'76 or '96?

Fantastic quality. Exceptional. If she'd married him her name would have been Jerry Ferry.

The King's English

The first time I saw the Thai King was on Television in Frankfurt 1992 when the Royal Thai Military did what they do best which is killing Thai citizens. In 20 years despite occasionally being close I've never heard him speak English and this is the first time. It's as good a clip as one could wish to see and know a little of the man. 

The Video is via this post from Andrew Marshall who is one of the few journalists I respect as he resigned his position from Reuters and wrote candid journalist reports that prevent him returning to Thailand any time in the near future. He resigned from Reuters to prevent his colleagues from being exposed to any danger.

It's a massively complex subject but the bottom line is the military run Thailand as indeed they do in the US or the UK if you really scratch away at the facade of democracy.

Straight Shootin' Putin

There is no more straight talking politician than Vladmir Putin. I've listened to a lot of his speeches including a very important one at the 43rd Munich Security Conference where he acknowledged that the Western world isn't run by it's surface politicians. There's his 4 hour Q&A with the Russian people for the hardcore analysts or the nuclear weapons statement at the Sarov Nuclear Research Centre that I wrote about long before the corporate media decided Pussy Riot was the most important geopolitical lever on the table. But for the time starved just listen to his John McCain observation. You can tell a lot about this man in a short amount of time. He's straight, I know exactly where I am with his words and he's a man a serious person can do business with unlike the duplicitous West and their lackey media.

Lately even the The Guardian and The New Statesman have fallen into line behind the spineless William Hague in portraying Russia in a negative light due to the Pentagon's fury at their refusal to let NATO do another Gadaffi snuff movie in Syria.

We can talk about the nitty gritty of journalism in Russia but to watch the sheeple go off on one about Pussy Riot proves the irrelevancy of most's people grasp of foreign policy or their inability to discern that the corporate media just tell lies to justify their warmongering.

Don't believe me? Do the homework and get stuck in. When Putin speaks I listen. Cameron or whoever is pretending to run France these days don't get that respect. Not from me.