It’s somewhat alarming to click on your own website, only to have a sinister-looking statement stare you in the face stating the site could be dangerous, insecure, porn-laden, and poised to make off with all your personal data, credit cards, bank details, etc., etc., etc..
But that’s just what happened to Sparrow Chat a fortnight ago, as some of you who visited here may have noticed.
On January 2nd this year, while still enduring the New Year hangover, I was notified by email that my webhost, ‘ixwebhosting’, was being wound up and taken over by another hosting site, ‘Site5’. We were to be forcibly migrated.
Nothing happened until a couple of weeks ago when the site’s SSL certificate (that’s the thing that turns http:// into https://) was due for renewal. The extortionate sum required for said certificate was duly paid, and verification obtained. At that moment the anticipated “migration” from ‘ixwebhosting’ to ‘Site5’ took place. Unfortunately, each host assumed the other had updated Sparrow Chat’s SSL certificate. Consequently neither did, and overnight Sparrow Chat became a potential porn site, to be avoided at all costs.
Thankfully, the site doesn’t make any money. Well, I did get a few royalty cheques for eighty or so cents at some point last year, but it wouldn’t pay for a holiday in Barbados, or even a day out in Paris. Even so, it was very frustrating, and I was in no mood for chit-chat when I eventually made contact with someone on ‘Site5’ who knew what they were about.
Fortunately, he sorted everything out within a few minutes so we’re now back online, squeaky clean and not a bare bosom or buttock in sight…
You may have noticed there’s not much going on at Sparrow Chat lately. It’s not that I’ve died, been bereaved, or suffered any other major life catastrophe, it’s just that I find the world situation so utterly dire that I can’t be bothered to write about it anymore.
Take that power-crazed, insensitive, narcissist, Americans elected to the White House in 2016. (Oh, if only someone WOULD take him – preferably to a hot, dirty, guano-ridden, uninhabited island far out in the ocean). It’s painfully obvious to all but the most brain-dead of our sad species that Trump is out to achieve what the last Republican president, George W Bush, tried and failed to do, namely, to take out Iran.
Bush failed because the shysters in his ‘team’ grossly underestimated how a nation reacts when another invades. They blithely assumed the Iraqis would bow down and gratefully kiss American jackboots, thus allowing the American military to use Iraq as a staging post into Iran. It didn’t happen. We’ve since learned, of course, that all the televised high-jinks – Iraqis beating Saddam’s statue with their shoes, etc., were carefully stage-managed by the Americans solely for the benefit of the press contingent, and the participants well paid.
The propagandized demolition of Iran has been underway in the West for a long time. America has never forgiven the late Ayatollah for making them look foolish over the ‘hostage crisis’ during the Carter administration. The poor old Ayatollah knew nothing about the hostage taking until after the event. It was wholly the act of a number of fanatical students, who happily jumped up and down outside the U.S. Embassy shouting, “Death to America,” whenever western journalists asked them to. The event would never have occurred if the CIA had not colluded with Iranian generals to reinstate their puppet Shah in 1953, his authoritarianism eventually leading to revolution and his ousting in 1979. Now, it seems, Trump may be looking to bring back the Shah, in the form of ‘Son of Shah’, Reza Pahlavi…
Reza Pahlavi, the last heir apparent to the defunct throne of the Imperial State of Iran.
…who has spent most of his life in exile in the U.S..
According to the U.S. government-financed propaganda radio broadcaster, Voice of America:
Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah to rule before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has seen his profile rise in recent months following the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, who promises a harder line against the Shi’ite power.
Pahlavi’s calls for replacing clerical rule with a parliamentary monarchy, enshrining human rights and modernizing its state-run economy could prove palatable to both the West and Iran’s Sunni Gulf neighbors, who remain suspicious of Iran’s intentions amid its involvement in the wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen…
“My focus right now is on liberating Iran, and I will find any means that I can, without compromising the national interests and independence, with anyone who is willing to give us a hand, whether it is the U.S. or the Saudis or the Israelis or whomever it is,” he [Pahlavi] said. [1]
Whether the Iranian people would welcome him, and his American/Israeli/Saudi backers is open to conjecture, but it seems unlikely.
Iranians carry a banner showing a caricature of U.S. President Donald Trump during an annual rally commemorating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, which toppled the late pro-U.S. Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. ~ Tehran, Feb. 10, 2017.
A deal between the Saudis and Israel is already on the cards (who’d have thought that possible just a couple of years ago?). Kushner, the sly-faced son-in-law charged by Daddy Trump with bringing peace to the Middle East, has become really matey with Saudi’s power behind the throne, Mohammad bin Salman. Apparently, they regularly sit on bin Salman’s expansive balcony sipping pina coladas and chatting about how they’ll run the Middle East once Iran and Syria are finally disposed of. It’s a neat philosophy guaranteed to appeal to the Israelis, who with U.S. backing will have both the will and the fire power to attack these Shi’ite nations. Something they’ve longed to do since 1948.
