Reference :- Here at The Sky Reply we have been having a quiet time .

Reference :-  It is hard to stay motivated when the days here in Kooralya are so cold and wet . 

 Lately the Sky Reply team has been huddled by the fire doing very little .  Ken junior found a copy of a book by some chap called Arthur Koestler. It was in a dusty box of books we inherited from the estate of a strange relative we called cousin Ivan , who we think was a Hungarian refugee . 

The book is called " The Roots of Coincidence " , and as you might expect it describes the mechanisms by which coincidences might come about .  The lads , being impressionable youths , found it mesmerising . Personally I was unimpressed .  Monte pointed out that the book is exactly 149 pages long , which is the capacity in cubic inches of the motor in the Holden ute that we used to bring cousin Ivan's stuff home . 

Although this is factually true , is it a coincidence ?  It is my view that coincidences are something we manufacture . We can find them anywhere if we look . The lads and I launched ourselves into a great debate regarding the definition of a coincidence .  But enough about that . It goes without saying that my arguments were the more persuasive , and I won the debate , which was like the icing on the cake , since today happens to be my birthday . 

Anyway , I see on the tele that Mr Netanyahu recently had to cut short being questioned during his trial for corruption because the IDF had just bombed Damascus without warning .  That sure was a lucky break .  Mr Netanyahu has enjoyed a lot of lucky breaks lately .   Like the sudden discovery by Mossad that Iran was weeks away from building an atomic bomb , just as the world was becoming outraged  by the bombing of a child's birthday party in Gaza .  Those chaps in Mossad are a canny crew .   The International Atomic Energy Agency and the CIA were adamant that no such program existed..the idiots . 

In further news , we saw that one of those IDF soldiers from the most moral army in the world had accidentally fired a shell from a tank into a Catholic church in Gaza , killing three people and wounding ten , including the parish priest who has strong connections with the Vatican .    The shell missed the cross atop the church by about a three feet .  That sure was lucky , because a smashed Christian cross would make a powerful image that the media could exploit .   Ken junior reckons the gunner was aiming at the cross and missed .  Personally I reckon that since the average age of an IDF soldier is 19 years , the inexperienced gunner pulled the trigger by mistake while he was trying to find one of those Hamas terrorists who hide behind human shields . 

The Pope is very techy about the incident , which means 1.4 billion Catholics around the world probably feel the same .    Some might try to weaponise the unfortunate accident , labeling it  " anti-christian " , but nobody with two neurons to rub together would fall for such cynical propaganda . 

The ICC might try to call it a war crime , but nobody listens to them these days .  Clearly it was just a coincidence that a stray shell hit a Catholic church .  Besides , the Catholics are no friends of Zionism , you only need to listen to what the Popes have been saying for years .  Little wonder that Mr Netanyahu was four days late with his condolences when the last Pope passed away . 

Time to take Dog outside for a wee. 

Your comrade, 

Ken