DUFF & NONSENSE!

An interesting American politician - no, really!

I confess immediately that until I read an article in the National Review, I had never heard of Sen. Josh Hawley.  However, I do think the article is very worth reading.  This is a man capable of thinking outside the box, a man who can ask awkward questions and face up to the disturbing answers.

Last night, at a dinner held by the American Principles Project Foundation, Hawley gave a remarkable speech. Like most good political speeches, it was straightforward and accessible. But unlike most good political speeches, it was also a searing piece of cultural criticism, an indictment of America’s economic and social arrangements.

Well, in the 'never-never-land' of Trumpian delusion I suspect it is time America gave itself a good, long, hard look.  Sen. Hawley provides a magnifying glass!  He begins by attacking the oligarchy:

Discontent is the theme of our politics, the preoccupation of our popular culture. It is the very air we breathe.  But why? Why — in the words of another American senator — is this most prosperous of nations so troubled in spirit, so rent by division, so anxious and uncertain?  The statistics tell us that we are living in a new age of inequality. The divide between the wealthy and working Americans is wide, and growing wider.

He spells it out:

You’ve heard the numbers. As to wealth: The top 10 percent of the country’s earners control 77 percent of the country’s total wealth. As to wages: Over the last several decades, inflation- adjusted wages for the working class have barely budged, while income for those at the very top has soared.

Sooner or later, as discontent grows, a 'correction' will be demanded and if left too late the enforcememt might be exceedingly damaging, not just economically but socially, to the fabric of American society.

But the most telling economic divide in the country is between Americans with a high-school degree and those who have four-year-college degrees or more. A bachelor’s degree now earns a household in this country double the median income of a high-school diploma. As of 2016, families with a four-year degree or higher controlled roughly three-quarters of the country’s wealth. That’s a 50 percent increase since just 1989.

We are witnessing the rise of a new oligarchy of wealth and education. And not surprisingly, the leaders of this country’s government, its press, its corporations, and most of its popular culture most all belong to this same class. [My emphasis]

Sen. Hawley supports his case with some depressing statistics:

The number of 15- to 24-year-olds committing suicide is greater than at any other time since the government began tracking the data over 50 years ago.

For girls and young women, suicide rates have doubled during the 21st century. Doubled.

Taken altogether, nearly 36,000 American millennials died “deaths of despair” in 2017 alone.

There is now a death from drugs or alcohol or suicide every four minutes in this nation.

To paraphrase poor, old Bill, again, 'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark America'!  Also, it is worth emphasising that Sen. Hawley is a Republican and it would be sensible of the GoP to attempt some of their own measures rather than leave it to the Dems to flock in with their usual lunacy!

 

 

Murmur who dares!

Well, starlings dare and when they do, it is the most incredible sight!  Actually, it is called a 'murmuration' but don't ask me where the word comes from.

Alas, down here in deepest, darkest 'Zummerzet' I never see them although there are starlings around.  They frequently bathe in my bird-bath on the patio, such tough, cocky, little birds.  When I lived up in Berkshire I used to drive to work through Windsor Great Park and I was frequently forced to stop to watch various massive murmurations.

I mention all this because in this week's 'Speccie', Isabel Hardman has an admiring article on the subject.  

Watching a starling murmuration is my version of going to evening prayer. It gives me the same slightly religious sense of wonder that I once felt in churches. The birds move in a thick shoal as they prepare for their evening roost in the winter months, crowding together to confuse predators who can’t focus on one to catch. When a sparrowhawk does get close, it pushes the birds into even stranger shapes in the sky. Fireworks seem so tame in comparison to the horses’ heads, dinosaurs, whales and mushroom clouds that starlings create in the sky, just for a moment, before flickering into another pattern. When I took some children to watch their first murmuration last winter, we all ooh-d and ahh-d as much as we’d do on bonfire night.  The wonder isn’t just in the shapes they make, but in how they know where to turn next so that they’re all together.

And she captures their character exactly:

It’s funny, because most people think starlings are boringly common, even slightly annoying birds. They can be quite noisy, and tend to empty garden bird feeders quicker than shoppers on Black Friday, squabbling all the while. But a close look reveals their bodies, which seem so black against the sky, are made up of speckly rainbows. And they are smart on the ground, too: these birds can mimic car alarms, other birds, even mobile phones as they cheekily call to one another.
In a crowd, they are little hooligans. In their great winter clouds, they’re one of the wonders of the world. [My emphasis]

Spot on, Ms. Hardman!

 

 

 

Tarawa - HOONOO?

That will compete with numerous other titles to my blog posts as being one of the most incomprehensible - sorry!  I will try to explain.  I have recently stumbled across the Smithsonian Channel on my TV which seems to be totally concentrated on American battles in WWII.  Thus, given the almost total crap everywhere else it has become a favourite of mine.  This afternoon I chanced upon a documentary covering the battle for the island of Tarawa which the American Marines invaded in 1943 as the beginning of their thrust northwards to Japan.

Ferocious and bloody hardly suffices to describe this action in which the Japanese had prepared well and the Americans were, for the most part, beginners.  Even so, at huge cost and with unbelievable courage the Marines eventually succeeded.  Undoubtedly, lessons were learned which will have assisted in the numerous repetitions required in this Island-hopping strategy.  Unfortunately, at this beginning it was clear that the tactical thinking and planning of the Marine Corps staff was pathetic, if not downright useless.  According to Wiki:

Writing after the war, General Holland Smith, who in his biography was highly critical of the Navy, commented:

Was Tarawa worth it? My answer is unqualified: No. From the very beginning the decision of the Joint Chiefs to seize Tarawa was a mistake and from their initial mistake grew the terrible drama of errors, errors of omission rather than commission, resulting in these needless casualties.

Thus it is with most armies and as always 'lessons are learned' but at what a huge cost!  I salute the memory of those Marines lost at Tarawa.

 

 

In which I almost - but not quite - felt a twinge of sympathy for Jo Swinson

See?!  I do have a (sort of) soft spot!  I felt it this morning when I read Ms. Alison Pearson's summary of her opinion concerning Ms. Jo Swinson, the leader of the 'il-Lib-non-Dem' party in today's Telegraph.  Gosh, there's no man can ever put the boot into a lady politician the way a lady reporter can stomp down with her high heels!  "Patronising, low on charisma, high on self-confidence" is how Ms. Pearson puts it.  She continues, “Up her own bottom, but not far enough so we can still hear her,” was one verdict. Sorry, shouldn’t laugh…".  Crikey, I doubt even Richard Littlejohn would use that line!

I struggle a bit with the Boden Mum Who Always Wins the Parents’ Race vibe, writes Allison Pearson  Credit: PA

Appearances are not everything even though the very sight and sound of the wretched woman irritates me but her fanaticism in favour of Britain remaining in the EU puts her well and truly beyond the pale as far as I am concerned.  It confirms the accuracy of my description of her party as the ''il-Lib-non-Dem" party in that she swears that if she becomes PM she will simply rip up the referendum result and rejoin the EU.  By their deeds shall you know them!

I sincerely hope and trust that 'Jezza' and his Bolsheviks will be slaughtered at the election but if the illiberal and undemocratic Jo Swinson joins the body count then I will celebrate!

 

 

 

The election roundabout is out of control!

One doesn't expect a smooth ride with Boris at the controls but, dammit, we're only a couple of weeks into the electoral journey and already he has slammed his proudly flaunted tax policy into reverse.  Last week he was determined to cut corporate tax rates, this week he is not!  Last week he was still sticking by the 4-year old Tory pledge to give MPs a free vote on allowing fox hunting but this week he has become unstuck!  Positively 'Trumpian', methinks!

Meanwhile, after executing a sharp Left turn, 'Jezza' continues to hurtle up a dead-end street at high speed despite the increasingly obvious concrete wall ahead.  More and more of his passengers are taking their chances by leaping off his kamikaze bus!  If Mrs. May's last snooze-fest of an election was eye-stabbingly tedious then this one is like no other!

 

Of princes and paupers

Needless to say, Andrew is the prince and I am the pauper - although, to tell truth and shame the Devil, I'm not exactly begging on the streets!  Anyway, never mind me, what I wanted to make clear is that I am bored to near insanity by all this non-stop 'yadda-yadda' concerning Prince Andrew.  I do realise the 'meeja' have a problem what with one of the most boring and predictable general elections going on and the England 'footie' team is actually winning matches (even if they are up against the equivalent of a medley of Division 3 sides) plus the fact that Meghan and Harry are 'over there' hiding (until she starts to miss the publicity!), even so, enough is enough, my life already!

Andrew, like many of the Windsor's, is not the brightest light in the Royal firmament.  He's a thoroughly decent chap and all that sort of thing, he went up the 'sharp end' in the Falklands, he stands around dutifully at the back of the balcony in 'Buck House' when he has to, and like Princes everywhere, he enjoys the occasional 'bonk', particularly if it is offered to him on a plate, so to speak!

So, please, Mr. Editors, you are right to report it but you are not right to go on and on and on and on about it.  Give it a rest!

 

PS: Sorry, sorry!  Dozy, old git that I am, I forgot to put a heading to my last post.  Oh dear, do you think it's old age catching me up?

 

 

 

The first one is, sort of, for the fishermen amongst you!

The day after his wife disappeared In a kayaking accident, an Anchorage man answered his door to find two grim-faced Alaska State Troopers.

"We're sorry, sir, but we have some information about your wife", said one of the troopers.

"Tell me! Did you find her?"

One said, "We have some bad news, some good news, and some really great news. Which would you like to hear first?"

Fearing the worst, he said, "Give me the bad news first."

The trooper said, "I'm sorry to tell you, sir, but this morning we found your wife's body in Kachemak Bay."

"Oh my God!" he exclaimed.

Swallowing hard, he asked, "What's the good news?"

The trooper continued, "When we pulled her up, she had twelve 25-pound king crabs and 6 good-sized Dungeness crabs clinging to her, and we feel you are entitled to a share of the catch."

Stunned, he demanded, "If that's the good news, then what's the great news?"

The trooper replied, "We're gonna pull her up again tomorrow...."

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Dave and Pete were a couple of drinking buddies who worked as aircraft engineers in Darwin, Australia .

