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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Gott in himmel, they're starting up on the Congress 'insurrection' again. Any time liberals catch illiberals bang to rights they milk it for all its worth. And then some. And then some. It's still just a bunch of twats making whoopee, America.
And don't go on about the cop dying. You'll know all about it if there's a real insurrection. Like a civil war or something. Hundreds of thousands die then.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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I remember the "coup d'etat" we suffered in 2019 when BJ prorogued parliament. It was total hell around here for over a week. We couldnt get any ultra quilted toilet paper, because so many liberals were shitting themselves.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I may use that over on medium.com. (Except they haven't heard of BJ. Or GB for that matter.) Tell me about this ultra quilted toilet paper. I'm intrigued. Is it a Jubilee commemoration thing?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The more I watch Al-Jazeera's nightly news, the more glad I am to live in the good old UK. Just today I hear
1. France decides to elect a parliament that can do nothing except make sure the government can do nothing
2. Columbia elects an ex-Farq leftie and will be the new Venezuela any time soon
3. Israel dissolves its parliament for the fourth time in three years in order to elect an identical parliament
4. South Africa has a president elected on an anti-corruption ticket who ordered the presidential guard to roust out some thieves who had robbed the president's farm and found three million pounds stuffed into cushions. Not to give back the three million pounds (which they wisely hadn't touched) but to promise not to mention the three million pounds.
It's true when I switch over to Channel Four News I am greeted with rail strikes but somehow it's all just small change. And even smaller change: there is no rail strike. Word has gone out to Labour spokespersons: do not use the words 'rail strike', it is a 'rail dispute'.
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Grant
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Except our government spent 29 billion pounds on test and trace. How much of that was siphoned off by our own lefties, and righties and those in the middle
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Try to understand, Grant. Three million pounds is corruption. Twenty nine billion pounds is exigent circumstance.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I still don't understand the cushion angle.
"More tea, vicar?"
"Yes, please. I do like your cushions. It doesn't feel like foam rubber."
"We'll be needing cash on this one, prez."
"Mbange, fetch the Stanley knife."
"Corruption squad, your excellency, annual check-up."
"Nobody's above the law. Make it thorough, no sitting down on the job."
"What we need is a court jester."
"I understand Mick Harper has just finished his latest book and is looking for his next gig."
"Yes, so I've heard. Mbange, the Stanley knife."
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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"What the hell is going on around here" "Doesn't anybody know" "Get me the Industrial Correspondent"
"Err, I think Stenton has agreed to take on it"
"What the fuck does Stenton know about it?" "I want our Industrial Relations Correspondent"
"Err, I am really sorry, we haven't had one of those since Thatcher did for the Unions. Stenton from the InStyle Magazine is keen as mustard and he does have a sociology degree"
"Are you serious, Stenton's last was on "How metro is your hairstyle" and that fucking RMT guy, who is holding the country to fucking ransom, is fucking bald"
"So are you"
"Are you calling me fucking bald?"
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The Al-Jazeera seven o'clock news is a great corrective. They appear to have correspondents in all 202 countries in the world and every day several of them are reporting the country on their beat is in crisis as the populace demand the government does a list of things no government can deliver and start causing general mayhem and riot to make sure it's even harder in future.
But they have most correspondents in Britain -- it's where English-language Al-Jazeera is HQ'd -- and the one country in the world that just moans about it.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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We move around England, meeting dairy farmers crushed by the low price supermarkets pay for milk The Guardian |
Can anyone spot the error in this sentence?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Good tries all, but no, it should read
We move around England, meeting dairy farmers crushed by the low price of milk |
Spot the difference? It has nothing whatever to do with supermarkets. Milk is an increasingly internationally-traded commodity and it is increasingly produced by cloth-capped Holstein-Friesian workers in gynormous factories (known as 'automated milking parlours'). Hence small producers are giving up the game by the bucketload. Each time one of them does they ring up the media
"I can't make ends meet because the wholesale price of milk is below my costs of unit production."
"What do you want us to do about it?"
"Run a why-oh-why piece about supermarkets holding us to ransom."
"Wilco, the British public love that sort of thing. Don't sell the cows yet, we can have them being led away to an uncertain future as will be yours and your blubbing kiddies etc etc. We can provide them if necessary."
"Could you include a bit about supermarkets selling milk as a loss leader because, although this is irrelevant to the wholesale price of milk and actually helps us by increasing the overall demand, it vaguely feeds into the story."
"We always do."
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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With the Grenfell enquiry finishing up, I fear the worst from the final report expected next year.
The facts:
1. It was caused by cladding tower blocks with an air gap in the cladding
2. Nobody realised how dangerous this was
3. No fire brigade had ever been called on to deal with the consequent fire
Conclusion
Nobody was at fault.
Expectation
Everyone will be excoriated.
It is Hillsborough all over again.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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One good thing that has come from this worldwide spate of wildfires is that the police have stopped arresting hapless arsonists who used to be the cause of them.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Referring a bit to my last two posts, the Italians have finally put on trial the people responsible for the collapse of an Italian road bridge a few years ago. That was, if you remember, the one that uniquely tried sheathing the steel cables in 'cladding'. Though the cladding did slow down markedly the rate of erosion of the cables, what nobody knew was that it was so difficult to inspect the cables properly that eventually one of them failed catastrophically, and the bridge collapsed.
No doubt after the trial, several Italians will be spending several years pondering the errors of their ways.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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If the referendum is won, as many people believe it will, many of the freedoms so hard fought for will be lost Al-Jazeera The Listening Post |
This is Tunisia but it could have been anywhere. It was the Philippines last month. Basically, a dictator is trying to take over and Al-Jazeera doesn't like it. But the Tunisians (and the Filipinos) do, it seems. And unlike Al-Jazeera they have to live there.
Unlike Al-Jazeera they have experienced at first hand what multi-party democracy, a free media and all the other trappings of advanced societies is like in a non-advanced society, and they don't want it anymore. If only only they were free from the diktats of advanced societies. Fat chance. We're the bosses round here. What we say, goes.
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