Home › View all posts by Paul › Page 29

Author: Paul

Indian Soldiers

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Soldiers from India fought bravely for Britain, a country it owed nothing, during the second world war. While I didn’t know this, it’s not too surprising that there was a subset of Indian soldiers who allied themselves with the Japanese in an attempt to drive the British out of India. I say this isn’t surprising for a few reasons. With something like a billion people, you can find a large number who would be willing to support almost anything. A dislike of an occupying force leads to sometimes unpalatable alliances. Finally, if you’re a prisoner of war of the Japanese, or trapped in Japanese-controlled Asia, then fighting a battle outside of the main thrust of the war might have seemed a pretty decent option, whoever it may have appeared to help.

What’s new to this (so new I can’t find a reference in Wikipedia, which almost means it didn’t happen) is that as well as the ‘Indian National Army’ in Asia there was the ‘Free India Legion‘ in Europe, made up of Indian soldiers captured by the Germans. They fought briefly in Holland and France, before being captured and sent back to India. The FIL was founded by Subhas Chandra Bose, who, after seeing that Hitler really wasn’t a stand-up kind of guy, went to Japan to found the INA.

Indian Nazis – sounds like a bad science fiction comic, don’t you think?

Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged with

Organ Donation

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

One of the UK government’s latest ideas (though it’s been kicking around for a long time) is ‘presumed consent’ for organ donation. This means that, unless the family of a dead person specifically object, doctors can harvest such organs as they see fit.

The argument in favour is simple; hundreds of people die every year who could be saved by donations from people who, quite obviously, don’t need them any more. The argument against is more abstract, but also more fundamental; my body belongs to me, not the government, and that’s true before I’m born and when I’m dead just as much as when I’m alive.

My natural reaction is to be against this idea. I’m a registered donor and my family knows it, so I have no problem with donation in general, but I really dislike the idea that the government can help itself to what it wants. In fact this struck me as an extreme, if not literal, form of communism; from each according to his ability, whether he wants to or not.

Another reason to be against it is that the fix is very simple. If you’re not a registered donor for at least a year before you’re diagnosed with a condition requiring a transplant, you don’t get one. Any time you register for something from the government, be it a birth certificate, passport or driving license, you have to make a choice about donation. No default is filled in, so you have to pick one for yourself.

Such a quick fix gives me time to tell you about the Donner Card, which reads “I would like someone to help themselves to my kebab after my death”

Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged with

Retail, then Therapy

Posted on by — 4 Comments ↓

The noted shoulder-shrugger (by birth and profession) Jean-Paul Sartre, famously said “Hell is other people”. The phrase was first published in the 1944 play ‘Huis Clos’. I respectfully submit that if he’d been to the Croydon Ikea he’d have said it much earlier.

One Nation, Under God

Posted on by — 4 Comments ↓

I was going to write something snarky about Huckabee’s comments on the Constitution, but Archy has already said everything I would have, and better:

Mike Huckabee doesn’t like it when people question him about his religion. He assures us that he won’t try to force his religion on us if he becomes president. He wants us to take his word on that and just shut up about creationism. This is his idea of not forcing his religion on us:

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

Say goodbye to pork, shimp, blended fabrics, and start collecting rocks to deal with all those rebellious children and women taken in adultery. At least he plays the guitar and has a folksy manner, because that’s what’s really important.