One day the airport was fogged in and they were stuck in the hangar with nothing to do.

Dave said, 'Man, I wish we had something to drink!'

Pete says, 'Me too. Y'know, I've heard you can drink jet fuel and get
a buzz.

You wanna try it?'

So they pour themselves a couple of glasses of high octane booze and get completely smashed.

The next morning Dave wakes up and is surprised at how good he feels.

In fact he feels GREAT! NO hangover! NO bad side effects.

Nothing!

Then the phone rings. It's Pete. Pete says, 'Hey, how do you feel this morning?'

Dave says, 'I feel great, how about you?'

Pete says, 'I feel great, too. You don't have a hangover?'

Dave says, 'No that jet fuel is great stuff -- no hangover, nothing. We ought to do this more often.'

'Yeah, well there's just one thing.'

'What's that?'

'Have you farted yet?'

'No.'

'Well, DON'T - 'cause I'm in New Zealand '

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The Girl Across the Street ...

She's single ... she lives right across the street and I can see her place from my kitchen window!

I watched as she got home from work this evening! I was surprised when she walked across the street, up my driveway and knocked on the door!

I opened the door, she looked at me and said: "I just got home, and I have this strong urge to go dancing and drinking, and maybe fool around a little ... you know, have some fun. Are you doing anything tonight?"

"No, I'm free!" I quickly replied.

"Great!" she said. "Can you look after my dog ?"

Being a senior citizen is really for the birds !!

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A simplified urine test for men:

Go outside and pee in the garden....
If ants gather:- diabetes.
If you pee on your feet:- prostate.
If it smells like a barbecue:- cholesterol.
If when you shake it, your wrist hurts:- osteoarthritis.
If you return to your room with your penis outside your pants:- Alzheimers

 

That's it but if you try the urine test, wait until dark, the neighbours might not understand!

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 17.11.19

Those damned Dambusters!   I am somewhat over-hyped because whilst slurping my morning 'drain-clear' (aka: my fresh orange juice) this morning, I read that part of Max Hasting's superb history of the 'Dambuster' raid in which the actual attacks went in.  I found myself gripping the arm of my chair!

Can you imagine flying that behemoth, straight and true at night, just 60' above the water, with German AA fire streaming in at you?  The courage and the skill required defies belief!  Mind you, it is worth pausing to also remark on the courage and sense of duty of the likes of Cpl. Schulze, the son of a local farmer, who remained at his AA post on top of the dam desperately trying to defend against this seemingly endless line of incoming bombers all of whom were firing back at him!  All that courage, all that skill, all that scientific expertise - and all for the purposes of mutual destruction!  One can only echo Othello: "But yet the pity of it, Iago! O Iago, the pity of it! "  And it's worth remembering that it was very much and Anglo-Saxon enterprise.  The crews were an ad hoc mix of British and British  Empire men from around the globe and also included an American (Joe McCarthy - no, not that one!) who had volunteered for the RAF before his country was involved.  It's a terrific book - treat yourself - or others - at Christmas!

 

Poor old Oliver Kamm, up the creek without a paddle!   As regular readers know, I have not just a soft spot for Oliver Kamm but admiration.  I remember way back in the day, long before he rose to the dizzy heights as a leader writer for The Times, when he was just another blogger, er, like me, really! (Well, not quite like me because he has brains, intelligence and learning and all that sort of thing!)  Anyway, I have, sort of, followed his progress since then and occasionally picked up his 'scribblings'.  Like today, for example, over at CAPX where the poor chap finds himself all at sea now that he accepts the cold truth that his lifetime of love and support for the Labour party needs must end.  He appears to be dismissive of the 'il-Lib-non-Dems' and somehow I cannot see him ever voting for Boris, so the question remains, who will he vote for next month?

 

We can't see ya' but we can hear ya and smell ya'!   According to the Sheriff's Office in Clay County, Missouri, a runaway dope-dealer suspect hid himself away so well they could not find him.  Alas and alack, he could not control his wind and let forth an almighty loud and long fart which gave him away.  The story does not say how long the sheriff had to wait up-wind before carrying out the arrest.  Possibly the suspect had over-indulged in a slug of Barney Magroo's finest!

 

Movin' along from Missouri to Louisiana:   Bad news for 'The Donald' in a State Governorship election in Louisiana.  The incumbent Democrat who took the 'Repubs' by surprise by winning the previous election, now he's done it again to win a second term.  This, despite three visits from 'The Donald' and a 'yuuuuge' campaign by the GOP who were anxious to regain what they considered to be a safe Republican state.  Not the best pre-Christmas gift Mr. President was hoping for!

 

Does anyone really know the real Boris?   I ask because I haven't a clue!  But next month I will probably help vote him in as Prime Minister.  What will he actually do?  The only 'hints', broadcast across the 'meeja' at full volume, is that he will spend money like a drunken sailor.  I must ask my e-pal, 'JK', how that works in practice but I fear the worst.  Part of the problem is that I have considerable difficulty in understanding what he is saying via that gurgling, stuttering,stammering burble that sounds terribly posh but is mostly indecipherable!  Mind you, I have no problem understanding 'Jezza's' agit-prop and I tremble!  Alas, when it comes to Boris, all we can do is hope for the best but expect the worst and comfort ourselves with the thought that his 'worst' is infinitely preferable to Jezza's best!

 

No more rumbles 

 

 

If you speak like a dork, write like a dork and look like a dork - guess what?

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman speaks during an interview in New York, May 4, 2012. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

I seem to have been reading Paul Krugman, off and on - er, more 'off' than 'on'! - for years now and my gut feeling is that he is indeed an 'A1' dork and given the fact that he was awarded a Nobel Prize clinches it as far as I am concerned!  Happily today, Mr. David Harsanyi at the National Review (where else?) strips away the BS and defines the 'dork-factor' that runs through Mr. Krugman [with my emphasis]:

One of the nation’s leading doomsayers has been the New York Times’ perpetually mistaken Paul Krugman, who warned shortly after the 2016 election that Trump’s victory would trigger a global recession “with no end in sight.” We could file that under “post-election hysteria,” but as late as April of this year he was still telling crowds that the bond-market signals predicted “a pretty good chance of a recession sometime in the next year or so.” And he has kept this going all year:

February 11: Paul Krugman expects a global recession this year, warns “we don’t have an effective response.”

August 1: “Why Was Trumponomics a Flop?”

August 15: “From Trump Boom to Trump Gloom”

September 5: “Trumpism Is Bad for Business”

October 3: “Here Comes the Trump Slump”

October 24: “The Day the Trump Boom Died”

A couple of weeks after the Trump Boom expired, CNBC reported that “October job creation comes in at 128,000, easily topping estimates even with GM auto strike.” This cycle has been going on for three years.

Is there a run on the banks?  Are Wall Street dealers hurling themselves out of skyscraper windows?  Are millions of industrial workers queuing for charity bowls of soup?  Is the dollar worth a shilling in the pound?  No, none of those things.  The American economy chugs on like a freighter through the waves of international trading and money exchange, with all the normal ups and downs.  Sometimes the climate is favourable and sometimes it can turn rough - thus has it ever been!

Voters vastly overestimate the role that presidents play in economic growth, to be sure. But Trump-era job creation was a far tougher task, since he was operating with less room for job growth than his predecessor. And considering the (self-inflicted) trade wars, political turmoil, and foreign-policy concerns that have dominated much of his first term, conventional wisdom tells us we should be struggling. Yet it’s clear that we’ve had a pretty resilient economy.

What has Trump done? The two things Paul Krugman hates most: Regulatory rollbacks and tax cuts. And yet here we are.

Demonstrating his wisdom, unlike Krugman, Mr. Harsanyi makes no specific predictions for the future except that, judging by recent history, things will, eventually, take a turn for the worst - because they always do!

At some point, of course, doomsayers such as Krugman are going to be right. In the past 60 years the United States has been hit with recessions in 1960–61, 1969–70, 1973–75, 1980, 1981–82, 1990–91, 2001, and 2007–09. History says we’re probably due for another one soon. When it hits, Krugman will blame tax cuts, unfettered capitalist greed, a dearth of regulations — and maybe climate change, or whatever hobbyhorse he’s riding at the time. MSNBC hosts will hail him as a seer.

Personally, given his record plus those awful-looking glasses he wears, I think Krugman should get himself off to 'Specsavers'!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDwK_AUk0FI

 

 

I stumbled over some Ibsen this morning!

Cruising the internet this morning, I came across a fairly hefty piece on the subject of Henrik Ibsen, and yes, you're quite right, he's not exactly a bundle of laughs!  Even so, I contemplated the idea of marking him as the second greatest playwright since old Bill Shakespeare!  Alas, dear reader, outside of Norway you are unlikely to come across a production of his work.  The reasons are manifold but one of them is the reluctance of 'theatreland' to actually produce any of his plays.  I used to read avidly the theatre reviews in the 'heavy' Sunday papers to see what was coming but these days I do not bother because the answer is zilch, nada, bugger all!  I suppose today the highest theatrical experience you might come across is a production of 'Hamlet', set in a spaceship with a black girl playing the hero and a 'trannie' man playing 'Ophelia'.

Alas for the 'modernistas', the stern and powerful plays of Ibsen do not lend themselves to such 'humbuggery'.  They are utterly welded into his 19th century world and yet, 'mirabile dictu', they speak to everyone of all ages.  I once had the considerable pleasure of directing a production of 'Ghosts', one of his greatest and most human of plays.    He never takes sides in the series of ghastly but all too human predicaments in which his characters become immersed but, unflinching, he holds a mirror up to his audience which illustrates the vagaries and the wonders of human nature.  

Another of his great plays that, alas, I never worked on was 'An Enemy of the People' but I did see a superb production of it in London with Damian Lewis in the lead.  This is local politics writ large and being 'local' there is nothing bloodier or more vicious.  The fascinating thing about this play is that the 'hero', quite properly, comes across as the only 'straight arrow' in a very messy and furious dispute.  It is only, perhaps, at the end of the play or afterwards that you begin to discern that perhaps the ego of the 'hero' may have another side to it.

If, and it's a big 'if', you get a chance to see a production of either of those two plays, even if it is as amateur as mine was, I would urge you to go!