Meanwhile, the Democrats in the U.S. Congress have gone on permanent vacation, leaving cardboard cutouts of themselves in their seats. It’s a ploy they’ve used many times before when Republicans held sway over them – deaf and dumb to a man (and woman). The situation is little better in Europe. The BBC informs us today that next Tuesday European leaders will huddle together and try to decide how best to handle the situation Trump has created. So far, the only politician to vent his anger publicly has been the French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire:
“Do we want to be vassals deferring with a curtsy and a bow to decisions made by the US?” he asked.
Mr Le Maire called on the European Commission to look into possible retaliatory measures. [2]
Monsieur Le Maire is quite correct. Trump is now attempting to blackmail the E.U. into complying with his wishes. If European companies refuse to pull out of Iran, they will be denied the right to trade in the United States. There is only one way to deal with blackmail. Whether European leaders have the balls to do the right thing is debatable. No doubt we will find out in due course.
The world is drifting into pseudo-fascism, led by the most militarily powerful nation on the planet. While U.S. propaganda sources, now centred in the White House, continue to affirm the danger to us all of non-democratic states like Iran, Russia, and Syria (notably NOT Saudi Arabia, or other Sunni Arab kingdoms) while presenting not one iota of evidence to back their claims, few have ventured the fact that by far the most dangerous nation on the planet today – one led by a madman and his power-crazed, hawkish, cohorts – is the United States of America.
This once benign country, admired by much of the world for its creed, “Government of the People, For the People, By the People,” is no more. It has become a potential source for evil such as the world has never known. Empires have come and gone, but none has had the ability, even if their leaders held the desire, to destroy the planet and everything on it if nations didn’t bow to its will.
I began by stating the world situation was so dire that I couldn’t be bothered to write about it anymore. That is certainly true. But, like any train wreck, it’s often impossible to look the other way. Sparrow Chat will continue for now, but posting may well prove less frequent. Unless, of course, the ‘God’ that these morons pretend to believe in were to annihilate the White House with a lightening bolt while everyone was at home.
Now that would truly be something worth penning a line or two.
Sometimes I despair of my countrymen. Since the advent of “Brexit” I’ve felt ashamed to admit I’m British, preferring to say that as I lived in the United States for near-on fifteen years I consider myself American. At least that way I’m only regarded with sympathy, given that the idiot Trump is my president. It’s never questioned whether I voted for him or not. Foreigners never believe any American they meet could ever have voted for him. They must think he likely ascended to the position due to some corrupt practice, or maybe a pact with Beelzebub.
Of course there are those who would say I’m against “Brexit” because I live in France. I raise my hands to it. I’m bloody furious that half the British saw fit to renege on an agreement that’s stood for nearly half a century, just because they’re not prepared to share their country with those from other nations. It’s blatant racism, coupled with what I can only call ‘the old Empire spirit’.
Yes, fellow Brit, if you deign to read this I am accusing you of an arrogant and superior attitude handed down to you from the old codgers who still think Britain’s something more than a tiny island. It’s not – and the truth of ‘Empire’ was nothing more than the subjugation of whole nations, the raping and pillaging of their assets, and a general fucking-up of India, much of Africa, and most of the Middle East. To say nothing of the mass import of opium into China, just so we could get our hands on their tea. It’s not something to be proud of. It’s a blot on Britain’s history we should all be bloody ashamed about.
I just don’t understand why the British aren’t marching on Parliament with pitchforks and torches, given the way they were misled into voting for “Brexit.” Strangely, they’re not. Indeed, they still seem quite happy to accept the lies they’re being told daily, despite those economic experts with their dire predictions.
Now we discover that, not only was Trump elected by the manipulation of personal data and precision targeting of campaign ads, but there’s clear evidence that “Brexit” was only achieved using the exact same process, by Cambridge Analytica in Britain and AggregateIQ in Canada, (with more than a little bit of assistance from Facebook!) both companies owned by the same billionaire, Robert Mercer, who, not content with his billions, obviously fancies himself as some great manipulator of world affairs.
What does it take to get you off your arse, fellow Brit? It’s obvious you were had good and proper. Or, are you too proud to admit it, even to yourself? “They couldn’t possibly have fooled me,” I hear you cry, “I’m British!”
You may be British, but it doesn’t stop you from being a fucking idiot. You’ve been conned. One day you’ll realise it when your nice-little-earner suddenly isn’t there anymore. When you’ve had a heart attack and get a hospital bill for fifty thousand pounds that you can’t pay so they come and take your house away, and you’re out on the street along with all the other idiots who were conned but wouldn’t admit it. And don’t think it could never happen in Britain. It happens in America all the time.
May I make a suggestion? Turn off the footie, get your arse out the settee, put down the lager can and do something about it before it’s too late. There’s a lot like you. Together you can make a difference. Go tell Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Davies, Liam Fox, and dear old Maggie May to shove their “Brexit” right up where the sun don’t shine. They’re out to make loads o’ money out of “Brexit”.
