqi war, I read the headline – but instead was surprised to see “Galloway Accused of Oil-For-Food Scandal”

As everybody knows (unless you’ve been hiding in a small cave in Tora-Bora) the Americans tried stitching up our Gorgeous George – Independent Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green – by accusing him earlier this year of benefiting from the shambolic Oil-for-food scheme set up by the UN during the Iraqi sanctions following George Bush Senior’s Gulf War.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations - led by the vain, ambitious, homophobic, opportunistic Junior Senator for Minnesota, Norm Coleman - had made a series of allegations against Galloway and, in the true spirit of Arrogant American Republican Party dirty tricks, had omitted to have any prior dialogue with Mr. Galloway before sending press releases all over the world smearing George’s reputation.

These accusations were identical to those originally made immediately post-invasion in 2003, when as if by magic out of the still-smouldering remains of an Iraqi ministry there appeared some documents (since proved to be blatant forgeries placed there by enemies of Galloway) which named George Galloway as benefiting from oil-for-food. The allegations initially appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, to be instantly repeated in Britain by the right-wing Telegraph, whose reporter had fed the story to the Monitor. Galloway sued for libel in the High Court and won. The Christian Science Monitor publicly groveled and retracted without reservation, as did the Telegraph - their dirty tricks exposed.

What the smug, self-assured Senator Coleman HADN’T expected was George Galloway famously hopping on the next Jumbo jet to Washington DC, whereupon he merrily proceeded to absolutely wipe the floor with a stunned Coleman, in front of the world’s media.

Galloway not only vociferously denied all the allegations, he challenged the Committee to show the slightest shred of evidence, and then went on to attack the “lickspittle” Coleman and the Bush Administration for their war crimes and complicity in mass murder.

Coleman never knew what hit him. The fearless Galloway’s total lack of sniveling servility was unprecedented, and his eloquent barrage of facts and figures relating to the American Crime of the Century, whilst reminding all and sundry present that in every respect he had been right in everything he had said pre-invasion about the true nature of the situation in Iraq. Coleman was speechless, and crawled off with his tail between his legs, his pompous, self-aggrandising image in tatters.

Coleman, his colleagues, and therefore the Bush Administration were absolutely furious that Galloway had stood up to them, and obviously they have spent the last six months desperately trying to cobble together something which might look like documentary proof of their allegations.

“Maureen, you silly old cow, that newspaper must be six months old”, I snorted. “This is old news”

“No, Nurse Riches, look at the date, look at the date!” Maureen cried, shoving the paper in my face.

I looked again, and sure enough the paper was dated October 25th. What was going on here? I sat Maureen down on a mound of used Beijing Industries Surgical Gowns, poured her a stiff dose of wallop from her hip-flask and studied the paper.

Sure enough, Senator Norm Coleman was repeating the April allegations again, but this time was waving around a sheaf of low-quality photocopies of faxes purporting to be the “smoking gun”, allegedly proving that oil money from the old Iraqi regime had gone into George’s bank accounts, or those of his charity, “The Mariam Appeal”. This, they claimed, was the proof.

Galloway immediately responded in characteristic fashion, absolutely denying the accusations, and pointing out that Coleman’s primary witness – Iraqi ex-prime minister Tariq Aziz – had been locked up in a prison cell in a secret location since his capture in 2003, and was facing the death penalty himself. How, Galloway demanded to know, could you seriously say that on the one hand Aziz was accused of being a genocidal maniac, yet in regards to Galloway, his statements were suddenly to be completely credible?

George Galloway immediately demanded that the Senate Investigations Committee charge him with perjury, as this was what they were telling the world was what he had done. He challenged Coleman to repeat the allegations away from the protected privilege of the Senate building, which Coleman has refused to do. Galloway wants to be charged by Coleman’s committee so that he can demand that Tariq Aziz be produced in a court of law to be questioned by Galloway’s legal team.

The very next weekend, by the way, Tariq Aziz’s lawyer stated in Paris that Aziz has never said that George Galloway was ever involved in oil-for-food allocations.

Coleman has also claimed that 100-150,000 dollars of oil-for-food money appeared in a bank account belonging to George Galloway’s estranged wife, the Jordanian scientist Dr. Amineh Abu-Zayyad, who has herself incurred the wrath of the Americans for her long-term research into the devastating incidence of childhood cancers appearing in areas saturated with depleted uranium from US Army munitions. Dr. Abu-Zayyad herself now has cancer.

A very brief bit of background for the uneducated amongst you:

George Galloway has been one of the loudest, most provocative opponents of the illegal American/British invasion of Iraq on trumped-up intelligence, and has made himself a great number of very dangerous enemies in the process.