 

 

 

Into the valley of political death they rode!

With apologies to the late, great Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Lab Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” Jez said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

On account of the innumerable wounds and scars I have accumulated over the years whilst offering election forecasts, most of which were hopelessly wrong, I tend to avoid them now.  However, I make an exception today because I am able to hide behind the skirts of Ms. Sherelle Jacobs of The Daily Telegraph!  Her headline sums it up:

Labour is on the brink of the most seismic wipeout in British election history

My feelings exactly!  Of course, they are tinged more than somewhat by my detestation of the stupid, vile idiocy of Jezza's so-called 'momentum' philosophy which has proved utterly disastrous in every country in which it was ever tried.  Also, it is driven by fear of what a Labour government - today! - would mean for my country.  As Ms. Jacobs puts it:

In its historic heartlands, the end of Labour can’t come soon enough. It is a stillborn populist movement that has mummified hideously into a metropolitan protest group. Its story is tragic. Within 30 years of its launch, bohemian Bolshevism had smothered the hopeful pragmatism of its rank-and-file.

Of course, the extinction of Labour Bolshevism might result in the growth of the il-Lib-non-Dem party but, at least for the moment', they do not appear to have their political coshes and knuckle-dusters to the fore!

 

 

'Kalifornian Katastrophe'

What the hell is going on in California?  As "seen through a glass darkly", it is beautiful, mostly warm, gently washed by the Pacific ocean, gallons of wine and, er, Hollywood!  However, whilst I pretend to no expertise, more and more of everything I read about the place tells me it is going to hell in that infamous handcart!  My latest despatch comes from the redoubtable Ann Coulter, courtesy of 'TakiMag'.  You will not be surprised to know that she blames the Democratic Party and even if only half of what she offers in evidence is true, then she is spot on!

California is wholly controlled by the Democratic Party. The governor is a Democrat. The lieutenant governor is a Democrat. The attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer are Democrats. All these positions have been held by Democrats since the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger (who was a Democrat). The state Senate is just under two-thirds Democratic, while the assembly is more than two-thirds Democratic. Both U.S. senators are Democrats, as are 46 of 53 members of Congress.

So there are no excuses, whatever the final outcome is for California, the Dems own it, lock, stock and barrel!  Of course, they maintain their power, even as the State crumbles about them, by empowering the immigrant vote irrespective of whether or not they are legal immigrants.

But starting with Gray Davis’ refusal in 1999 to appeal an activist judge’s announcement that it was “unconstitutional” for taxpayers not to give welfare to illegal immigrants — an initiative that had passed overwhelmingly just a few years earlier — California’s elected officials began an all-out war on its own citizens.

Currently, the position seems to be that the Democrat polit-bureau simply ignores the stated wishes of its citizens.  Take for example, the death penalty:

I doubt any other state’s voters have been more emphatic about their support for the death penalty than Californians, voting for it in statewide initiatives in 1972, 1978, 2012 and again in 2016 — just three years ago. But earlier this year, Gov. Newsom flagrantly disregarded the voters’ repeated endorsement of capital sentences and single-handedly imposed a moratorium on the death penalty.

Then there is the tricky situation concerning gun law:

This September, during a fiery debate on guns, the left demanded “red-flag laws” to take guns away from citizens after having their politics, their writings, their previous exercise of free speech examined on a granular level by bureaucrats empowered to revise the Bill of Rights. In the middle of that debate, Gov. Newsom commuted the sentences of 21 convicted felons — almost all of whom were serving lengthy terms for murder or attempted murder with a gun.  And get this: Newsom specifically cited the unfairness of enhancing a criminal’s sentence merely because he used a gun when committing a crime. [My emphasis]

And so it goes on and on.  Citizens are leaving in droves - but of course 'bought and paid for' immigrants, legal or otherwise, flock in.  Where will it end?  I do not know but I fear the worst.

 

 

Well, Hillary's visit went down like a bowl of sick!

To be honest, I barely noticed that the ex-First Lady had graced these ancient shores but, happily, The Coffee House spotted it and today we had some commentary from Brendan O'Neill.

Mr. O'Neil was not amused!

She’s here with her daughter Chelsea — the dictionary should replace its definition of the word nepotism with just a photograph of Chelsea Clinton — to promote their book, The Book of Gutsy Women.

That’s clearly how Hillary and Chelsea see themselves. As gutsy women. I guess it does take a great deal of courage to live in vast mansions and earn £190k ($250k) for a speech to filthy-rich bankers about diversity or whatever. I wonder if the numerous women adversely affected (to put it politely) by the various Hillary-cheered wars in the Middle East think the Clintons are gutsy? Someone should ask them.

Apparently, she ticked us off for leaving the EU:

She’s called into question the wisdom of our democratic vote to leave the EU. She is ‘concerned’ about where the UK is heading. You shouldn’t ‘separate yourself from Europe’, she said. ‘Democracies need to stick together.’

Mr. O'Neil puts her right but I doubt he will receive any thanks!

We’re not separating ourselves from Europe, Hillary. We’re separating ourselves from the EU. Europe is a vast continent that has existed for aeons; the EU is a bloated, bureaucratic nightmare that has only existed, in its current form, since 1993. We’ll be fine.

And, Mrs. ex-First Lady, when we need your advice, we'll ask for it.  It appears that even the American public can do without it judging by your electoral record!

 

 

 

'Remainers' - either dim, dumb or lying liars!

Do you remember the deluge of panic-stricken warnings the 'Remainers' trumpeted, non-stop, from the minute we Brexiteers won the referendum?  It was worse than mere doom and gloom, it was full-on 'Apocalypse Now'!  Yesterday the government figures showed a 0.3% quarterly growth!  According to the redoubtable, 'A E-P' at The Telegraph, we have now enjoyed "13 quarters of economic growth since the Brexit referendum."  Sorry Phil Hammond but alas and alack you are as stupid as you look!  And so too are you, Dominic Grieve QC, the ultra-snooty, half-French 'Remainer-in-Chief' in the last parliament.  

'A E-P' takes the equivalent of a base-ball bat to Grieve and the rest of those 'lying-liars:

Totting up the exact numbers, it is no longer excusable for the Remainer establishment, the Liberal Democrats, and allied think tanks, to keep claiming that the UK economy is 3pc smaller than it would have been without Brexit, or that we are “3pc poorer” in Westminster parlance.

The total accumulated growth for the UK is 4.9pc. This compares with Belgium (4.7pc), or Germany (4.7pc) if we generously assume that there is no German contraction in the third quarter when the final result comes out later this week, not to mention Italy (3.2pc).

I will not attempt to paraphrase A E-P's learn-ed discourse, just read it, with my emphasis, and cheer if you are a Brexiteer - or weep if you are a Remainer:

The overall picture of the last three years is taking clear shape. The UK had a relatively bad year in 2017 when it was still carrying out fiscal tightening. The eurozone had a stellar year because the stars were briefly aligned: the end of austerity, the delayed effects of QE, and a Chinese mini-boom that lifted Germany, all at a time when there was still a large output gap and therefore plenty of low-hanging fruit.

That one year of 2017 distorted perceptions and allowed anti-Brexit agitators - including at times the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund, and above all lobby groups funded by EU vested interests to foster a narrative of lost growth, which has since become an article of faith in the European and global media.

That narrative has been invalidated by the last seven quarters. The UK has grown faster (2.2pc) than the eurozone as a whole (2pc) over that period, yet there has been no acknowledgement of this levelling effect.

Of course, past statistics do not forecast the future and I, personally, suspect that there will be rocky economic times ahead much of which will be fostered by our former chers collègues who will be using every trick in the book, and some outside the book, to make life as difficult as possible for the UK.

 

 

 

What's the German for "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"?

I raise the question because of a small item at the ever-interesting Zero Hedge site.  The heading to the piece explains all: "30 Years After The Berlin Wall Came Down, East And West Germany Are Still Divided".  In effect, the writer suggests that despite the hope and cheers, East Germany remains a second-class, basket-case when compared to the prosperous West Germany.  Part of the reason, he suggests, is that entrepreneurs simply failed to, er, 'Go East, young man, go East!'  Of course, to begin with, they attracted many Easterners to the prosperous west but for a variety of reasons many of them did not take to 'capitalism, red in tooth and claw' and so many of them returned to their 'Homeland'.  The final irony is that the birth of the extreme Right-wing party, AfD, has attracted enormous support in the East.

HOODATHUNKIT?

 

 

Your Monday Funnies: 11.11.19

Perhaps not the most suitable date for a series of jokes in the worst possible taste but from my knowledge of servicemen, they would enjoy them!

An atheist was walking through the woods.
'What majestic trees! 'What powerful rivers! 'What beautiful animals!' he said to himself.

Suddenly, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him.  He turned to look . . . and saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him.

He ran as fast as he could along the path.  He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing on him .... he looked over his shoulder again,
and the bear was even closer .... and then ..... he tripped and fell.
Rolling over to pick himself up, he found the bear was right on top of him,
reaching towards him with its left paw … and raising the right paw to strike ...

At that instant the Atheist cried out,
'Oh my God!'
Time Stopped … the bear froze ..... the forest was silent .... a bright light shone upon the man and a voice came out of the sky ...

"You deny my existence for all these years, you teach others I don't exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident … do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?"

The atheist looked directly into the light ....
"It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a
Christian now … but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian?"
... a pause ...

"Very well," said the voice ...

The light went out.  The sounds of the forest resumed … And the bear dropped his right arm .... brought both paws together .... bowed his head & spoke ...

"Lord, bless this food, which I am about to receive.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 



A State Trooper was patrolling late at night off the main Highway. At
nearly midnight, he sees a couple in a car, in Lovers' Lane, with the
interior light brightly glowing.

He carefully approaches The car to get a closer look. Then he sees a young man behind the Wheel, reading a computer magazine.

He immediately notices a young woman in the rear seat, filing her
fingernails.

Puzzled by this surprising situation, the trooper walks to the car and Gently raps on the driver's window. The young man lowers his window. "Uh, yes, Officer?"

The trooper asks, "What are you doing?"

The young man says, "Well, Officer, I'm reading a magazine."

Pointing towards the young woman in the back seat the trooper says, "And her, what is she doing?"

