bleungberg.com

Relatives of the five British contractors held hostage in Iraq did their rounds with the British media yesterday to mark their first anniversary in captivity.

It led the national bulletins briefly - including an exclusive interview with the BBC - but the hostages’ plight was soon sidelines in favour of fuel protest.

Shame on the media. We have a horrible feeling that the next time we hear about this will be the beheading of one of the hostages.

Former White House press secretary Scott McCllelan has a new book out criticising the Bush presidency and his idiotic characteristics. McClellan also commented on the way Bush and his advisers mishandled and then lied about the invasion of Iraq.

This coming from a man who not went along with the Iraq war throughout his tenure as the face of the White House, defending the president and the American government, but lied day-after-day, and was therefore complicit in deceiving the entire world behind the reasons for going to war.

By publishing damning allegations of his former boss’s incompetency and now arguing that he can finally see the truth - in the form of a book which he needs to sell - tells us everything about this man: he’s a snake, a coward and crook. And totally blind as well. How can it take an intelligent person so many years to work out that Bush had lied about everything in order to wage war against Saddam?! Don’t buy his book. He’s fat enough as it is - if the book continues to sell, he’ll become morbidly obese within a few years.

Anyway, as you can see in the title, Bleungberg’s main target here is Karl Rove, Bush’s former advisor, and not McCellan. Whilst we hate McCellan, our loathing for Rove remains unsurpassed and undimished. Rove - who got away with being indicted for leaking the identity of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame, has wasted little time in appearing on conservative talk shows to lay into McCellan’s book.

Rove is unhappy at allegations levelled at him by McCellan that he and Bush bungled over Katrina. (Er, that’s true, isn’t it??) Anyway, this cretinous weasle not only used the opportunity to slag off McCellan, but reiterated his innocence over the Valerie Plame affair - over and over again… ‘As you know, I wasn’t the source of the leak..”, “History will show that I am not a liar, McCelllan is…”

Oh, what a snake! What a fucking weasle! What a cretinous cunt this Karl Rove is! Death by clutter-bombing, arse-rape and arsenic-poisoning on his man is too good a death. He deserves to be locked up in a bunker and incestuously molested for the rest of his sorry life by that Austrian monster Josef Fritzl.

On the day that the Mteropolitan Police unveiled a £3m advertising campaign to drive out knife crime from the streets of Britain, it’s been reported that a 17-year-old black guy has died from being shot in the head after four days in hospital.

Prior to this shooting, two youngsters were murdered on the streets of London, with another stabbing reported in East London, and all three received prominent coverage across the media, followed by sob-stories and interviews with the victims’ families.

Contrast these with the guy who died from being shot today. There has been some coverage of his death in the media, but not sympathetic ones. Why? This guy was a drug-dealer and was likely to be a victim of black-on-black crime.

So now we know - if an innocent person was killed, then expect acres of coverage and a plea to repair ‘Broken Britain’ on the front page of The Sun.

But if it’s black-on-black crime between ribal drug-gangs, then it’s not important at all - no one should care?!

That’s despicable.

Wasn’t black-on-black crimes and its related gangland violence the causes for the rise of gun and knife crime in inner cities, which spread out to the suburbs?

Get your priorities right, broadcasters!

Rightly, the humanitarian disasters in Western China and Burma meant little coverage has been given to other important events happening in the region - notably the abolition of the Napalese monarchy and the establishment of a republic, but more significantly, Taiwan’s most important summit with China in nearly 60 years.

Bleungberg is  - naturally - quite sceptical and pessimistic about the possible long-term outcomes of these talks which will lead to regular summits starting from June 11th. The two sides have been at loggerheads for over half a century, and there’s no reason to believe any rapprochement between the two is likely anytime soon.

Whether this is all part of the Chinese effort to repair the damage caused by its disastrous handling of the Tibetan revolt in an Olympic year, who knows? Of course, sceptics can also point to this sudden openness in their handling of the earthquake in Chongqing as evidence that the Chinese are finally more open about all matters of national importance. I somehow doubt that though a recent ad-hoc Q+A session held by a tired-looking Prime Minister Wen amidst the rubble to foreign journalist was nothing short of remarkable. Bleungberg remains sceptical about theirr transparency, but, for now anyway, we’ll give the Communist government the benefit of the doubt.

Back to Taiwan, the ever-improving ties and the eye-catching attendence of President Hu Jintao to this summit with the Taiwanese Kuomingtang chief is definitely a major step in the right direction. A full-scale reconciliation is unlikely to be achieved in the next few decades or even century - America’s continuous arms trade with Taiwan will prevent that from happening - but if economic trade and transport links can be improved as they have done in recent years, then these meetings are no bad thing to either side. Economic and transport reconciliations between the two nations also mean Hong Kong lose out to transit trade and passengers so it might complicate things further.

