Pope go Home…

Pope Benedict XVI has been “down Under” attending the Catholic Church World Youth day festival in Sydney. There have been a few protests.

While the protest has been quite funny, the protesters hurling condoms at the worshippers and arranging a “Hunky Jesus” competition, I do feel however that this is just a group of protesters who are really going out of their way to demonstrate their “Alternative” lifestyle to the Catholics. Not that I would even class being Gay as alternative these days.

What I did find funny was a what was posted on the In a strange land blog. here’s a link to the story here.

The Z$100bn note.

Zimbabwe is introducing a Z$100bn note. However, due to a “slight” inflation problem, it will barely cover buying a loaf of bread. The Z$10 million note pictured left was introduced in January of this year shortly followed by a Z$50 million note.

Not a surprise when the official annual inflation rate has exceeded 2,200,000%.

The Politics of Fear.

I have been avoiding making any large scale comments over the election going on across the pond, but the Magazine known as the new yorker decided to put Barack Obama dressed in Muslim garb on the front cover along with his Wife who they potrayed as a terrorist.

In a statement off the BBC website: The New Yorker magazine said the cartoon “combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are.”

The magazine says the cartoon is intended as a satirical comment about some of the distorted right-wing attacks on the Democratic senator.

The New Yorker said the cover, called “The Politics of Fear”, was a critique of unfounded allegations that have tried to portray Mr Obama, a Christian, as a closet radical Muslim.

“The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall? All of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that’s the spirit of this cover,” the statement said.

I like this kind of Satire, but you can’t help thinking that this may re-enforce those very allegations to the un-informed.

Englishmen Abroad…

Germany’s tabloid newspaper, Bild, has printed a list of holiday resorts to avoid – those dominated by the British. This comes after a British man was awarded £750 (953 euros) after suing his travel company over a holiday at a resort filled with Germans. The man was awarded compensation last week for a holiday in Greece which he argued had been spoilt by the number of German tourists and the fact that all the activities were organised in the German language.

Bild recommends avoiding the best-known destinations for British holidaymakers and lists the top six ‘black spots’ as the Bay of Palma in Majorca, San Antonio in Ibiza, Playa de las Americas in Tenerife, Ayia Napa in Cyprus, Faliraki on the Greek island of Rhodes and Malia in Crete.

Just in case the Germans have a problem identifying British tourists abroad, Bild has a guide on its online version, illustrated with an unappealing photo of two sunburnt women on sun chairs. It also ridicules British cuisine, binge-drinking, fashion and sport, says that “athletically they are not up to much, they can’t even take penalties.”

Its reassuring to know that Tabloid newspapers in Germany speak the same “language” as those in the UK and while Bild prints a list of all the British Hangouts around Europe(all the ones where our “model citizens” go at least) you certainly couldn’t accuse this German Newspaper of not having a sense of humour.

Can you show me some ID please…

Have a little read of this.

This was left on the windscreen of someones car in London. I have to say to those who are trying to turn the notion of intelligent design into Science, proof of a creators existence…you really are getting desperate.

But then again God could well be our builder as it looks like he behaves like a builder. Tells you he’s coming back, but doesn’t get round to telling you when.

Can you tell what it is yet?

As the title says, what does this monument represent? This year marks the 60th Anniversary of the Berlin airlift. What piqued my interest in this was that I spoke to someone who had no idea this had happened. I thought to myself either we aren’t teaching history very well anymore or I spend too much time watching the History channel on Cable TV. Go figure.

A little history:

The airlift started on June 24th 1948 and the soviet blockade finished on May 11th 1949, with the airlift officially ending on 30th September 1949.

The amount of Supplies shifted: 2,326,406 tons of food and supplies on 278,228 total flights to Berlin to supply over two million people in the Western allied sectors of Berlin.

The Reasons?

Simply put, the Russians blocked all road, rail and canal routes into Berlin in an attempt to force the US, UK and France to relinquish west Berlin. This was in response to the Marshall plan; which was to revitalise the economy in the Allied sectors of Germany, while the Russians preferred that Germany remain as economically depressed as it was, however it was realised how important the German economy was to the rest of Europe which was suffering decline and so the Marshall plan replaced the Morgenthau plan. It really was the start of the cold war.

More information can be found here.

The monument? It is the Berlin Airlift Monument in Berlin-Tempelhof, displaying the names of the 39 British and 31 American pilots who lost their lives during the operation. Similar monuments can be found at the military airfield Wietzenbruch near the former RAF Celle and at Rhein-Main Air Base.