Wendy gets a workout on her snowshoes.
Ideal for for Beatrix next year.
Then at 16:00 it’s the CC Volunteers appreciation party. I escort Wendy there, but sit it out playing on my phone. It’s nearly all women and at the end of the day I’m not going to freeload as I’m not a volunteer.
Wendy at volunteer appreciation party.
Set off for dinner at the Double Tree hotel. Menu’s not that enticing but the burgers good. Given the size of the hotel surprising to see we’re the only 4 in there. Rest of the evening is a quiet night watching, ranting and raving over Question Time and then we both manage to fall asleep over the Last Kingdom.
Brexit morons – more from Pat Condell.
What a pity him, Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees Mogg don’t run our country.
Awesome snow outside our condo.
Then it’s coffee at Starbucks followed by a couple of hours pickle ball along with the other geriatrics. A few of the women are bossy USA matriarchs. Best avoided. No fun. Think they know it all. Best keeping your own council and look to team up with people who laugh and smile a lot. They need to remember the losers creedo, “It’s Only A Game”.
Call at Chubasco for my first Carnitas Burrito take away. It’s awesome. Turns out they do Chimichangoes, just too dam lazy and inefficient to put it on their menus – more lost opportunity.
Evening in again falling asleep over “Last Kingdom”.
Should’ve raised chickens instead of kids, they’re cheaper and you can eat them.
Bear in mind that the average cost of raising a child to the age of 21 in UK is £231,843. On that basis I think each of my kids still owes me about £231,644, and that’s without interest charges.
Left or liberal? What’s the difference?
Just a stroll in the snow.
Walk back up the hill for more exercise, fun while it’s snowing, so much better than walking in the rain.
Me being a nerd.
Then it’s off to M&B for dinner, along with George and Helen – Pappa Murphy pizza – awesome.
Nigel Farage’s seminal speech in EU parliament helps to understand BREXIT;
Over 30 Nigerian Christians were killed in a brutal early morning attack by radical Islamic Fulani herdsmen, who have been systematically targeting believers living on lands the extremists claim to be their territory.
Hardly a mention in the news of all these daily ongoing Christian’s slaughtered daily by members of the religion of pieces and permanent offence.
All due credit to the Guardian they do mention it, but like all witless PC snowflakes they forget to mention the word Muslim or Islam – obviously don’t want to be considered Islamaphobic or offend anybodys sensibilities.
When will we wake up to the realities of islam. We really do need a first amendment.
Angela’s tenth birthday.
Lunch time we’re off to Hal and Carol’s for Angela’s 10th birthday. I think we’ve been to her every birthday since she was two. Have Quesadillas for lunch and take a birthday cake. Wendy’s going to add these to her repertoire.
Then more Netflix in the evening.
Our great friend Hal – AKA Ori Noko – has lost his voice.
I leave about an hour later and walk down to B&M to pick the car up. It’s a 4 mile, 90 minute walk, in snow. Should have put my yak tracks on, by the time I get there I’m exhausted. Walking in snow is as exhausting as walking in sand.
Drive down to Kimble for a Starbucks and then off to Pickleball
Is it a cat or a sheep? Angela’s cat munching on some foliage.
Arrive home knackered. I’m pretty sure it was having to go to the supermarket for some drinks thats exhausted me.
Quiet night in.
Finished all my nerdy IT projects so need a new project.
The Israeli Palestinian Conflict: 10 Myths Preventing Peace
Book our car for summer with Hertz. You really have to watch them and understand how their “rip you off algorithms” work. Online price ranges from £5,600 to £3,300. So you can save £2,300 just by juggling rental periods. You can then save a further £400 by speaking to those lovely ladies in their Dublin call centre – somehow the males never seem to do as good a deal.
Sad really, you’d think it would just be easy to do a single 87 day rental (bulk buying discount) rather than have to juggle rental periods to optimise the price. It’s this syndrome I have where I keep thinking I’m a CUSTOMER and I’m important to them. But don’t worry it’s not dangerous or contagious, it just brings out the rants in me.
Wendy on La De Dah.
My stroll down the snow tunnels.
In the evening we have friends round for drinks. Great end to another awesome day.
Forecast is for another 20″ of snow over the next few days – we live in hope. Looks like I’ll have to defer getting my bike out until this storm passes.
“Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty”, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who told an audience in Berlin that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty.
Her words echo recent comments by the deeply unpopular French President Emmanuel Macron who stated in a Remembrance Day speech that “patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism [because] nationalism is treason.”
Awesome views fro La De Dah. How lucky can we be.
My stroll down the snow tunnels.
