MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 
Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 65, 66, 67 ... 104, 105, 106  Next
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Why do liberals always insist on their pound of flesh? They've had their way with LBGT all across the board, everything is proceeding with great smoothness, no LBGTer is seriously incommoded anywhere in Europe. But, no, dear little Hungary wants to express some footling nostalgia for the old ways -- it's the old Clause 28 business that we went through not so long ago. Remember it? No, you probably don't because it was of nil importance apart from our own grumpy brigade wanting to express some footling nostalgia for the old days.

So, well done the EU. You will either force Hungary to bend to your will or Hungary will be stripped of some EU cash, but either way you will have created a nation who dislike everything LBGT a bit more than they did before. Why not let them catch up at their own pace? They haven't got anywhere else to go. And I don't mean staying in the EU, I mean staying out of the Great Progressive Tide. Which, speaking for myself, I'm wholly in favour of. Though unusually I'm in favour of that bit of the GPT that doesn't favour forcing people to do things they don't want to do unnecessarily. Why are liberals so illiberal?
Send private message
Boreades


In: finity and beyond
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Maybe it's the "Mussolini" phenomena?

Mussolini, a one-time radical socialist, viewed himself as a “revolutionary” transforming society by turning the state into “the moving centre of economic life”.

Liberals, sincerely believing that they are forcing people to do what is good for them, gradually morph into Fascists, but would be outraged if described as such.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Liberals have also produced the imminent takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban. If you want to know why the Afghan government, despite twenty years of enormous western support and having hundreds of thousands of expertly-equipped soldiers (and a laser-guided airforce, natch) are helpless in the face of a bunch of medieval guerrillas, it is because the Afghan government has constantly been forced to follow western (liberal) demands to be 'just like us' when what was required was that they be 'just like them', only not quite so medieval.

The Afghan people simply refuse to put up with a regime that, for instance, is nice to women. Try to imagine anyone you know saying, "Sure, they can be nasty to women. If that's the price that has to be paid." More likely, "If the universities are not fifty per cent female by the fall semester, we should leave them to their own devices."
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Actually, I mis-spoke. Islamic regimes are not nasty to women, they just don't grant them equality. Anyone who thinks Muslim women themselves are groaning to be free has been listening to too many urban elites. That is not so say women in Islamic societies are satisfied with their lot. Most people in most societies are unsatisfied with their lot. But very few people in any society want to swap what they are used to in order to have an alien way of life foisted upon them.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Alice in Wonderland Department

The UN Human Rights Council has passed a resolution indicating deep concern about abuses in Tigray, calling for the withdrawal of Eritreans who are making the conflict even worse. Eritrea, who is a member of the Council, voted against.

They missed that vital first step, calling for a withdrawal of Eritreans from the UN Human Rights Council.
Send private message
Boreades


In: finity and beyond
View user's profile
Reply with quote

This is going to confuse a lot of people (including me).

Me: Never heard of Eritrea, where is it?
AEL: It's Ethiopia, you muppet.

Me: Oh, OK, but, err, no, I still don't understand it.
What happened to the Tigray People's Liberation Front?
And how come Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is still Head of WHO?
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Yes, I may have contributed to the confusion by omitting the word 'troops', as in 'the withdrawal of Eritrean troops'. Eritrea is the state adjoining Ethiopia along the border that also contains the Ethiopian province of Tigray. There is quite a lot of confusing baggage to unpack hereabouts.

Item: Tigray, in the form of the Tigray People's Liberation Front overthrew the Ethiopian central government in 1991 and installed itself as the central government and ruled Ethiopia for twenty-seven years of the most viciously awful tyranny the world had seen since [fill in Marxian regime of choice]
Item: It was helped to do that by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front which was fighting the same Ethiopian central government for independence which it achieved in 1991 by its partner coming to power.
Item: the two partners thereupon engaged in the most viciously awful war over a meaningless strip of land the world had seen since [fill in two Marxian regimes of choice]
Item: In 2018 the Tigray People's Liberation Front was overthrown and another bunch pf people were installed as the central government in Ethiopia. The TPLF still (sort of) ruled Tigray.
Item: Tigreans are the second largest minority in Eritrea but nowheresville in Ethiopia.

More items to follow if anyone shows the slightest interest. Or indeed corrects items that I might have got wrong. There's a lot to go wrong ... er, I mean get wrong in this part of Africa.
Send private message
Boreades


In: finity and beyond
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Eritrea

So rarely mentioned on TV News during those twenty-seven years, that for most people, what happened there was (to coin a phrase) a "quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing".

