Why picking fights in the street is a bad idea

Bwahahahaha! That is all.

TWO drunken yobs tried to start a fight with three strangers - who turned out to be the military's most decorated hard men.

The thugs, who had a Staffordshire bull terrier with them, got a surprise comeuppance after hurling abuse at the smartly-suited trio in a street.

They had no idea their intended "victims" were a hero Royal Marine, an Army captain and a VC-winning SAS hero.

The louts pushed and shoved the three men, attempting to provoke them into a punch-up.

After ignoring polite advice to "walk away" they suddenly found themselves on their backs while their vicious-looking dog fled yelping.

L/Cpl Matt Croucher, 26, and Captain Peter Norton, 47, both George Cross winners, were walking through central London with Aussie Cpl Mark Donaldson, 31, after a reception at Buckingham Palace. Though they were in civilian clothes they were wearing their medals on their chests.

A witness to the incident said: "It was a case of yobs picking on the wrong people.

"After they ended up on the ground the guys just calmly adjusted their suits and walked off."

Andrew Bolt is wrong

The title of Andrew's piece today about Comedy Central's alarming double standards [South Park bravely savages the creed that won't say "boo"] is misleading and wrong. South Park has taken a satirical scalpel to Islam a number of times, as well as some of the other religious sacred cows that other comedy shows just won't touch. It is their parent network, Comedy Central, which censored their episode showing Mohamed and is planning a new series to poke fun at Christianity. The double standard is being displayed by Comedy Central, not South Park.

It is a hypocritical stance for Comedy Central to hold. How can they be willing to ridicule one religion, but not another? The short answer is fear. If we in the west accept that our culture can be dictated to by violent extremists, we have already lost. It is fine for Comedy Central to broadcast a series that mocks Christianity. It is not fine that they are willing to do that whilst they are censoring another show for ridiculing another religion. If it is OK to poke fun at one religion, it is OK to poke fun at all of them.

Best photo ever

This is so very apt. Every time my peers and I would discuss day to day events while working for the UN in Africa, words like UN-efficient, UN-workable, UN-realistic, and UN responsive would be common.

This photo just adds that motivational .ppt slant to a frequent meme.

Enjoy.

(Disclaimer: I am aware that the antonym of efficient is inefficient. Most of my peers were working in English as a second language, so I forgave them their minor lapses.)

Climate Justice Feast

Firstly, apologies for the lack of posts; since coming home I’ve had more important things to do than blogging. Getting re-acquainted with Sharpe Jr and Mrs Sharpe has been high on the list, as well as a couple of other projects that germinated while I had lots of time to think about things. To really complicate matters, I’ve also just returned home from another extended period away from home, domestic this time thankfully.

Tim Blair, motivated into action by this genius, has declared the duration of the Copenhagen Greeny Love-in the Climate Justice Feast! I wasn’t able to pull something spectacular together for dinner last night, having eaten on the plane home, but I thought I’d share the coming home breakfast I prepared for the Sharpe clan.

You’ll note the secret ingredient for Sharpe’s patented scrambled eggs there on the left.

And this is what it looked like in all its heart attack inducing goodness.

Then followed a day of catching up on all the things that have been missed in my absence, before thoughts of dinner began to intrude. Having lived on mess food for the past five weeks, I thought a nice steak might be in order. It seems that steak is one of those dishes a mess will never get right. I trundled off to the butcher for some nice Australian Rib Eye, and some veggies to go with it.

The steak was then waved over the BBQ long enough to frighten it, before ending up as dinner.

The beer is Draught Home Brew (one of those little projects I mentioned earlier).

Now with a belly full of bleeding steak and homemade beer, I will adjourn to prepare for my last week at work before packing up and heading south for that obligatory instructional job for the next two years.

War is hell

I was going through my photos from overseas, and found this gem. The thermometer was in our kitchen/dining area which was protected from the elements by a shade cloth. The two temperatures shown are inside in the shade and outside in the sun. I don't think it needs any more explanation than that.

To paraphrase Robyn Williams - It's so damn hot, I saw these little guys in the man-dress and the silly little hats burst into flames. It's that hot! Do you know what I'm talking about?

I am an abused husband

I must be. I’ve just this evening been diagnosed with “Burnt Chop Syndrome”.
Apparently, Burnt Chop Syndrome is a rallying cry for Feminazis that holds that should an oppressed wife manage to burn one or two of the chops whilst cooking, she will serve them to herself to avoid patriarchal criticism. This is a behaviour is passed from mother to daughter, reinforcing gender stereotypes of a woman’s subservient role to her husband.

Whilst fulfilling my role as oppressed husband this evening, I was relegated to preparing the evening meal. I was cooking some delicious lamb on the BBQ, when some of the fat dripped onto the little bricks under the grill that are quite deliberately designed to catch such dripping. The fat then caught fire, adding to the smoky BBQ goodness. Unfortunately, the two chops directly above my sizzling fat fire became what my father sometimes referred to as “carbon enhanced”. Rather than admit I’d ducked inside to tend to the vegies when I should have been maintaining my vigil at the BBQ, I served myself the offending chops. Mrs Sharpe noticed that some of my meat was a little darker than hers, and then filled me in on the whole “Burnt Chop Syndrome” thing.

I was just being polite. I cooked the meal. I left the meat untended. It was my fault it was a little black. Why would I then pass on my mistake onto her? Is “Burnt Chop Syndrome” really a symptom of an oppressive patriarchal society, or just good old fashioned manners?

bingbing gets all musical 'n' stuff

Over at Tizona's, bingbing is having a whimsical day posting some of his his favourite music clips. Yours truly gets a shout out as well.

Open Thread

The Debunking military myths thread got a little sidetracked, so here is an open thread to post bawdy Infantry drinking songs, or bawdy Rugby drinking songs, or if you feel the need to raise the bar; poems, stories or reflections.

I have the Monster-In-Law in this weekend. Pray for me!

Mother of all conspiracy theories

There really is the most amazing stuff on the internet. I thought that this Flat Earth Forum was a bit of a piss-take initially. It even makes reference to the four elephants and a turtle of Discworld fame. It does seem to go quite in depth though. If they are having a lend, they’ve gone to a lot of effort. The premise seems to be that the Earth hurtles upward through space creating an inertial force that we call gravity. The Sun and the Moon orbit the Earth, and a giant ice wall in Antarctica keeps the ocean from falling off. Enjoy.