War Crimes

In today's delicate situation with "The War on Terror" every person who speaks without the requisite American twang or stops on a train to tie a shoo lace is shot on site with no questions asked. With people being arrested and detained for months on end due to "suspected conspiracy" it seems unfair that other figures were not punished as harshly. Take for example a certain character called Colonel John Matrix (pictured). John was a retired Austrian born US Commando who helped the US Government get rid of a south American dictator and replace him with a "democratically elected" president. Sound familiar?.....However the "evil" dictator kidnapped Johns lovely "Potential-hot-honey-back then" daughter Alyssa Milano. This does not sit well with John who declares war on basically everything and everyone and with true Austrian wit and charm begins his campaign of terror on a biblical scale.
This is where I have a small problem with the US attitude, apparently it is ok for an immigrant to wage war on South America when he feels like it and not be held accountable for a death toll that one would expect only from the Apocalypse. Take for example Johns legendary rampage at the residence of the evil dictator. This scene of unparalleled carnage lasts for about 4 minutes and 10 seconds and John guns down on average about 3-4 people every second. This works out at a death toll of somewhere around 960 men.........In 4 minutes...That's fucking genocide. A little excessive couldn't we say? Was it really necessary?
Even the angel of death himself would have trouble matching that and Lucifer would not even go there. But is Mr Matrix tried for war crimes?? No. If his rampage had continued - and it would have, he is Austrian- then he could have killed about 345,600 people every 24 hours until his mission was accomplished. This would be genocide on a scale the modern world had never witnessed. We can only thank the lord that he found his daughter as soon as he did. But still, he is allowed to return into the US without facing any kind of disciplinary action. Enjoying the full protection of the US government, he happily returned home to finish cutting some wood after erasing about 1/8 of the South American population. Further, Child Youth and Family didn't even step in to take away his daughter which is strange when you consider the amount of people he murdered before he even left America. A single parent who kills people and then jokes about it with lines like "let off some steam Bennett" and "I had to let him go" surely should have at least raised some questions. Technically shouldn't John Matrix have been hung for his crimes? Well that is America for you Land of the free and home of the brave.....and psychotic.

Superheehade

My superhero personality came out as Superman - I apparently like to help others and am athletic- which I am pretty happy with although I would have preferred the green lantern which I was close to being. As a bad guy I came out as Dr Doom which I was absolutely stoked with - I am apparently intelligent but a prisoner to my own vanity -Hilarious.

Cooom ohead square goooo!!!

I realized that it is a shame not to include some photos from our time overseas. I should have posted this on the 5th as that is when we got back one year ago so would have been a great little anniversary post but oh well. (Plus most of our travel photos are still on about a dozen CDs sitting at home) My god it has been a year already?! Anyway here is a random photo from our Christmas in Edinburgh and I thought I could give my valuable impression and opinion of some of the countries we visited so watch this space for many more photos and stories from our travels!!

Edinburgh was awesome. It is a lovely city with great views and THE castle. Here is me up in Edinburgh castle after we watched the 1 o' clock gun ceremony. (see what I am doing there!!? Eh? Eh?) That shows the scotts brilliant attitude. Before there were clocks if you needed to give the whole of Edinburgh a point of reference for telling the time, then what better idea than to make a big bloody racket at a specific time of day. Most people however appreciate to know when it is 12 o clock, a nice middle point so to speak. The problem of course is this would make for volley of canon fire which would probably last until 2pm as it takes so long to load the bloody canon. So then you would be left with nothing but a bunch of pissed of Scotts who are deaf and late for work. So what do they do? Stuff it they say let them know when it is 1 o clock !! One shot and we're done. Brilliant. Scares the crap out of you when you first hear it though.

The people in Edinburgh are great. (Didn't get to Glasgow or "the stab capital") The New Years festival, or Hogmanay was wicked except we (being from NZ) assumed we would not be able to drink at the street party and thought drinks would be pricey as, so cunningly smuggled in hip flasks of spirits to secretly drink. We turned up to see pissed people strolling into the street party with ASDA bags FULL of beer....We had forgotten we were in Scotland where drinking is their national sport, and they are good...Very good. Never mind the fireworks display was awesome and we had a good if too sober time. We went to a comedy club to which was ok the Scottish sense of humour is a little different and there was the usual annoying female comedian who thought it was hilarious to make female hygiene jokes...What a surprise. There was a funny moment during the tour of the city that is under Edinburgh - from when they re-built over "the ol plague ridden city" - when we found out that one of the fields where we had enjoyed a nice beer and a chat was where they had buried all the plague victims. Nice.

Also got photos where Renton gets stopped by the car in Trainspotting and well, they were sprinting down the main street at the start of the movie so of course we got photos of that too. Awesome.

All in all a great city and the English are not welcome which is hilarious (sorry Gus)