The young man shrugs, "Sir, I believe she's filing her fingernails."

Now, the trooper is totally confused. A young couple, alone, in a car, At night in a Lover's Lane and nothing intimate is happening!

The trooper asks, "What's your age, young man?"

The young man says, "I'm 22, sir."

The trooper asks, "And her, what's her age?"

The young man looks at his watch and replies, "She'll be 18 in 11 minutes."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

My missus packed my bags, and as I walked out the front door, she screamed, "I wish you a slow and painful death, you bastard!"
"Oh," I replied, "so now you want me to stay!"

......................................................….

A Catholic boy in confession says, "Bless me Father, I have sinned, I masturbated while thinking about my sister."
"That's a disgrace," said the priest, "especially when you have two gorgeous brothers."

…………………………………………………...
A government survey has shown that 91% of illegal immigrants come to this country so that they can see their own doctor.

......................................................….

I've just installed strobe lights in the bedroom. It makes the wife look like she's moving during sex.

That's it and waddya mean, "Thank God for that!"

 

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 10.11.19

Remembrance Day:   An article in today's Mail took me by surprise.  They conducted a survey of some of those very 'foreign fields' on which British soldiers perished.  What was extraordinary was the fact that local people still tend these graves lovingly, some of them despite the fact that their history of inter-action with the British army was not always, shall we say, amicable!

In the heart of the African bush, Kokou Esso, an impoverished villager, carefully sweeps the grave of a British upper-class Army officer. It is well-tended, pristine and, most of all, remembered

Even in Russia the graves of various British servicemen who died there are still cared for - including the ones who perished in the abortive attempt to oppose the Bolshevik revolution!  For what it is worth, my grateful thanks to all of them.

 

Incoming 'SoD':   Posting might be a tad erratic today because I have it on high authority that 'SoD' might be visiting.  NOTE TO SELF: Don't mention the 'Br' word!

 

That Peter Hitchens is tossing grenades again!   This time his target is Winston Churchill as war leader who is, of course, a 'yuuuuuge' target and therefor fairly easy to hit!  Even so, Hitchens is in receipt of some fairly heavy counter-battery fire from some distinguished historians.  I will not attempt to summarise the arguments but I will provide you with the links so that you WWII buffs can study them at your leisure.  This is his opening salvo in today's Mail:

700 people came to see this talk about my book 'The Phoney Victory' in Edinburgh . Now you can share the experience

At last! The recording of my appearance last August at the Edinburgh Book Festival to discuss my widely-ignored book ‘The Phoney Victory’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb8A4AGKGkg&feature=youtu.be

The interviewer is Ruth Wishart, to whom I offer my thanks . Likewise to the Edinburgh Book Festival, the only major book festival which showed any interest in this book .

I think the unfairness and idiocy of the boycott of silence to which the book has been subjected by festivals and reviewers was well-illustrated by the fact that 700 people attended this event, and I missed my train home because so many people wanted me to sign books afterwards.

I have addressed two other private events about this book and on both occasions received an enormous amount of interest. It is not because this book is a commercial flop that it is being ignored, but perhaps because it might be a success if it were given normal levels of publicity.

These are two responses.  The first is from Daniel Johnson at Standpoint.   The second from Richard Evans, a history swot from Cambridge.  I am unqualified to adjudicate so I will leave it to you WWII students to take your own decisions.

 

I never thought I would write these words!   However, I really think I will miss Phil Hammond, the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Yes, he looked like a gormless twit and over Brexit he demonstrated it!  However, he kept a canny eye on the nation's finances which are looking remarkably healthy despite the squealings of the 'Remainers'.  Alas, both Boris and 'Jezza' are throwing money - er, our money, I would remind you! - in all directions in their desperation to win the election.  There will be tears - or even blood!

 

More war - sorry!   But this is just a Hollywood film of a particular battle and I am sorry to say that it is based on one of the most crucial, subtle and sophisticated battles of WWII.  I refer to the Battle of Midway which involved not just the courageous sailors and airmen involved but also the highly secret skills of the American code-breakers.  Somehow, don't ask me how, I just cannot believe Hollywood will do it justice.  Read a bbook on the subject and be amazed!

 

Another tricky question for my American friends:   I keep coming across hints and whispers and the occasional nudge here and there in the 'meeja', to the effect that California is headed towards a financial collapse of Argentinian proportions!  Tell me it ain't so!

 

Too, too delicious!   I am referring to the plight of Michael E. Mann, the, er, 'inventor' of the 'Hockey Stick' graph which purports to show an up-tick in global temperatures.  He sued one of his critics, a Dr. Tim Ball, in the Canadian courts - and lost - BIGTIME!  Ordered to pay costs to Dr. Bell, he has so far refused.  The similar case against Mark Stein which Mann started some seven years ago has still not been judged in court because Mann keeps dodging.  How much faith do you have in global warming prophets?  That much, eh?   Sucker!

 

No more rumbles 

 

 

 

 

D-day and all that

I suppose with Remembrance Day approaching there have been numerous items on the news which feature the action at D-Day - and the consequent loss of life.  Watching some old newsreel footage the other day, I could not help ruminating on what a truly extraordinary operation it was.  The sheer volume of planning required for the overall strategy adopted which, and this was a 'minefield' all of its own, had to be agreed between three major, allied participants.  Then there was the planning for the logistics which were mammoth.  Yes it takes brave and skilled soldiers to fight battles but it also takes intelligent and detailed thinkers to ensure that they actually have the right 'bullets' in the right place at the right time in order for the soldiers to operate.

Of course, there were the usual silly spats between high-ranking officers each wishing to ensure that when the result, for good or ill, was clear, they and their country would come out of it with maximum credit and minimum crap!  In retrospect, it is worth remembering that they, in their different ways, represented democratic countries and democratic systems with all the inbuilt messiness that such liberal systems entail.   Unlike their opponents, they were not ruled over by a murderous mono-maniac who truly believed he was 'the ruler of the universe'.  It is clear now that, in fact, Hitler was the Allies best weapon!

Even so, in the end everything, absolutely everything, depended on the tens of thousands of individual soldiers who had to gulp their breath and step out from a landing craft into a ferocious hail of red-hot metal, and then keep on advancing even as their comrades fell beside them.  That, truly, was courage - and we all salute them.

 

 

 

And so it begins . . .

An ominous indication of how freedom of speech, always and forever under threat everywhere, will gradually but inexorably be strangled in Europe.  According to a report at Zero Hedge, the CJEU (Court of Justice of the European Union) has just laid down an order that any decision by any national court in the EU ordering the likes of 'Facebook' to remove what it considers to be 'defamatory material', need not be confined just to that one country but should apply to all of Europe and, indeed, the rest of the world.  Thus, if a court in, say, Bulgaria, a nation whose legal heritage and defence of free speech is 'legendary' (by which I mean it's mostly a legend!) decides that a post on 'Facebook' stating that the Head of the Bulgarian Police is a total ratbag for sundry reasons, then 'Facebook' must remove it from their worldwide net.  Thus, we ardent followers of the latest 'news 'n' views' of Bulgarian affairs will never know!

OK, I can live without that particular speck of detritus but what about the very much bigger reports on the bully boys of Brussels?  Are they, so to speak, to have their messy bottoms wiped clean and sprayed with perfume everytime they fart?  Are we not to learn exactly how much booze 'Junck the Drunk' tips down his throat everyday at our expense?  There is only one response to this creepy injunction - PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED! - or be sued but let us know about it!

 

 

 

Yet more offal tipped on the deserving head of "the Nonce Finder General"

Sometimes - oh, alright then - most times it is better for us 'ams' to give way to the 'pros'.  Thus it is in the case of Mr. Tom Watson who has, allegedly, stepped down from the political platform which he has defiled for so long.  Yesterday, I gave it, or rather, him, my best shot but this morning I was delighted to read Mr. Richard Littlejohn in The Mail who slipped on his 'bovver boots' and 'knuckledusters' before reducing the detestable Watson to mincemeat.  Here are a few tasters for you to enjoy:

He can’t be allowed to shed his wicked past, like one of those Weight Watchers of the Year posing alongside a cardboard cut-out of his Nonce Finder General former self.  The truth is he’s one of the most malevolent, malignant individuals ever to soil British politics, a self-serving, self-pitying, self-righteous enemy of free speech and persecutor of innocent men and their families.

[snip]

Instead, he made it all about him — burbling about having been on a ‘health journey’ and wanting to move on with his life. Sweet.
He didn’t mention that the only reason he had been on his health journey, shedding eight stone in the process, is because he had been eating and drinking himself into an early grave, much of the time on his parliamentary expenses.
In fact, he spent so much taxpayers’ money at Marks & Sparks, they gave him a free pizza wheel.
I wonder if he ever spares a thought for those who can’t move on with their lives, like the families of the blameless men he falsely accused of child molesting and worse.
Watson abused Parliamentary privilege to incite the hysterical Paedos In High Places witch-hunt against senior Tories, smearing them as rapists and murderers.
He used Prime Minister’s Questions to claim that there was a ‘powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10’ during the Thatcher years.

[snip]

He compared former Home Secretary Leon Brittan to the serial sex fiend Jimmy Savile, writing that he was ‘as close to evil’ as any man could get.
Brittan died before he could be exonerated, but only belatedly did Watson issue a grudging statement of regret.
He put pressure on the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to pursue a vendetta against blameless individuals such as the then 91-year-old war hero Lord Bramall.
Watson helped to ensure that reputations were dragged through the mud, that homes were ransacked, that families were terrorised, that lives were ruined — and all on the word of a known fantasist, Carl Beech, aka Nick, currently serving 18 years for perverting the course of justice.

[snip]

Then there was his bromance with Max Mosley, son of the wartime fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, from whom he accepted a donation of more than half a million pounds. Watson shares with Mosley a hatred of the popular Press and has made several attempts to bring newspapers under state control.
Even after Max Mosley himself was exposed by this newspaper as having a revolting, racist past, Watson still refused to return the money.

