Cartel Kids

If ever there was confirmation needed that in Latin America (as well as elsewhere), the drug war has nearly been lost (at least in its current format of making all drugs illegal) ....

 

Cartel Princess

..... its the news from Mexico that the 'Cartel Kids'  - the children of the drug barons who have killed so many - are now 'graduating' from education, and making their own marks in South American life.

The Joker Gets A Job

In January 2014 a Swedish man was forced to sell his 1985 Subaru on-line, after moving to the town of Sundsvall last August and failing to find immediate employment - oddly in a country long cited as a welfare state model by the left in the UK, he wasn't actually able to live on benefits forever, and so he needed the car money to top up his savings.

He chose to advertise the car on the Swedish classified ads website 'Blocket' (Like Gumtree I assume), but realising that it was just an old banger .... 'old beater' in Swedish car parlance ... that had been in the family for two decades, and wanting £950 for it (10,000 kronor), which incidently he would be lucky to get in the UK for a 28 yr old car, he decided that humour might be his only ally. So out came his photo editor software, and with a scant disregard for copyright, that I for one much admire, he went to work on creating his advert.

In came a background of 'Mordor' and the character of 'Saruman the White' (From Lord Of The Rings) .... and then, 'The Hoff' because his "girlfriend has this weird sort of crush on him. That's why he's there. After I'd put in scenes from Mordor, I figured 'Why not add The Hoff?'"

1985 Subaru - One Careful Owner

The copy underneath, was equally as audacious, including that the car was like a "Japanese mountain goat" and featuring all "the power of 54 frighteningly well-hung horses", and just for good measure that it was "hand-forged in the darkest of Japanese industries" by "the Saruman of car makers". He then described the safety features as being that "The car has seat belts in all seats built with the 1984-patented I.D.N.R.I.S, which stands for Instant Death No Retardation Impact System. In other words, there is no risk of ending up in long-term care because you die immediately in any collision at speeds higher than 12 km/hour".

But crucially, and almost as an afterthought, he added that he was 'willing to trade the car for a job' - as his current prospects were poor "in a city where the prospects for the future are on a par with those of North Korea".

A day after posting the advert, and after it had gone viral (in an understated Swedish kinda way), he was approached with a number of job offers, but quickly chose to work at Auto, Motor & Sport magazine. "I've always dreamed of being an automotive journalist. I've probably watched too much Top Gear in my time, so I said yes right away" 

And the Subaru?

Well It was sold, but for only a few hundred kronor to a local auto repair shop, which plans to use it as a mobile, four-wheeled advertisement ...... looks like Jeremy Clarkson and the boys have been an inspiration once again.

Innocent Victim Of War

Wars often throw up many innocent victims, and when that war is with fanatics, then the number of innocent victims rises.
 

Colonel - Prisoner Of War

 
So perhaps, given the mediaeval outlook of many of the protagonists, its not a surprise that the Islam wars of the last decade or so have probably produced the greatest proportion of civilian death, injury, and displacement than any wars since the middle ages.

A Land Divided

When you see what’s going on in the Ukraine today, you have to despair for the human race ... this is a country, where the population share a common religion and is one colour, is comparatively well educated, nourished and mostly has jobs etc. So democracy should have worked well, but it hasn't, and the country teeters on the edge of civil war ... torn between two camps whose views are so diametrically opposed as to apparently make a peaceful resolution impossible.

The political issue is ostensibly whether the Ukraine moves towards joining the European Union, or Joins the new Russian / Asian trading block ...a simple enough choice one might think, but in fact its the striking block for much discord

However there are in fact a number of underlying issues, which have ensured that the Ukraine  acts like, and feels like two countries, not one:

Language: In fact the western part of Ukraine, speaks Ukrainian - a group, which is related, to Polish and Belarusian, which is why large parts of what’s now the western area of Ukraine and Belarus was part of Poland before WWII. While the eastern part of the country, speaks Russian, as for centuries it was part of the 'Motherland'. The current ethnicity is listed as:

•     77.8% Ukrainians
•     17.3% Russians
•     4.9% others / unspecified

Language Groups Of Europe Today

History: There has never really in fact been a country in the Ukraine. The land it occupies has nearly always been split between the Russian Empire (and Soviet state) and the others (The Poles, or the Austro-Hungarian Empire) - the two parts therefore share no common thread to weave the parts together.

•  Kievan Rus' and territory of Ukraine (up until 1240).
•  The Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (or Kingdom of Halych-Volynia) (between 1245 and 1349).
•  Lithuania, Rus' (Ukraine) and Samogitia (until 1434).
•  Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth or Commonwealth of Three Nations (1658).
•  Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate and territory of Zaporozhian Cossacks (under rule of Russian Empire) (1751).