But with a booming economy, Chinese officials at least won’t have to worry about its citizens hopping to an equally-properous Taiwan on a one-way ticket, only to never to return again. Those days are long, long behind us.

Much has been said about the latest results from last weekend’s Eurovision Song Contest, with Russia winning after getting points from just about every country it used to control / massacre people / supply vital energy and resources to.

Certain countries are already threatening to quit, with many more debating the viability of competing in the show. The BBC has already said it won’t, despite forking out over £170 000 to the contest’s budget because it constantly delivers a massive audience on a Saturday night. Think about it - a half-hour primetime programme could cost anything between £100k to £250k, for £170k and it lasts nearly eight hours of primetime TV spread over three nights is outstanding in value. Besides, if the UK never wins and continues to languish near the bottom, then there’s no chance the BBC will have to worry about the cost for staging such an event the next year. I have no idea how true this is but some have suggested that RTE almost went broke because it had to stage so many Eurovisions during the 1990s. The wisest nations though, must be the likes of Austria and Luxemburg - both have now withdrawn from the contest in protest of the bloc-voting. But that hasn’t stopped either country from broadcasting the event; Austria even sends a commentator to the contest because the audience figures are so high.

Staging something like this is logistically expensive and a major headache for the organisers - from security to international liaisons but it does bring it masses of tourists, which can’t be a bad thing for the lesser-known nationas in the East of Europe. Needless to say, hoteliers and restauranteurs in Moscow are probably laughing all the way to the bank already.

Bleungberg is saddened by the premature retirement of his favourite tennis player, Justine Henin, this week. Together with Kim Clijsters, Henin brought joy to millions of Belgians and as both are now retired, this marks the end of a golden era for Belgian tennis. It is highly unlikely that we will have two world-class sportsmen competing in the same discipline from this tiny country ever again.

Of the pair, Henin was undoubtedly the greater of the two: the sublime single-handed backhand, the dogged determination and sheer athleticism mixed with a fragile mind, a crippling body which has been beset by all kinds of illnesses throughout the decade made her achievements of reaching the world number one ranking, seven grand-slam titles and an Olympic Gold in Athens when she defeated Amelie Mauresmo in 2004 all the more remarkable.

Incidentally, it was during her defeat to Mauresmo through retirement during the final of the Aussie Open in 2006 that Bleungberg began to see Henin in a new light. Unlike the gregarious and friendly Clijsters, it was not easy to latch onto Henin during much of her career; she seemed aloof, some say ungracious and had bad sportsmanship.

But behind that steely mask laid a troubled mind, soul and body. Illness forced her into retirement that Saturday aftenoon on Melbourne, and her life began to unravel more explicitly thereafter - a broken marriage, rift with her birth family and subsequent reconciliations through yet another family tragedy, continuous health problems made us realise just what a tumultuous life this diminutive Belgian had led until then - and she was only 22 . What really sealed it for us was her gallant defeat in the Wimbledon final to the Mauresmo five months later. In a gripping final, she sprinted out of the blocks like a hare, only to be caught and reeled back in by Mauresmo in a superb singles match which lasted for nearly three hours. She looked sad and angry, and only congratulated her opponent at the net half-heartedly at the end. But by then, we’d understood more, and appreciated just what a remarkable human-being she is. Eventhough she lost in the US Open final six weeks later to Maria Sharapova, she had become the first woman in almost two decades to reach all four slams’ finals in the same calender year, with Roland Garros her only title in 2006.

By quitting at the young age of 25, Henin has become the first woman to bow out of the sport ranked number 1. To go out at the height of one’s power signals one’s determination and qualities. And there is no tennis player more special and remarkable than Henin right now. She will be much, much missed by all who love tennis.

Dear girls, (and horse)

Your TV series was superb. But the hype surrounding your film has become unbearable for Bleungberg.

You’re over-exposed, and it’s becoming incredibly irritating.

You are the weakest links.

You’re fired!

Mathematically, she has no chance of winning the Democratic nomination for the US presidency. Unless Obama is assassinated, Hillary must go now in order to preserve her dignity and the chances of her opponent against John McCain in the run-up to the November vote.

If she goes now, people might have more respect for her! It will also give her wrinkle-free forehead a rest.

The Chief Executive of Briish Airways, Willie Walsh, still in his job despite the Terminal 5 debacle - dubbed a ‘national humiliation’ by a committee of MPs at Westminster yesterday. He obviously cared more about the asthetics and pleasing the Queen than the airline’s lifelines - its punters. How he is still in his job is beyond us here at Bleungberg. He said the buck stops at him - so how does he explain the sacking of two of his deputies in the week after the disaster?

He’s a cunt of the highest order.

Israel celebrating its 60th birthday whilst Palestinians continue wollow in the mire: Gaza has no humanitarian aid going in, refugee problems persist on the West Bank.

Time they flattened Jerusalem and wipe the area off the map so non one can lay claim to this piece of land anymore.