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Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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You'll have to buy the DVD for the full story but essentially it means reversing the agricultural developments (ha!) in southern Africa. Though the Australians themselves have a lot to answer for in their insane pursuit of maximising sheep and cattle raising in areas where minimising sheep and cattle raising should be the order of the day. But, as with the American Dust Bowl of the nineteen-thirties, this is somewhat self-correcting.

One interesting feature, which you yourself are in an ideal position to explore, is whether the progressive destruction of the Great Barrier Reef may be diminishing the Eastern Effect.
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Mick Harper
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This Cyprus rape case gets weirder and weirder. A British teenager on holiday claims to have been raped by twelve Israeli men. She then retracts the claim. She gets a four month suspended instead of the expected year inside and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Although nobody can absolutely rule out the rape, the sheer unprecedentedness of twelve men doing it, and the fact that Cyprus has a reasonably well functioning police and judicial system, means it's best to get a seriously disturbed young woman (either way) off the island and back home where she can get some treatment.

One would suppose that 'the women's movement' would keep its distance since it reinforces a whole bunch of assumptions about rape allegations held routinely by non-liberal men. Not a bit of it. They are out in force -- mainly Israeli women, just to make it weirder still. Channel 4 News is part of 'the women's movement' and dear old Cathy Newman reports matters as though it is more or less self-evidently the case that the rape took place, the retraction was due to police pressure and that Cyprus is a haven for antediluvian attitudes. She doesn't know quite what to make of her Cypriot women's movement interviewee blurting out that there were only sixty-one reported rape cases in Cyprus last year and hurries things along to a chat about how awful the situation is in Britain. A great deal worse than in Cyprus, it would appear. Or Israel, I should imagine.
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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On the subject of rape... honourable mention must go to:

Reynhard Sinaga... the UK's "most prolific rapist" ever.

(I know we like record breakers at the AEL.)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50688975

From an AE perspective, the most interesting thing is how attitudes towards this case (particularly my own) are so different now, to what they would have been a couple of decades ago.

You just have to admire the audacity of the little bugger.
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Mick Harper
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I was a bit appalled by mine. Blokes! Did they care one way or the other? After all, every last one of them seemed not to care when they woke up the next morning. What's the technical side ... um ... sore anuses, that kind of thing? In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they rang him up and said, "Hey, Reynhard, whadya doing tonite? Got any more of that oblivion stuff?"
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Mick Harper
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I must apologise for my levity -- I had got the impression from the brief Channel 4 report that this was an entirely gay thing with at least some tacit consent involved. Now I have read the full BBC report, there are some disturbing parallels with the John Warboys, Black Cab Rapist case in that the perpetrator was able to get away with his crimes for so long because his victims either had no clear recollection of what had happened, had managed to convince themselves it was somehow their own fault or decided that going to the police would make it worse.

Both men operated in a mildly twilight milieu -- the Manchester gay nightlife scene, young slightly drunk women going home alone late at night -- which provides not only potential victims but potentially police scepticism. You will recall the East End gay serial killer was able to operate under broadly the same conditions. And there is one other parallel -- the Shipman case. There is absolutely no guarantee, the modus operandi being so simple and so effective, that it is not going on undetected in lots of other places.
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Mick Harper
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I didn't entirely grasp the latest Middle East peace plan but judging by previous attempts, when after a decent interval, the Israelis reluctantly accept where they've got to so far as the basis for negotiations, before getting back to expanding where they've got to so far, it means that the long term solution is for the Palestinians to live in a tunnel built for them by the international community between Israeli Gaza and the Israeli West Bank.
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Mick Harper
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Saying It Like It Is

"At the rate Israel is growing, this is the last chance for the Palestinians."
Jared Kushner, architect of the Peace Plan, interviewed on Al-Jazeera.
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Mick Harper
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UK says US Middle East Plan 'Could prove a positive step forward' Al-Jazeera ticker

One is slightly ashamed. The UK can take any line it wishes on the plan but it may not say something it cannot possibly believe to be true but says it anyway because of some pathetic need to avoid antagonising the present American administration. A dignified silence was surely not too much to ask for. I doubt that Trump would have noticed one way or the other.
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Mick Harper
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Sajid Javid has been mocked for describing the North of England as "north England".

I think this is fair comment although him being from West England makes it perhaps excusable. His mockers though have no excuse saying he should have said North of England when he was referring to Sunderland (where the cabinet meeting was being held) since the North of England is strictly reserved for Lancashire and Yorkshire (o.n.o.). The north-east can be embraced as 'the north' as in Our Friends from the North but never the north of England. Tomorrow I will explain where 'southern', as in 'southern softies', can and cannot be applied. Meanwhile, Sajid, fuck off back to where you belong, London.
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Mick Harper
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The Guardian is running a whole supplement devoted to European luminaries expressing their thoughts about Brexit. I've only browsed but I get the impression they're all unhappy about it. Why? Can't they see that Britain was a disruptive element and, for better or worse, the Euro-project is better off without her? And that is irrespective whether it's vice versa or not.

Though having said that, the EU missed a trick and will probably continue to miss a trick, by not having a good hard look at itself over Brexit. There's a reason why the various mobs are growing increasingly disenchanted with the EU and, as AE could tell them because of our No Fundamental Rules fundamental rule, it is because ever-greater-union is not a one-way street. There's more than one-way to skin twenty-seven cats.
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Grant



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It's the fear of the domino effect. If Britain thrives after leaving, others will follow.
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Mick Harper
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Agreement At Last!

After intense negotiations America and Israel have agreed that Israel can annex somebody else's territory. As far as I know this hasn't been done since Britain and France were in intense negotiations with Germany for Germany to annex Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. It's peace in our time.
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Mick Harper
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I was very surprised by the suddenness of the above. It would be usual to at least give time for the wider Middle East peace process to 'break down' before greenlighting the Israeli annexation on the grounds of Palestinian intransigence. As it is, the partners-in-crime have agreed to put it off until next month, after the Israeli elections.

All this too follows the Sudetenland model. After months of German sabre rattling and stout Czech resistance, Hitler told Britain and France (most definitely in that order) that he would invade 'immediately' (actually for technical reasons he found he had to wait a week) unless they agreed -- and pressured Czechoslovakia to agree -- to a peaceful annexation. Cue the Munich Conference where Hitler loftily agreed to a week's delay.

Even so, I'm surprised that the word 'annexation' has been used. There's no going back from that. It will be interesting to see who recognises the new facts on the ground. Some small Arab states were present at the initial announcement of the Kushner Plan so they may. There is no chance of Boris Johnson doing so, surprising as that might seem. The only question is whether he expresses British opposition out loud. I would think probably not.
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Mick Harper
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More extremist madness. Thuringia, previously part of the old East Germany, has been forced to rehold elections because the far right had been invited in to a coalition government. In Ireland both the main parties have said they will not form a coalition with Sinn Fein even though it is certain to hold the balance of power.

Permit me to remind one and all where the danger lies. Both Hitler and Mussolini steadfastly refused to enter government as junior parties in coalitions. They understood the moment they did so they would be prisoners of the moderates, their teeth would be pulled and the electorate would soon be moving on to fresher provender.

Not that I am saying either Sinn Fein or a Thuringian far right party are a danger. Though constantly demonising them generally is.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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It does seem a bit rich to expect Sinn Fein to participate in democratic politics North of the border, but expect them to be frozen out in the South. The point is you have to let them cock it up, like every other party, and also get them to accept that cocking it up and being laughed out is part of Democracy.
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