What could possibly go wrong?

A pro-Chinese Marxist regime takes control, probably armed by China.
In the ensuing African quid-pro-quo's, an almost-unknown TPLF leader becomes head of WHO.

What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile, in the west, it's business as usual. Design it in the west, but get it built in China, Malaysia, Singapore, Phillipines, etc at lower cost. What's not to like? Any industrial pollution is out-of-sight and out-of-mind. We're so green, we're so clever. And so it goes with medical pharma production.

What could possibly go wrong?

We know about some of the accidental leaks of nasty stuff from small UK Labs. No surprise that muppetry (not malevolence) goes with human designed-systems wherever they are. Especially when the labs are bigger, but the same personnel are stepping up from low-risk biohazards to higher-risk biohazards.

Then "Trump Derangement Syndrome" drives the MSM mad when Trump dares to suggest Covid leaked from a Chinese lab. If the pro-China WHO says for over a year that it definitely wasn't from a lab, Trump must be a liar.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Did You Know?

The United Kingdom of Britain is on its way to being a failed state. Britain has left the European Union, The Scots are clamouring for independence, despite the current internecine warfare being waged between the leading lights of Scottish nationalism and a united Ireland seems a distinct possibility. And let’s not talk about the monarchy, with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex lining up to defecate on the oldest monarchy in the world, thus putting Charles’ position as the first in line to the throne in serious peril.

The Brits have made an absolute mess of things and there is no coming back from this. Britain is over as we know it.

Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

The next tragedy? Peru. They've just had the worst possible election outcome: the left candidate won by a few thousand votes. Quite legitimately, as far as one can tell, but so close the right can cry foul anytime they want. And when will that be?

Well, that's the second part of the unfolding but totally predictable tragedy. The left candidate is not an orthodox lefty that the right (and the Americans and indeed Peruvians) can live with. He ticks all the bogeyman boxes: indigenous ancestry, trade union agitator, believes his own rhetoric, past links to Shining Path. It testifies to the total crapness of the Peruvian right that they could ever have allowed someone like that to get the majority of Peruvians to support him. So what now? Yup, it's the old MJH ten-point plan ©

1) Our new President plucks the low-hanging fruit from wealthy Peruvians (indeed, Peru) and rewards the Peruvian poor. This always leads to rapid growth since the poor spend their money (they can hardly invest it). Much acclaim for el Presidente, both domestic and foreign
2) There is no more low-hanging fruit and since wealthy Peruvians are long gone and Peruvian capital assets have not been renewed, the economy starts to nose-dive
3) Since the Americans have been doing their usual dopey "Let's give all left-wing regimes a permanent alibi" act, there is nowhere outside Peru that is prepared to pluck Peruvian nuts out of their fire
4) The Americans and/or the Peruvian right start to destabilise Peru with understandable success
5) The government replies in kind by setting up some kind of permanent war economy/society
6) Both sides are pretty much immune to defeat so it just goes on and goes on getting worse
7) The Peruvian military are no great shakes so can't call a halt by taking over
8) Or they do and it's even worse
9) Twenty years later some sort of dénouement is reached.
10) It happens all over again somewhere else.
Send private message
Boreades


In: finity and beyond
View user's profile
Reply with quote

M'Lady's ears pricked up when I mentioned Peru. She wants to know if this is going to bugger-up our holiday plans.

Experience first-class transport and dining all the way to Machu Picchu and back aboard the Belmond Hiram Bingham train, equipped with classic 1920s Pullman cars that hold no more than 84 passengers. During this luxurious journey through breathtaking Andean landscapes, you get to enjoy a tablecloth lunch and dinner served with free-flowing wines by an attentive staff.

She's going for the free-flowing wine, I'm going for the megaliths.

Enjoy transfer rides reserved for Hiram Bingham passengers and tour world-famous Machu Picchu. Before you head back to Cusco (and reality), stop for afternoon tea at the Belmond Sanctuary Lodge, the only hotel on the ancient site.

And no mixing with the unwashed masses, thank you.

When you arrive at the Aguas Calientes station, board a shuttle bus specially reserved for Hiram Bingham passengers. You'll especially appreciate this when you see the hordes of people waiting for mass transport. The bus snakes up a road and arrives shortly at Machu Picchu, the Lost City of the Incas, nestled on a mountaintop at 7,000 feet (2,134 meters) above sea level.

At 7,000 feet, oxygen masks are an optional extra. Harpo, where are you with an oxygen cylinder when we need you?