His interest in Middle Eastern affairs was prompted originally by the plight of the Palestinian peoples at the brutal hands of the Israeli government. Almost alone in British politics, Galloway campaigned tirelessly for recognition of the rights of the Palestinians, and called for the United Nations to enforce a single one of the sixty-five Resolutions made against Israel between 1955 and 1992, or the twenty Resolutions passed against Israel between 1993 and 1995 for their brutality towards the Pal;estinians, their allies in the region, and for flagrant breaches of the Geneva Conventions. All of the Resolutions were vetoed by the US, who also put behind-the-scenes pressure on the Security Council to also veto Resolutions against Israel.

Galloway’s relentless campaigning made him many enemies in Israel, the USA and Britain, but undaunted he continued, despite facing a stream of attacks from the British political establishment.

Later on Galloway turned his attention to the Iraqi people, and, on seeing the devastating effects on the population caused by the US-sponsored sanctions, deeply involved himself in humanitarian work during the Sanctions. He went on to found the Mariam Appeal, a charity set up to raise money to finance treatment for a little Iraqi girl with leukemia, who, because of the effects of the sanctions, couldn’t get medical treatment, and was likely to die as a result. The Mariam Appeal highlighted the fact that untold thousands of innocent Iraqis died during the oppressive sanctions. Again Galloway was making powerful enemies by exposing the cruelty and injustice done to the Iraqis.

Galloway was eventually expelled from the Labour Party for his loud, outspoken opposition to the invasion of Iraq and Tony Blair's involvement in it.

The Oil-for-food scheme was set up by the United Nations as a way of allowing the Iraqi government to maintain an income revenue from limited oil sales which was supposed to be spent on medicines and food, as opposed to bombs and guns. As we all know, Iraq was run by Saddam Hussein, a crazed despot who had spent the last twenty years stealing Iraq’s oil wealth for himself and his psychopathic family and ruthlessly crushing any dissent from the general population, with the full support of the US State Department, who helped Hussein buy chemical weapons etc. etc. etc.

In no time flat Saddam Hussein was manipulating Oil-for-food, and had found a way to completely subvert the planned intention of the scheme by tapping into the inherent corruption and greed of almost everyone who wanted to carry on doing business with Iraq (including American companies). Funds were diverted left, right and centre, and false paper trails created so no-one could readily see where all the money was vanishing to.

Galloway has repeatedly accused George Bush Jnr. and Tony Blair of war crimes and state-sponsored terrorism, and, as the Truth Of The Matter finally seems to be about to begin to be uncovered thanks to the Fitzgerald enquiry, Senator Harry Reid’s tactical victory, the Downing Street Memo pressure groups, the burgeoning Anti-War groups, the corruption indictments leveled against several senior Republican figures, and the first signs that the previously subservient mainstream media might finally be breaking ranks and turning against the fascistic Orwellian Administration.

The cornered war criminals are going to have to do everything they can to create diversions and distractions to buy themselves enough time to try and bury the evidence of their crimes against humanity. We live in interesting times, and may yet see Justice being done.

Finally, today, we hear that Norm Coleman has just issued a press release saying that they have passed their so-called findings on “To the relevant Legal Authorities”, which is supposed to imply yet again that they have something on George Galloway. Coleman reckons that he can pressure the UK government to tie Galloway up in the English courts on trumped-up charges. Galloway wouldn’t be able to call Tariq Aziz as a witness in the UK to prove that Coleman is a liar, because, of course, the Americans have Aziz in their custody.

What convenient timing this all is, bearing in mind the furore and rumpus of the last couple of weeks, with special investigators beginning to force the lid off the filthy dealings of the most murderous, criminal governments the US has ever had. You Americans can expect lots and lots of Galloway over the next couple of days… anything to take the attention away from Plame-gate, the Niger forgeries, the Republican-dominated Senate’s complicity to hide information from the American public, the Downing Street Memo, and all the rest of it.

I’m going to remind you all that George Galloway, a man of amazing courage and principle, is a massive thorn in the side of the establishments who have the most to hide – The Bush government, the Blair Government, Israel, and the Iraqi dissidents like Ahmed Chalabi who have fed the false information to Bush’s Cabal and in so doing gained control of Iraq for themselves, all of whom have colluded over the years to do everything in their power to avoid their share of responsibility for many, many crimes carried out against the arab people. George Bush took the USA to war in 2003 on the back of spurious, fixed “intelligence”, and forged documents seem to be a favourite device of these corrupt warmongers, who will stop to nothing to get their way.

When all this comes out in the wash in an open court of law, I fully expect George Galloway to be vindicated, and the “smoking gun” touted by Senator Coleman to be yet more bad forgeries… unless the Americans find a way to try him in the USA, in which case I fully expect George Galloway to be denied Justice.