Who gets to carry the RPG?

It matters not whether it is urban combat, desert, jungle or whatever, in every army of irregulars there is always one chap with one of these living out his Rambo fantasies while all around his brothers in arms  brandish AKs, bullet belts or, if all else fails, shake water bottles.  Check the Libyan coverage today, you'll see.   Anyway, one does not have to delve too deeply into the works of Freud to ponder why waving around an RPG-7 is a popular pastime in certain quarters.  So, let us say that RPG waver is the big boss, head honcho, king snake or whatever - he faces two major problems:

They are quite heavy - 7KG, with each grenade anywhere between 2.5kg and 4.5kg  An AK weighs 4.3kg, sans clip.  Humping one of those around all day in the hope of a photo opportunity a lightly armoured or soft-skinned target shows some degree of commitment to one's craft.  If a peon carries it for you, how do you ensure that it is safely in your grip when the cameraman appears an enemy technical hoves into view? 

Also while everyone else is lighting up the sky with the world's finest 7.62×39mm, you have to conserve ammo, or else face the prospect of ritual humiliation if when the cameraman appears an enemy technical hoves into view all you can do is point the thing in the hope it works on one's foe in the manner of Aborigine bone pointing.

Should it ever come to facing off against the folk on the other side of the River, I'm opting for a machine gun.

The less than brilliant maintenance of the TUC's website

Screenshot taken today:

Yup, they are illustrating their tax credit calculator with a call to donate to Tucaid.  If you click it takes you to the calculator.  Given that the text at the bottom declares 'Tax credit changes from 6 April could leave families thousands of pounds out of pocket', readers are unlikely to think that now is the time to start funding Tunisian Union of Mineworkers or somesuch......

We have ways of making you walk. Or at least of making you take the train.

Found at EuTube:


As some wag points out in the comments, "This video gives us a fascinating insight into the mentality that drives the European Commission, implying that policy papers will help to bring about a better world by some kind of magical transformation".

Further excavation shows what manner of schemes are being cooked up:

By 2050, key goals will include:

• No more conventionally-fuelled cars in cities.
• 40% use of sustainable low carbon fuels in aviation; at least 40% cut in shipping emissions.
• A 50% shift of medium distance intercity passenger and freight journeys from road to rail and waterborne transport.
• All of which will contribute to a 60% cut in transport emissions by the middle of the century.

If I make it to 2050 I'll be a fair vintage, and thus will be especially well placed to be spectacularly grumpy about all this

Bashir Al-Assad's loyal old friends

From the KCNA:

Pyongyang, April 4 (KCNA) -- A friendly meeting with staff members of the Syrian embassy here took place at the DPRK-Syria Friendship Kim Jong Suk Pyongyang Silk Mill on Monday to mark the 65th anniversary of the independence of Syria....They talked to each other about the need to boost the ties between the two countries".

Well, the functionaries of the hereditary leaders of thugocracies do have to stick together, don't they?

Anecdote o' the day

Found in John Julius Norwich's 'More Christmas Crackers', and worthy of recycling:

"Edward Marsh records in his book of reminiscences, 'A Number of People', a remark of Bertrand Russell's 'when in a disquisition on the capacity of mankind for misery he said he had never been so unhappy that he would not have been cheered, in an appreciable measure, by the sudden offer of a chocolate cream'".  

My preference would be certain types of fruit or bar snack, but the point stands.

Why EU foreign policy and 'Baroness' Ashton are laughable - a small object lesson

Exhibit A:

 

And Exhibit B:

And yes, I appreciate that Ashton does not write, let alone proofread this stuff.  These two items appear next to each other on the press room index page.

Making mock of the 'Dear Leader'.

And in a (conceptually) good cause - making money:



Further details on the ad are here at the Korea Herald. Rather amusingly the advert was produced in Israel.