Stroll through the cloud-shrouded archaeological site with a guide who leads you through the ancient city’s main streets, ceremonial shrines, solar clock and precisely carved stairways. Learn about how the Incas designed the small city to be self-contained, built with agricultural terraces that fed its residents and watered by natural springs.

I'll mess with the guide's head by asking what kind of concrete they used.
Send private message
Boreades


In: finity and beyond
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Some might ask, how did Peru get in this mess?

The Indy says:

The economy of Peru, the world’s second-largest copper producer, has been crushed by the coronavirus pandemic, increasing the poverty level to almost one-third of the population and eliminating the gains of a decade.

Oh. Was that bad?

The shortfalls of Peru’s public health services have contributed to the country’s poor pandemic outcomes, leaving it with the highest global per capita death rate.

Oh. But not sure why they conflate copper mining with public health.

Castillo has promised to use the revenues from the mining sector to improve public services, including education and health, whose inadequacies were highlighted by the pandemic.

Oh, OK, now this sounds familiar. A country abundant in a natural resource that the whole world wants, but they can hardly give it away. Just like Scotland and the price of oil.

“Those who do not have a car should have at least one bicycle,” Castillo, 51, told The Associated Press in mid-April at his adobe house in Anguía, Peru’s third poorest district.

That much I can identify with.
Send private message
Boreades


In: finity and beyond
View user's profile
Reply with quote

The National Bicycle Service will provide free bicycles to everyone.

But, of course, there will be a waiting list, and the bicycles supplied will be basic but robust items. Steel frames and three-speed gears.

There will be outrage that rich people can buy better, faster, lighter bicycles made of carbon fibre with 12 gears.

Any similarities with the NHS are entirely coincidental.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

I always get people's holiday plans mixed up in my head with Scott of the Antarctic which I read at too impressionable an age.

The Indy says:
The economy of Peru, the world’s second-largest copper producer, has been crushed by the coronavirus pandemic, increasing the poverty level to almost one-third of the population and eliminating the gains of a decade.

I find it remarkable that the Indy has on its staff someone who can diagnose the undiagnosable. Most papers do. Of course the AEL has someone similar on its staff though the difference with me is that I can at least claim 'same input = same output'. If anyone cares to name a country that has gone though these same (preposterous) combinations of circumstance I will eat my prancing slippers. While wearing them. Bad back and all.

Castillo has promised to use the revenues from the mining sector to improve public services, including education and health, whose inadequacies were highlighted by the pandemic.

I can promise Castillo that the same fate will befall his mining sector as, say, Venezuela's oil sector. Last seen replaced by Iranian oil tankers coming to the aid of queuing motorists. Iran of course has had more American sanctions than Venezuela, and a government every bit as bad, but lacking socialism, has clung on to its oil sector.

Senor President will find, as they all do, that profits have to be (mostly) used for re-investment. The bit over, the bit that used to go to the silk hat brigade, will not be available either because socialist agitators are not, on the whole, as efficient as the silk hat brigade when it comes to running complex industries. Within a couple of years the mines will be closing for lack of ... well, everything. It just couldn't get through the American blockade.
Send private message
Boreades


In: finity and beyond
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Mick Harper wrote:
I always get people's holiday plans mixed up in my head with Scott of the Antarctic which I read at too impressionable an age.


Failing heroically in a very British way is a classic move, and I'm sure you'd do a very good impression of Scott, or Oates. But it's not a recipe for long-term success is it?

I preferred Shackleton (and the Endurance expedition) as a role model.

In 1914, Shackleton made his third trip to the Antarctic with the ship 'Endurance', planning to cross Antarctica via the South Pole. Early in 1915, 'Endurance' became trapped in the ice, and ten months later sank. Shackleton's crew had already abandoned the ship to live on the floating ice. In April 1916, they set off in three small boats, eventually reaching Elephant Island. Taking five crew members, Shackleton went to find help. In a small boat, the six men spent 16 days crossing 1,300 km of ocean to reach South Georgia and then trekked across the island to a whaling station. The remaining men from the 'Endurance' were rescued in August 1916. Not one member of the expedition died.

Using Shackleton's management methods, I'm proud to say that nobody in our team of software developers has died or even been injured during our arduous and demanding marathon projects.

I would emulate his greatest achievement and sail a small boat 800 miles across the Southern Atlantic to South Georgia. But it wouldn't be Covid Compliant, and M'Lady wants the jams, chutneys and pickles made first, and there's a long list of things that need doing. Is that enough excuses?
Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 65, 66, 67 ... 104, 105, 106  Next

Jump to:  
Page 66 of 106

MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group