After long and agonizing…no, sorry, start again. Alright, I’ve finally decided to add something to the “About” page – happy? No, some bloody people….(grumbles)
Right! I’m currently somewhere in my twenties, whereabouts, I don’t know since I lost the map when I went to university (someplace called Oxford Brookes, rather good really). I’ve going to be retraining into law next year (since I cannot find a job with a history degree) and I want to earn some money! Yay!
As for relevent stuff to this blog: right, the webname – wien1938 is my web/forum name. It refers to the 2nd Panzer division as my first 1/72nd scale tank model was a Panther G belonging to that division.
The blog name, I rather like, since I’m a leftwinger by inclination. Yes, I like “socialised” medicine as I’m mildly asthmatic (but was much worse years ago) and in the US system I would have been “fooked” when I was little. Big thanks to Professor Markowitz (spelt right?) for his help when I was under two feet tall!
I’m an atheist, it’s a position that I arrived at when I was ten by independent thought. I’d run into school religion, tried to believe but couldn’t – the stories kept falling apart when one used (gasp) logic and the rational position was that there is no deity or mysterious entity. Just us.
You can probably guess most of political outlook by reading the blog but then, hey, I get one or two hits a day – and those probably spam machines… I do support Israel, why? Because those who don’t usually want to exterminate/remove the inconvience. Yes, it is not necessarily antisemitic to criticize Israel, but it often amounts to the same thing – it’s like pornography (which I like), I know it when I see it. See Alan Dershowitz and the Three D’s.
I’m also a bit of a militarist. I’ve always loved the military and all things war related. I believe that Britain has criminally underfunded and misused the Armed Forces for far too long and that we should not be afraid of going to war to protect our national interests or to do what seems to be the right thing (like Iraq – second case scenario).
I still admire Tony Blair, but I do think he was wrong on some things – like Global Warming (pseudo-marxist religion, v.dangerous).
(Takes cover, awaits torrents of abuse).
July 8, 2008 at 11:25 pm |
Thanks for the add to your blogroll! I returned the favor.
- JOS
September 28, 2008 at 6:32 pm |
If you are admire the military as you say you do above then enroll and join one of the armed forces. What better way to acknowledge this. Don’t leave it to other people to do it for you when war is needed.
It now seems like Iraq was (I didn’t think so at first) a mistake and the US and UK should have concentrated all the efforts in Afghanistan.
September 28, 2008 at 6:51 pm |
Well, cheers for the comment! I would have loved to have joined the military, but I cannot as I am not physically fit enough (having suffered from asthma since I was little).
I don’t think Iraq was a mistake. I think the mistake was made by the left and centre left in refusing (in Britain) to see that we are engaged in a war and consequently trying to fight a war (I’d count them both as the same war) on a shrinking peace time budget.
September 29, 2008 at 11:49 pm |
True we have had a shrinking defence budget over the years particularly in the 1990s when the government no longer had the Soviet Union to contest with. But as I understand the military budget has gone up considerably over the past few years to help the armed forces with their commitments. Whether its enough or if we can ever give enough I don’t know.
As for the war in Iraq I don’t see it as the same war. In Afghanistan we went in to fight Islamic Fundamentalists who were apart of 9/11. In Iraq old scores had to be settled against Saddam Hussain which wasn’t completed in 1991.
September 30, 2008 at 2:11 pm |
Well, speaking for the United Kingdom, the defence budget has about a 6% real fall between expenditure and funding, which would be higher if one takes into account the cancelled training exercises and the amalgamation of some of the infantry battalions.
We can give enough, it’s just that this current government won’t.
It is the same war. Saddam Hussein was hosting al-Qaeda related groups and funding Palestinian terrorism at the same time. If you don’t think that the Palestinian terrorist groups are in much the same camp as al-Qaeda and the Iranians (who’ve worked together regularly since the early ’90s), then you’re drawing false divisions.
November 6, 2008 at 1:18 pm |
“Saddam Hussein was hosting al-Qaeda related groups”
No. He. Wasn’t.
You wheezy gun-groupie badger’s biffer.
November 6, 2008 at 6:01 pm |
Ansar al Islam, arsehole. Don’t try American insults on me – they don’t work.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/ansar_al_islam.htm
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9237/
http://www.meforum.org/article/579
This all depends on whether you think that the administration was lying. I don’t happen to think so, having seen evidence supporting most of their conclusions.
December 9, 2008 at 1:58 am |
Mm..
Ohayou..
Nice to meet You..
I’m Indonesian People..
Douzo Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu..
February 21, 2009 at 2:26 am |
I must be “Blue Four” and late to the game. I’ve had you on the radar since discovering you at Harry;s several months ago–don’t get by often enough. I’m a ret. PhD in Poli-Sci and an ex-USAF Vietnam era fighter pilot. (i.e., well into my geezerhood–Geezer Power!–edging toward ultimate fossilization, at which time I guess I’ll have to adopt the nom de plume of “The Fighting Fossil,”) with too much time on my hands and lots of “Demon Rum” laid in–a dangerous combination. I Enjoy your site. And, like you, I was a model builder in my youth!
February 21, 2009 at 5:29 pm |
Cool! What did you fly in Vietnam?