[snip]

Yet, incredibly, you won’t be told any of this in the glowing tributes to Watson on the BBC and elsewhere.
They are all prepared to overlook, or forget altogether, his past transgressions. As far as they are concerned, he is the greatest Prime Minister We Never Had.
Sorry, but I’m not buying any of it. Public life is well rid of the Nonce Finder General.
I’m sticking with my verdict that Watson — to adapt the outrageous smear he directed at Leon Brittan — is as close to evil as any politician can get.
Or, as a headline on this column put it last year: ‘A muck-slinging zealot utterly unfit for high office. [My emphasis]

Thank you, Mr. Littlejohn, you put it so much better than I ever could - why am I not surprised?  Still 'n' all, am I mistaken in thinking that the air smells a little sweeter this morning?

 

 

 

Farewell, Tom Watson and good riddance to bad rubbish!

The utterly disgusting Tom Watson, the deputy Labour leader who swallowed whole the ludicrous phantasies of Carl Beech, a paedophile 'nutter', and thus helped besmirch the reputations of decent men, many of them brave former soldiers, has (at last) resigned from Parliament.  The reputation of the House of Commons is at an all-time low but his absence will help raise it several notches!  

Watson might run but he can't hide.  One of his victims, Harvey Proctor, a former Conservative MP, who lost his job, his seat in Parliament, his home and much of his money, is already in legal pursuit of Watson and has no intention of stopping.  For Watson, the pain is just beginning!

 

 

And verily the Lord lifted the dreaded curse of Man Flu!

Well, either that or I'm a malingering skiver looking for an excuse to avoid household chores, or, possibly, I'm a totally wet drip who feels faint at a heavy sneeze - you choose!  Anyway, by mid-afternoon yesterday all my sniffles had, so to speak, 'snuffed it' and I was back into what passes as perfect health at my age!

Sorry, this blog is suffering a near death experience!

Yes, I'm afraid I have succumbed to the dreaded Man-Flu - no, no, no, not a Winter cold, that's for girlies!  This is the real thing that only us chaps know about.  It requires bedrest and a regular supply of cups of tea, er, with the odd mince pie if possible!  Anyway, no posts today, sorry to disappoint you - and I heard that!

Do black people blush?

Well, I don't know the answer to that question but what I can state with absolute certainty is that the Obamas do NOT blush!  Not, I hasten to add, because they are black but because they are politicians!  Take this, for an example, from Taki's Mag:

At the Obama Foundation Summit—yeah, apparently that’s a thing—she decried white flight in Chicago, which apparently started around the time she and her parents moved into a mostly white neighborhood and people started vamoosing in alarm because they didn’t want to become sacrificial lambs that the elites had offered up to appease black people’s resentment for crimes that were almost exclusively perpetrated by the elites:

"There were no gang fights; there were no territorial battles. Yet one by one, they packed their bags, and they ran from us. And they left communities in shambles….Y’all were running from us, and you’re still running, because we’re no different than the immigrant families that are moving in, the families in Pilsen, the families that are coming from other places to try to do better."

So what you’re trying to say is that the gang fights only started after the white people left, but somehow this is white people’s fault?

Taki, who is a very naughty boy! (or perhaps his editor) goes on:

Both Barack and Michelle Obama have spent most of their lives in Chicago—specifically, the South Side. In early September, it was announced that they were buying a $15-million dollar estate on Martha’s Vineyard.

Chicago’s South Side is 93% black. Martha’s Vineyard is 3.7% black and 88.1% white.

No further questions, Your Honor.

There's nothing like the sweet smell stench of humbug in the morning!

 

 

 

Ne mentionnez pas Agincourt!

Or Waterloo, for that matter!  I mention this, usually unwritten, law because according to the Telegraph there have been wails and shrieks of outrage in La France over the release of a Netflix film based on the (in)famous battle.  The curator of the newly refurbished museum close to the original battlefield has, so to speak, 'gone off on one', of which phrase I am unsure of the correct French translation!

"I'm outraged. The image of the French is really sullied. The film has Francophobe tendencies,” he said, taking offence at Pattinson’s hammed-up take of the French Dauphin Louis de Guyenne, Henry’s nemesis.  “The British far-Right are going to lap this up, it will flatter nationalist egos over there,” he predicted.

English “raping and pillaging” was totally overlooked and the king’s cold-blooded execution of his French prisoners glossed over, despite them having “their throats slit and heads crushed with sledgehammers” or “faces slashed with daggers”.

Doesn't the silly man know that “raping and pillaging” is what we Brits are famous for - how else do you think we aquired an empire?  Needles to say, M. Christophe Gilliot, gives Will Shakespeare a well-deserved slap for historical inaccuracy in his play on the subject, seemingly unaware that Will was in it for the money, not scholorship!

Still 'n' all, as our American cousins say, the fact is that a shambolic, starving, British army floundering around northern France were eventually cornered by a larger French army but still managed to beat the pants off them!  'Zut alors!'

 

 

Bye-bye, Bercow!

I meant to write a post this morning extolling the virtues of Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP who is to be the next Speaker of the House.  Alas, due to my old age forgetfulness combined with ancient idleness, I failed to do it - mea culpa!  Even so, my influence moves by mysterious means through the ether and tonight I am delighted to see that he has been appointed.  I liked his style when he was Deputy Speaker under that malignant monkey, Bercow.  He will stand no nonsense but he will not preen and prance like his predecessor. Arguably, this was the best decision taken by the House in years! 

And thank the Lord that creepy, Chris Bryant MP, who once photographed himself posing in his underpants for a 'gay' magazine, failed to get the job.  Even so, he still managed to raise 213 votes which indicates the average intelligence, not to say, the peculiar 'taste' of many of our often less than 'Honourable Members'!

 

A fascinating question for my 'Yankee-doodle' friends

Needless to say, it is one of those irritating 'ifs, buts and maybes' questions which could keep us all arguing for hours.  However, don't blame me, instead blame Mr. Rich Lowry at the National Review and the question rests in the title to his piece, "Would America Be the Same If It Had Been Settled by Russians or Spaniards?"

He answers it later in his article with this rather witty sentence with my emphasis:

At the beginning, this was a country not necessarily for Englishmen but by Englishmen, including their notions of liberty, which defined the American experience from the outset.

Spot on, methinks, and it leads to the greatest attribute we have donated, unthinkingly, to our American 'cousins' - the English language.  With it, of course, came instant access to a wholly different set of political and philosophical thoughts far removed from the European style.  He continues:

Tocqueville famously wrote that the American was the Englishman left alone. If the eastern seaboard had been settled by Spaniards, you could have “left them alone” for a very long time and marinated them in all the Enlightenment philosophers, and they still never would have come up with the American founding.

Of course, I am not suggesting that we Brits 'built the house', so to speak, but I think we laid out the American foundations and for that alone we can claim some mitigation for our ghastly and bloody history!

 

 

Your Monday Funnies: 4.11.19

Here I am again, slaving away in the joke mine to start your week with a laugh  a giggle a snort of derision - whatever!

 

A rather frustrated woman went to the supermarket to try to take her mind off her overly erotic thoughts.

As she moved through the aisles she saw bananas and apples and so many things that made her recall rather than forget her erotic mood. She ended up buying far more than she needed.

When she arrived at the checkout there was a young man packing bags. As he packed her bags his muscles gleamed under the fluorescent lights and she could make out the contours of his fit body under his tight T-shirt and trousers. She could hardly control herself.

After she paid she asked the young man if he could help her to her car with her many heavy bags of groceries.

The young man willingly obliged.

She placed her hand on the young man’s bum and said “I have an itchy Pussy”.

To which the young man replied,” You’ll have to show me where it is because all these Japanese cars look the same to me.”

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

Medicare Help-Desk:

The phone rings and the lady of the house answers, "Hello."

"Mrs. Sanders, please."

"Speaking."

"Mrs. Sanders, this is Doctor Jones at Saint Agnes Laboratory. When your husband's doctor sent his biopsy to the lab last week, a biopsy from another Mr. Sanders arrived as well.. We are now uncertain which one belongs to your husband. Frankly, either way the results are not too good."

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Sanders asks nervously.

"Well, one of the specimens tested positive for Alzheimer's and the other tested positive for HIV. We can't tell which is which."

"That's dreadful ! Can you do the test again ?" questioned Mrs. Sanders.

"Normally we can, but MEDICARE will only pay for these expensive tests once."

"Well, what am I supposed to do now ?"

"The MEDICARE Help-desk recommends that you drop your husband off somewhere in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don't sleep with him.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

Seamus went into the confessional box after many years of being away from the Catholic Church.

Inside he found a fully equipped bar with Guinness on tap. On one wall, there was a row of decanters with fine Irish whiskey and Waterford crystal glasses. On the other wall was a dazzling array of the finest cigars and chocolates.

When the priest came in, Seamus said to him, "Father, forgive me, for it's been a very long time since I've been to confession, but I must first admit that the confessional box is much more inviting than it used to be."

He replied, "You moron, you're on my side."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

A lady about 8 months pregnant got on a bus.
She noticed the man opposite her was smiling at her.
She immediately moved to another seat.
This time the smile turned into a grin, so she moved again.
The man seemed more amused.
When on the fourth move, the man burst out laughing,
she complained to the driver and he had the man arrested.

The case came up in court. `

The judge asked the man (about 20 years old)
what he had to say for himself.

The man replied,
'Well your Honour, it was like this:
when the lady got on the bus, I couldn't help but notice her condition.
She sat down under a sign that said, 'The Double Mint Twins are coming' and I grinned.

Then she moved and sat under a sign that said, 'Logan's Liniment will reduce the swelling,' and I had to smile.

Then she placed herself under a deodorant sign that said,
'William's Big Stick Did the Trick,' and I could hardly contain myself.
but, Your Honour, when she moved the fourth time and sat under a sign that said, 'Goodyear Rubber could have prevented this Accident!'
... I just lost it.'

'CASE DISMISSED!!'

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 3.11.19

Feeling cheerful this Sunday morning, are you?   Well, I'll soon put a stop to that!  Or to be precise, Mr. Peter Hitchens, will!  He has a terrific article in The Mail today in which he looks back over his political travails during the numerous general elections  from the early '70s until today in which he was either a participant or just another voter.  All the old names resurface, Michael Foot, Harold MacMillan, Ted Heath, Jeremy Thorpe and so on and on, ad nauseum, although, oddly, he never mentions "that woman"!  It has obviously been a long and painful journey for poor Peter because he looks back on it, and into the future, with undoubted anguish.  But of course, his real problem is that he is now and has been since his early teen-age years, an idealist which is why he began his political journey with the Labour party.  Alas, idealists of all persuasions are doomed to disappointment because this messy world just doesn't behave like that!  Even so, it is a superb and in some ways moving essay and well worth reading.