Hot waters packed up. Albert comes round and diagnoses the problem as a faulty thermocouple. Arranges a plumber to pick up the part and come round tomorrow morning to fix it – we live in hope, as I’m sure plumbers are the same unreliable cowboys the World over.
I have a jacuzzi instead of a shower. If chlorine washing is good enough for chickens, then it’ll do for me.
B&M and grandson come round for dinner and drinks.
“Radicalism is not representative of all Muslims, but illiberal ideals, violence and extremism are representative of Islam and, unfortunately, many Muslims do condone such things.
Apostasy—the act of leaving one’s religious faith—for instance, is punishable by death, according to the Quran. Verses 4:89, 9:11-12, 2:217, 9:73-74, 88:21, 5:54, 9:66 call for Muslims to kill those who leave the faith (and there are many more from the Hadith).
This crime is punishable by death in Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates, according to the Library of Congress.
According to a poll done by Pew Research Center in 2013, which asked Muslims of various countries (such as Albania, Russia, Bosnia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan and others) about the penalty for apostasy, a large number of them supported the death penalty. In Egypt, 86 percent supported killing apostates.
In the same poll, 89 percent of Pakistani Muslims supported stoning as the penalty for adultery and 88 percent favor penalties such as “whippings or cutting off the hands” for crimes like theft.
According to The Week, in Saudi Arabia (ironically, the head of the United Nations Human Rights Council), women cannot go anywhere without a chaperone, drive a car, “wear clothes or make-up that show off their beauty,” interact with men they’re not related to and many other oddities.
Crimes that are punishable by death in Saudi Arabia (often by public beheading or stoning), according to Vocativ, include adultery, “consensual gay sex with an adult,” robbery, drug distribution and possession, apostasy, consumption of intoxicants, sorcery and witchcraft. You can also be executed for being gay and being an atheist, according to The Washington Post.
That being said, it is evidently clear that immoral and violent practices are not simply those of fanatic and extremist Muslims, but also those of many so-called moderates.
Now, I’m not claiming that all Muslims support laws and penalties like the above, but a shocking number do and it’s time to stop sugar-coating the issue—as many liberals in this country do—and denounce the arcane and depraved laws and practices of a bygone era. It’s time to admit that Islamic violence is not only practiced but also encouraged by large numbers of Muslims. It’s time to admit that Islam is not a religion of peace.
I am not calling for people to hate Muslims, nor am I calling for violence against them. I do not support any sort of bigotry or intolerance towards the Muslim community, but we need to stop ignoring the reality that Islam is no better than Christianity was during the Inquisition.
Even when considering Muslims in non-Muslim countries (many of them democracies), the statistics might be surprising.
A Populous Poll from 2006 showed that 12 percent of Muslims in Britain believe that suicide attacks against civilians in Britain can be justified and 1 in 4 support suicide attacks against British troops.
In 2007, the Pew Research Center conducted a poll which found that 26 percent of younger Muslims in America believe suicide bombings are justified. 42 percent in France.
With these figures it’s hard to settle for the common quip of “Islam is peaceful.”
Looking at just the United States, which has an estimated Muslim population of five to 12 million according to Frontline, that’s still over a million Muslims (even taken from 26 percent of the lower estimate of five million) who statistically believe suicide bombings are justified. Granted, this number is taken from the 2007 percentages and I’m highly skeptical of such a high number, but it’s still quite telling.
Now, I have never met a Muslim who has judged me or who seemed radical. My intention is not to smear the average Muslim who believes in peace and kindness and all the good teachings and lessons found in the Quran. Verse 5:89 of the Quran, for instance, tells Muslims to feed and clothe the needy, 7:199 says to be kind and forgiving toward one another, 42:42 states that it is wrong to oppress people.
However, I do want to bring to light the hypocrisy of calling the religion itself nonviolent, when so many Muslim nations and Muslims themselves support such radical violence.
We have to stop demonizing anyone who questions Islam and talk about it frankly. I think having this discussion would be incredibly enlightening. And we must stop referring to criticism of Islam as “racism.” Islam is a religion practiced by many people across the globe, over a billion in fact, and it is not the sole property of one single ethnicity. I criticize Islam, just as I criticize Christianity.
Sam Harris once said, “Holding Islam up to scrutiny, rationally and ethically, must not be confused with anti-Muslim bigotry. Cries of ‘Islamophobia,’ which have become ubiquitous on college campuses and in much of the liberal press, have been used to silence legitimate criticism. In an open society, no idea can be above scrutiny, just as no people should be beneath dignity.”
To say that Islam is a religion of peace is just simply not true. And Muslims who believe in democracy, human rights and nonviolence need to figure out how to spread their progressive beliefs, rather than perpetuate those of a violent Stone Age.”