 

Do get a grip, Mr. President!   Alas, after reading Mr. John R. Bradley's piece in this week's 'Speccie', I fear that the 'Ginger Ninjah' has adopted an odd anthem to lead his Middle East policy - "In-out, in-out, wave it all about!"  A few days ago we - er, well, me, at any rate - were breathing a sigh of relief following 'The Donald's' decision to withdraw American ground troops from the Middle East.  Since then, the American Generals have ordered their Military Police to give him a whacking with their 'yuuuuuuuge' truncheons and in this they have been aided and abetted by the Evangelical vote which will be crucial at the next election.  Then there are the neo-cons led by the likes of Sen. Lindsey Graham whose support will be critical if this fatuous impeachment goes much further.  The result is that now 'the GIs ain't goin' nowhere no how'.  Please, pretty please, Mr. President do try and engage the brain before opening your mouth - and in the meantime have your twitter finger amputated!

 

Dammit, that Max Hastings is good!   Yes, I have finally begun his book "Chastise", his history of the famous dam-busters raid in 1944.  I was somewhat surprised to learn that it took place on the night of the 16th of May and the early morning of the 17th which, of course, as y'all do know, do you not?, was my 4th birthday!  I am only into it in a small way but already Sir Max has dropped some 500lb bombs on that bumptious fool, Air Marshal 'Bomber' Harris, which is excellent.  Even based on the opening chapters I can thoroughly recommend it.

 

Good News and Dribbling Idiocy:   Thanks to today's Mail I learn two things.  First, the police are to be given the power to arrest (so-called) gypsies if they set up their squalid camps illegally on private or public land.  Second, audiences at theatres will no longer hear the phrase "Ladies and Gentlemen" which has been banned for the usual eye-ball rolling idiocy perpetrated by the 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz' pressure group. (Note: I have put all the letters into their title to ensure that I don't leave one out!

 

When it comes to the horror of black slavery, check out Arab-Islam!   A fascinating, 'MUST READ' article at The American Thinker site in which the little known, or at least, the little mentioned, facts of Arabic slavery in Africa, which far exceeds anything we wicked, Western Whites ever did, is exposed.  Nowadays, of course, much of black Africa has converted to Islam so we are unlikely to see any recriminations from there!

 

No more rumbles  . . .

 

 

Why should I feel sorry for 'Seth Efrica' when they just beat us at rugby?

True, of course, but no matter, I have a liking for the place and the people even as I weep over their prospects.  Some time back I determined to study African affairs more closely and I even opened up a new heading, "Africa", in my 'Category' list to cater for my stream of, er, erudite commentary.  Alas, it has barely amounted to a stream, more like a trickle.  Of course, Africa is a truly 'yuuuuuuuuge' continent so I expected to have plenty to say on its affairs but, alas and alack, it is in fact just one tedious 'black' story of never-ending crime and corruption.

Even so, a nation like South Africa which had a well-endowed and relatively sophisticated system of governence and business should have powered ahead.  Instead, it has become yet another Black-run racket roiled in corruption.  As per my post immediately below, their politicians, Black or White, rule for far too long.  Thus are the sins of their political Fathers visited upon their current and future crop of leaders.  South Africa is (sort of) blessed by their mining industry which produces precious metals much desired by the rest of the world.  But to the north of them there is much less in the way of inherent riches and so, one by one, they descend into dictatorship and poverty.

What can one do?  Nothing except weep!

 

 

What actually makes a politician 'Great'?

I am provoked to this meaningless meandering by a small story somewhere in the three tons of newsprint I collect on a Saturday morning concerning a small American airbase which was permitted to set up in the Ukraine during WWII.  Needless to say, it didn't last very long before Stalin and his apparatchiks froze it out despite its useful contribution to the war effort.  It served to remind me that Stalin was, perhaps, one of the greatest, all-time dimwits in history - and there are plenty of contenders for that over-crowded dais.  Apart from dragging his country almost back to the stone-age prior to the war, he had 'his silly trousers taken down' by an even bigger idiot, Adolf Hitler.  Takes one to spot one, I suppose!

The list, of course, is endless.  Skipping past the woeful Kaiser Wilhem II, one thinks of that jumped-up, little, Corsican thug, Napoleon Bonaparte.  Yet another twerp who thought that he could ride on to never-ending glory on the backs of his long-suffering army - and the impoverished peoples of Europe!  Ask what all these political 'plonkers' share and the answer is obvious - political systems that permit endless rule!  Yes, democracy is messy and untidy and throws up an enormous stream of inedequates but, and this is the crucial point, none of them can rule for ever!  Thus, is the damage that they cause limited in its scope.  We, 'The Peeps', still suffer extreme irritation but, glancing at the history of Russia or Germany or today just about anywhere in South America or Africa, we must fall to our knees and praise our stumble-bum predecessors who didn't so much invent democracy, as nail it together with a few old political planks!

Mind you, that doesn't mean we can ignore the possibility that even as I write, some swivel-eyed loon is planning to rule the world!  I am provoked to this tedious ramble by a minor disagreement I had with an old friend who suggested to me that 'Vlad the Impaler' was, from a Russian point of view, a wise, shrewd leader.  Not so, I disagreed, the wretched, jumped-up, little squit is stupid beyond measure.  Yes, he can prance and preen around various parts of the world but mostly they are parts that anyone else with more than three brain cells would avoid like the plague.  In the meantime his own country, over-loaded to the limits of its financial ability with ferociously expensive and mostly useless armaments, sinks back down to the Stalin era of yesteryear.  What's the Russian for 'totally useless egotist'?

Perhaps our collection of plonkers aren't that bad after all!

 

 

And it's, hey-ho and off to the election races!

Of course, my world-wide audience will be looking to me for a forecast of the outcome and, naturally, I have no hesitation in telling 'y'all' that, er, um, on the one hand but then again on the other, maybe or even possibly, perhaps with a following wind the result is a foregone toss-up!  You see, that's the sort of razor-sharp political analysis you can expect from this blog - and I heard that!

I think it is safe to say that the Conservatives will win the most votes but whether it will be sufficient to form a government is another question entirely.  I am fairly confident that the labour vote will be decimated but then the question becomes qui prodesse? - who benefits?  As usual when I am uncertain I like to introduce a bit of Latin to, er, 'add lustre to my cluster'!  Some of the fleeing Labour voters will be what I call 'softie Lefties' and may well go to the 'il-Lib-non-Dems', and the harder, pro-Brexit Lefties may well go to the Brexit party.  Happily, the Tories have one attraction for many of the, er, 'workers' in that Boris is an eccentric toff and many of them have a soft spot for that sort of character.

I have no idea what Boris's so-called deal with the EU is all about.  The fact that it is a deal at all fills me with dread because it means that we have given much away.  My preference was, is and remains - No Deal!  Just walk away and let those damned "events, dear boy, events!" take over.  Currently, my MP is the Tory,  David Warburton who strikes me as an eminently sensible man as well as an exceedingly interesting man.  He is a musician at heart but is also happy to start and to run businesses and make some 'moolah' which is always an indication that he is well and truly grounded.  Above all, he did not follow those "dirty rats" in the Tory party who bent every scruple in their miserable bodies to bring down Brexit.

Of course, it goes without saying that where I lead others will follow!

 

 

Casualty list #4: Nicki Morgan

Alas, I cannot offer up any specific charges against this woman because she always strikes me as totally vague and utterly useless.  Also, and I realise this not her fault, she looks totally dim and vacuous and permanently startled:

I have wracked what passes for my memory but I cannot think of a single useful contribution she has made to our country.  The fact that she is retiring because so many of those nasty 'Peeps' have been rude to her on the internet tells you how utterly pathetic she is.  To misquote - sorry, Bill! - "Nothing so became her as her leaving"

 

Casualty list #3: Amber Rudd

Couldn't happen to a bigger double-crossing traitor who appears to change what passes for her mind and her loyalty with her underwear!

And apparently her brother who played a big role in the 'Remain' campaign has also suffered some heavy setbacks.  My cup over floweth!

 

 

The casualty list #2: John Bercow

The malignant monkey is finished!  Now it only requires our PM to deny the little squirt the honours he drools for and which, in his blind stupidity, he thinks he deserves.

In my lifetime I have observed a procession of mentally-retarded Parliamentary 'actors' but none of them ever descended to the depths of this jumped-up poltroon.  I can only hope and even pray that the House takes more care in selecting a replacement.  Well, a man may hope, may he not?

 

 

The casualty list #1: Ms. Anna Soubry

This is the beginning of a running list of joyful farewells to sundry ghastly and mostly useless MPs who are already 'walking dead' in the Halls of Westminster.

 

Or, as I think of her, Ms. Anna 'Sour Brie'!  Never no more will I have to put up with seeing her scowling face on my TV and her hectoring, bossy voice scratching at my ear drums!  I gather from Wiki that she has been married twice and is currently in a third relationship.  Where she finds these blind, deaf men I do not know!

 

 

Yet another reason to keep your 'kiddie-winkies' out of university

I provided you all with one example of University greed and moral corruption two posts below this.  Today, courtesy of 'Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph', I can offer you another reason to avoid these so-called 'centres of learning' - their utter stupidity!  Appropriately, this example concerns 'SoD's' alma mater, Bristol University.  Apparently they have hired, no doubt at considerable expense, a "slavery history professor" - yeeeeeeeeees, quite! - to investigate the links to slavery of the city of Bristol and Bristol University, itself.

Professor Judith Squires, Bristol University’s provost and deputy vice-Chancellor said: “As an institution founded in 1909, we are not a direct beneficiary of the slave trade, but we fully acknowledge that we financially benefited indirectly via philanthropic support from families who had made money from businesses involved in the transatlantic slave trade.

I can only wonder how that weak, dim, dumb lady actually managed to pass her 11+ exam let alone rise to the rank of Provost.  She may have a multitude of letters after her name attesting to her enormous learning but what a pity she lacks basic commonsense and the guts to stand by it!  Should you wonder why our once vigorous nation has crumpled into utter stupidity, look no further than the centre of higher (so-called) 'edukashun'!

 

 

Kanye West, er, well, what can one say . . .

You must forgive my hesitation and confusion but I have only just 'met' Mr. Kanye West, a black man who is, so I am informed by Wiki, "an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and fashion designer".  You will understand my hesitation because of my almost total ignorance of all those occupations.  Mr. West is married to Ms. Kim Kardashian, again, not a lady I am familiar with although I understand she is exceptionally beautiful and very, er,  voluptuous.  They have been married for five years and have produced four children.

Already in that potted history you can begin to see some, er, well, eccentricities, shall we call them?  Two mega-rich members of the 'show business' fraternity, both black, both moving constantly in a star-blazed firmament never far from constant publicity and yet … and yet … he is a self-proclaimed and practicing Christian!  Mr. Andrew T. Walker informs us via the excellent offices of The National Review that:

[T]he news of the release of Kanye West’s newest album, Jesus Is King. It comes after months of news stories about West’s very public conversion to Christianity, a Christianity that bears no resemblance to the vague spiritualism of Moral Therapeutic Deism that is often associated with celebrity conversions.

The lyrics to each song in Jesus Is King are shockingly Christian. It is not an album of feel-good Christian spirituality aimed primarily as a message of uplift. West co-wrote and sang the hit “Jesus Walks” on his debut album The College Dropout (2004), but Jesus Is King is different. Throughout the whole of the new album, West is in many respects deeply critical of modernity and cultural progressivism. There are calls for a focus more on the family than on individual glory. He seems to applaud Chick-fil-A, which in our age is tantamount to endorsing bigotry. Social-media obsession should be exchanged for family prayer. Fatherhood is characterized as a virtue. Materialism is pilloried. Calls for worshiping Christ redound to such effect that West’s first Christian album is arguably more Christian than what most contemporary Christian artists could similarly muster.

Well, 'HOODATHUNKIT'? 

Obviously, Mr. West is a man capable of thinking for himself and thinking outside the glitzy box in which he spends so much of his life.  I wish him well along with his gorgeous wife and children.  He will be sorely tested but, hey, that's the fate of all true Christians.  In the meantime, I, too, can only pray that I get through the rest of my life without hearing his music because I fear I would not enjoy it!

 

 

A University finally learns a lesson!

Many years ago I was tremendously keen for 'SoD' (er, that's 'Son of Duff' if you are a new reader of this distinguished blog!) to go to a University to complete his 'edukashun'.  Part of my enthusiasm on his behalf was because his chosen subject was 'computerology', you know, all those whizzy-do-thingies that drive us all mad these days!  Had he intended to study a non-technological subject, like History or Literature, I doubt I would have been so enthusiastic.  To my non-University mind these former, er, 'Halls of Learning' have descended to the depths of pig-ignorance and corruption!

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in an article at The Coffee House featuring events at the Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) - and no, me neither!  Apparently it has several distinguished alumni including a certain, Junius Ho, currently a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.

According to Luke de Pulford at The Coffee House:

The folk at ARU seemed to like Ho. In fact they liked him so much that they gave him an honorary doctorate in 2011. The fawning description of Ho on the ARU website says they are ‘proud to follow his continuing evolution.’

Indeed, they were so proud that they granted this mega-rich 'Hong-Konger' an Honoury Degree in 2011.  Alas and alack, since then, 'oh what a falling off was there!'  Here are some of Mr. Ho's pronouncements:

In 2017 Ho called for protestors to be ‘killed mercilessly’. It’s not a big deal to kill ‘pigs and dogs’ he reasoned. In July this year he circulated photos of Westerners at protests, and implied they were foreign intelligence agents. This month he said that fellow legislator Claudia Mo was ‘habitually eating foreign sausage’, referring to her English husband.

Ho issued what was widely perceived to be a death threat live on air to another legislator, Eddie Chu. He regularly calls protestors ‘cockroaches’. When the Legislative Council of Hong Kong was debating same sex marriage, Ho objected and argued that it could lead to permitting bestiality.

All very nasty but, of course, to the ARU management Mr. Ho was the means by which zillions of 'moolah' could be diverted from Chinese government sources into their coffers.  Thus it has taken a considerable time for them to pluck up such moral courage as they possess and revoke all connections to this detestable Chinese thug and his Peking puppet-masters!

 

 

 

Will she? Won't she?

An interesting - er, well, only if politics is your 'thang' - article by the indefatigable Mr. Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker in which he discusses the 'Will she? Won't she?' riddle of whether 'HillBilly' will launch a try for the Presidency.  At present she is playing coy, she won't say yes and she won't say no!  Given the paucity of talent amongst the crowd of not so much 'has beens' as more, the 'never wases' and the 'never will bes', she must be straining at the leash, after all, dammit, she is entitled to the job!  According to Mr. Lifson, she is simply waiting for 'good ol' Joe' to admit that he's past it and and that, really 'n' truly he'd prefer his old rocking chair!

As y'all do know, I make no pretence of understanding American politics but the current crop of no-hopers, nut-cases, juveniles and infants lining up to, er, tempt the American public is the worst, most ignorant and useless collection of political ignoramuses that I can recall.  True, Donald Trump isn't exactly 'Brain of America' but at least he is ultra-patriotic in that "Make America Great Again!" way of his and my gut feeling is that most Americans are also intensely patriotic.  'HillBilly', of course, comes with a train-load of faults and weaknesses and errors of judgment, some of them perilously close to propelling her into a Federal court.  And hanging over her disreputable head is the memory of her infamous words after four American diplomats were murdered on her watch, "At this point what does it matter?"

If there is any justice 'over there', those words should eventually be carved onto her grave stone!

 

Calm down, Mr. President, there's plenty more where Baghdadi came from!

No-one who isn't a member of ISIS would begrudge 'The Donald' his moment of triumph even if it was earned on the backs of some exceedingly brave and skilful soldiers.  However, too much triumphalism, too early, could bite back because there are probably a score of 'Nasty Hairies' already plotting their way to replace the late Mr. Baghdadi and a chance to 'earn' their own reputations - and their revenge!  Even so, this is the very best way to fight this particular campaign.  No need for Divisions of troops spread across a hostile land and providing endless targets for the 'Hairies' to aim at.  Instead, use the very best intelligence-gathering devices and specialist troops to seek out the individual targets - and then make it deadly and personal!

Well done, Mr. President!  I'm not sure how much input you had in this tricky operation but if it had gone 'tits up' you would certainly have been in receipt of several tons of brown stuff!  So, enjoy your moment of triumph - but don't over-do it.  Your enemies in the Democrat party and the 'meeja' will be quietly sharpening their knives and waiting their chance- a bit like the 'Hairies', really!

 

 

Your Monday Funnies: 28.10.19

A vintage collection and all in the worst possible taste!

I got invited to a party and was told to dress to kill. Apparently a turban, beard and a backpack wasn't what they had in mind.

After a night of drink, drugs and wild sex, Jim woke up to find himself next to a really ugly woman.  That's when he realized he had made it home safely. 

Seven wheelchair athletes have been banned from the Paralympics after they tested positive for WD40.

ITS A BOY" I shouted "A BOY, I DON'T BELIEVE IT, ITS A BOY". And with tears streaming down my face I swore I'd never visit another Thai Brothel!

In the first few days of the Olympics the Romanians took gold, silver, bronze, copper & lead. 

Sailing results are in, GB took gold, USA took silver and Somalia took a Middle aged couple from Weymouth


A boy asks his granny, 'Have you seen my pills, they were labeled LSD?' Granny replies, f**k the pills, have you seen the dragons in the kitchen?

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

A golfer was involved in a terrible car crash and was rushed to the
hospital. Just before he was put under, the surgeon popped in to see him.

"I have some good news and some bad news," says the surgeon. "The bad news is that I have to remove your right arm!"

"Oh God no!" cries the man "My golfing is over!

Please Doc, what's the good news?"

"The good news is, I have another one to replace it with, but it's a
woman's arm and I'll need your permission before I go ahead with the
transplant."

"Go for it doc," says the man, "as long as I can play golf again."

The operation went well and a year later the man was out on the golf course when he bumped into the surgeon.

"Hi, how's the new arm?" asks the surgeon. "Just great," says the
businessman. "I'm playing the best golf of my life. My new arm has a much finer touch and my putting has really improved."

"That's great," said the surgeon.

"Not only that," continued the golfer, "my handwriting has improved, I've learned how to sew my own clothes and I've even taken up painting landscapes in watercolors."

"That's unbelievable!" said the surgeon, "I'm so glad to hear the
transplant was such a great success. Are you having any side effects?"

"Well, just two, said the golfer, "I have trouble parallel parking and every time I get an erection, I get a headache."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

An elderly man, looking about 100 years old, and on a Moped, pulls up next to a doctor at a street light.

The old man looks over at the sleek shiny car and asks, 'What kind of car ya got there, sonny?'

The doctor replies, 'A Ferrari GTO. It cost half a million dollars'

'That's a lot of money,' says the old man. 'Why does it cost so much?

'Because this car can do up to 320 kilometres an hour!' states the
doctor proudly.

The Moped driver asks, 'Mind if I take a look inside?'

'No problem,' replies the doctor.

So the old man pokes his head in the window and looks around. Then, sitting back on his Moped, the old man says, 'That's a pretty nice car, all right.. But I'll stick with my Moped!'

Just then the light changes, so the doctor decides to show the old man just what his car can do. He floors it, and within 30 seconds the speedometer reads 160 kph.  Suddenly, he notices a dot in his rear view mirror. It seems to be getting closer. He slows down to see what it could be and suddenly WHOOOOSSSHHH something whips by him going much faster!

'What on earth could be going faster than my Ferrari?' the doctor asks himself.  He presses harder on the accelerator and takes the Ferrari up to 250 kph.

Then, up ahead of him, he sees that it's the old man on the Moped! Amazed that the Moped could pass his Ferrari, he gives it more gas and passes the Moped at 275 kph. He's feeling pretty good until he looks in his mirror and sees the old man gaining on him AGAIN! Astounded by the speed of this old guy, he floors the gas pedal and takes the Ferrari all the way up to 320 kph. Not ten seconds later, he sees the Moped bearing down on him again!
The Ferrari is flat out, and there's nothing he can do!

Suddenly, the Moped ploughs into the back of his Ferrari, demolishing the rear end. The doctor stops and jumps out and, unbelievably, the old man is still alive.

He runs up to the banged-up old guy and says, 'I'm a doctor.... Is there anything I can do for you?'

The old man whispers, 'Unhook my f***ing braces from your side mirror'!

 

That's your lot - have a nice day!

 

Janet Daley, as usual, says it for me - and infinitely more intelligently

Sorry again for my 'hissy-fit' but don't these computer-thingies drive you mad when they go wrong?  It's alright for those 'whizzy-do' experts, like 'SoD', who actually understand how they work but for 80-year old grumps like me they remain the usual mix of riddle, mystery and enigma.  Anyway, I have watched an episode of "Morse" and have now calmed down.

On return, I read today's column by Janet Daley in The Telegraph which is laser-like in its accuracy.  

"It is generally the case that when the state of the country demands a general election it is because we need a new government. This time it is because we need a new opposition."

Absolutely spot on although I would strongly suggest that in addition the Government ranks could do with a clean out.  What a squalid bunch of treacherous double-dealers many of them are!  As for Her Majesty's (dis)Loyal Opposition, I don't think I have ever seen such a hopeless, hapless collection of utter deadbeats!

How can it be that while all the opposition parties excoriate the sitting prime minister (even after he has succeeded in the most monumental and supposedly impossible task set before him, the result of which they have approved) they are unanimously opposed to permitting him to be removed from office, at least without impossible conditions? Or, to put it more simply, they are united in their refusal to give the electorate any role in their private game.

Note to all opposition politicians: nobody in the real world now believes (if, indeed they ever did) your excuses about fearing a “no deal” exit, or needing more time to scrutinise a Withdrawal Agreement most of which has already been, in its earlier incarnation, scrutinised to exhaustion. As this column has observed before, the people are not fooled.

No, we definitely are not!  This lot are clinging to their Parliamentary places because they know 'The Peeps' are poised with an electoral axe which will see the end of their perks and privileges.  They really are the dregs:

But the need to replace the opposition is not just because of the insoluble Brexit stalemate. We have reached a historic milestone of a different order. I cannot recall a time – in nearly half a century of observing British politics – when the quality, professionalism and intellectual performance of opposition MPs has been as grotesquely inadequate as it is now. [My emphasis]

Just think Jeremy Corbyn, Ian Blackford, Jo Swinson and … well the list goes on.  Oliver Cromwell put it better than anyone:

"You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

HEAR, HEAR!

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 27.10.19

CANCELLED - Sorry, sorry, sorry but I tried to copy and paste something and it completely buggered up my screen and now I am in such a 'grump mood' that I can't be bothered to scribble anything more!

See you tomorrow!

 

Australia! Make this man your Prime Minister!

I refer, of course, to Mr. Craig Kelly (and no, hitherto, me neither!) who is a Member of your House of Representatives.  This exceedingly diligent and sharp-eyed fella' has just caught out your tax-payer funded 'Greenie collective', aka: Bureau of Meteorology in outright lies.  According to the ever diligent Mr. Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker this 'collective of lying liars' have been

. . . altering graphs showing the number of very hot days so as to obscure the fact that 1952 had more of them than recent years and adding a newly "discovered" hot day to a more recent year to make it appear that they are increasing.

 

 

But, hey, with a few adroit clicks on their 'lying-liar, do-flicker-thingie', they changed the story to fit their own agit-prop:

 

 

I would suggest to my Aussie friends that they now raise the temperature at their 'Bureau of Make-it-up-as-you-go Meteorology' by burning it to the ground!

NOTE:  Don't worry, your usual Sunday Rumble will follow when I have had some 'brekkers' and sorted out all these bloody clocks which seem to have gone wrong overnight! 

 

 

 

Oh no, say it ain't so!

Just picked up a worrying report - from America, 'natch'! - that the Barclay family are considering selling 'Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph'!  Happily, The Spectator is not included in the mooted deal.  Also, even more happily, none of the 'Usual Suspects' from the Left-wing, loony fringe have enough money to run their own failing newspapers let alone buy up another one so the chances of 'The Graun' buying it up are miniscule.  Apparently, The Mail might be up for it and at least they are well to the Right under the splendid leadership of Lord Rothermere - so far!  Perhaps, and this could be even worse news, some Russian crook oligarch with a Swiss bank full of stolen 'dosh' might fancy his chances!  Life may not be the same!

 

 

As always that damned Charles Moore says it before me!

Like persistent indigestion, my increasing irritation with that 'Mr. Nice Guy' icon of global warming-'wankering', David Attenborough, simply will not go away.  In fact, it mounts higher and higher as his, er, 'saintly', white-haired mug appears constantly in the 'meeja'.  I was just waiting for him to issue yet another 'Pte. Frazer' style warning to the effect that "We're all doomed, I tell ye, doomed" and that would have 'set me off on one' but in steps Mr. Moore and does the job for me - well, I have been a subscriber to The Spectator for decades so he owes me one!

In a post at The Coffee House entitled "Why I'm fed up with David Attenborough", he says:

There is now a small but growing number of people, myself included, who are fed up with [him]. His early days were wonderful — he was an adventurous zoological and ethnographic broadcaster and then a great controller (the first) of BBC2. But in recent times his role as a National — even Global — Treasure has gone to his head.

Mr. Moore suggests that instead of the constant bad-mouthing of humanity there should be far more extolling of the wonders we have created:

Today’s equivalent would show us the wonders of scientific discovery, industrial development, engineering, computing, AI, markets, trade, supply chains, medicine, transport, media, languages, nature conservation — the millions of things that human beings, and only human beings, can do for the planet they inhabit.  [My emphasis]

Damned right - and I'm fed up with being nagged!

 

 

Will American civil war help us through the coming long Winter evenings

There is now absolutely no doubt that Donald Trump is, er, well, Donald Trump!  Sorry, sorry for not being more specific but really, when you think on't, the words 'Donald Trump' do not merely signify a particular man but a 'yuuuuuuge' conglomeration of characteristics, many, or even most, of which contradict each other.  He is, I suspect, not a man much in touch with himself, let alone reality.  Rather, what he 'sees' as himself is simply a galaxy of constantly changing images which are 'clicked up' to suit any given situation.

Now, due entirely to his own error of judgment, he finds himself toe to toe with another bumptious know-it-all who, alas, appears not to know very much.  I refer to 'Bristly' Bolton, 'el presidente's' former National Security Advisor.  To be honest, I cannot recall exactly how long 'Bristly' held the job but blink and you'd miss him!  Both men 'knew' each other, or at least, like everyone else with an interest in world affairs, they must have known, or at least guessed, each other's characteristics.  A failure on either man's part to do this indicates that neither is suitable for their roles at the highest level of their nation's affairs.

If the 'romance' between them was disastrous, then the 'divorce' was, is and will be, catastrophic.  'Bristly' Bolton is determined on revenge and has now thrown in his lot with the Democratic 'Witchfinder Generals' and my guess is that he will have several tons of offal to tip on 'el Presidente's' head to assist in his intended impeachment.  What else can one say of President Donald Trump other than 'sucker!'

 

 

 

You think Brexit is complicated? Try impeachment!

So, in, er, "the Land of the Free" the dreaded 'Peeps' voted in a Republican eccentric rather than a Democratic crook.  So far, so normal!  However, the losers, not content to heal their wounds and build their strength in order to fight a better contest with a better candidate (not too difficult given the nature of the last one!), they have wasted 'yuuuuuuuge' amounts of time and energy and such miniscule amounts of intelligence that they possess, in trying every damn trick in the book to undo an election, including, SECRET hearings to plot the impeachment of the sitting President despite the fact that he is due to face the 'Peeps' again in a year!

Secret hearings - how very, er, Russian!  Yesterday, the cabal was invaded by Republican Congressmen determined to find out what the Democrats were plotting.  Who can blame them, after all this is supposed to be the home of democracy where leaders are changed by due process.  I am not too sure about the common-sense, let alone the intellectual ability, of President Trump but it seems to me that the Democratic party has fallen to a clique of screechy, stupid 'wimmin', er, some of whom are men! We can go bonkers 'over here' because it doesn't actually matter all that much but you are the leader of the free world!

Get a grip, America!  

 

 

"Per ardua ad astra"

The motto of the Royal Air Force seemed the only proper heading to this post which follows my attendance this evening at a talk given by Sir Max Hastings, author of "Chastise", the title of his just published history of the Dambusters' raid in 1943.  Needless to say it was a polished 'performance' from a man who had obviously studied the subject in detail.  Like most wartime operations it was a mix of 'rights' and 'wrongs', successes and failures, and the inevitable outcome was a huge loss of life - but, hell, that's war!

First and foremost was the sheer skill and courage of the airman concerned who, in effect, had to fly their massive bombers almost as though they were fighters.  Imagine, flying your aircraft, at night, straight and true and at a steady speed at a mere 60' above the ground against AA defences mounted round the targeted dams.  Then there was the inventive brilliance of Barnes Wallis, the engineer/scientist who invented the 'bouncing bomb' which was required to ensure the explosion, when it occurred, was hard up against the structure of the dam.

Most British people know the story, not least courtesy of the famous film "The Dam Busters".  As Sir Max made clear in his talk, the operation and the characters who took part in it were multi-layered.  Needless to say, one man's reputation was not exactly enhanced by the story - Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris who should, perhaps, have been used as a 'bouncing bomb' himself!  Sir Max made light of his problem in trying not to overly repeat the name of Guy Gibson's pet, black dog - "Nigger"!  It gives me no problems because at exactly that same time, the family I was evacuated to had a pet, black dog called "Nigger".  Also, on a personal note, I hadn't realised that the raid took place on my 4th birthday!

Anyway, I have bought a signed copy of the book which I will try and read without damaging it so that I can give it to 'SoD' at Christmas - or throw it at him if he irritates me!