Language Spread In Europe at 1918
 - Reflected Empires - No Ukrainian

Politics: Again there is largely a east west split – the ruling ‘Party of the Regions’ is eastern supported and pro Russian. The opposition is split amongst a few parties, but all are pro EU integration, and are led by the pro-EU 'Udar' movement. The popular vote is nearly 50/50. There are also radical right-wing groups, like 'Right Sector' and 'Common Cause' who are stirring up trouble, but whose agenda is unclear as they wouldn’t be welcome inside the EU.

Power Blocs: Under President Putin, Russia has regretted the old USSR letting some regions leave (Belarus and the eastern Ukraine particularly gal for historical reasons, as they were never really independent nations in his opinion). Putin has tried therefore to stop the Ukraine slipping into the EU and Western camp. He has backed the ruling party by a mixture of carrot and stick.

The EU and US want the Ukraine to drift to the West, but won’t fight Russia over it, and therefore a low level proxy civil war (with the Russian backed side the likeliest winner in an armed conflict, unless Western powers are prepared to back the Ukrainians), is on the verge of breaking out.

Last minute patched up agreements are being stitched together, and just as quickly unravelling, before being cobbled back up again …. They look to be in the bar of the last chance saloon. It’s a sad world when even a nation that has so many pluses, can face collapse and breakup, but it makes the collapse of so many construct nations in Africa and the Middle East, perhaps more understandable.

Anything Goes - Not

There appear to be two sets of Iranians, the sophisticated educated middle classes, and the corrupt mullahs and their followers, who may be educated (but usually aren't), but are surely backward.

Israeli and Iranian Winter Olympics Teams Led Out.

Recently they attacked and vilified a Brazilian model on her social media accounts, for not covering up her chest enough to satisfy the Iranian censors ..... well it seems that the oh so PC Olympic committee, which has pandered to the sexism of Muslim nations for decades, had noted the row, and performed its own bend-over to Islamic nutters .... yes at the Winter Olympics, someone decided that a bit of censorship was required, to pander to the Iranian males regimes views on women's dress codes.

 

Not noticed the difference? Well that's probably because your normal, and don't lust after women who show forbidden flesh .... here's the photo again, but with more emphasis on the forbidden fruits ....

Olympic Standards For Iranians

Now You See It - Or Rather Now You Don't ..... as that's the point of this exercise, as the Russian Snow Maiden suddenly develops a need to cover her previously exposed knees and legs..

To be fair, many Iranians, still smarting from the humiliation that their lessen enlightened compatriots put their nation through in the Football World Cup draw, mocked the Olympic Committee.

One Iranian man on facebook said that this 'was the "outcome of the brave Iranian people's heroic anti-arrogance battles against Fernanda Lima"' ... acknowledging that the Olympic committee had kowtowed to the extremists. Another poster stated that "They were worried the Iranian athletes would faint if they saw the escort's legs", while yet another added that "Watching the Winter Olympic opening ceremony, I found signs that our revolution has been exported. What an honour!"

Now as this was the Winter Olympics, it was the sophisticated educated middle classes commenting, while the mullahs and their backward followers weren't interested enough to comment ... probably as they had won the war, and could ignore the odd sniper. 

Kinda reminds one of the lyrics old Cole Porter song "Anything Goes" ... one of the lines of which sums up the attitudes ..... but almost in reverse and with a different deity.

♪♪ In olden days a glimpse of stocking 

Was looked on as something shocking, 

 But now, Allah knows, Nothing Goes. ♪♪

Disappearing Worlds

For people of a certain age like me, it isn't just the mass immigration in to the UK, that has caused Britain to feel like a foreign country ..... No, there is also the fact that when we cast our minds back, many of the sights and sounds of our childhoods are now long gone, and only live in ours, and our contemporaries, memories. Obviously, these memories are therefore doomed to disappear from any collective consciousness over the next few decades.

There Are Still A Few Horse Totters About

 

So just for the record, here's just a few of those sights and sounds, purely from my personal memory in the UK ..... and from record where the post refers to foreign lands. 

Rag and Bone Men:

These were still a common sight when I was a kid. And yes, they were still on horse and carts like 'Steptoe and Son'. I vividly recall going to look at the horses .... and my dad telling me to keep an eye on the back garden, as he had car parts lying around (this was the age when men still did their own car repairs), which he didn't want 'disappearing'. Nowadays, although there are still a few totters about, you mostly just see vans with tinkers roving around looking for anything that they can lift, including public statues.   

India's Salman Rushdie Moment

We often think of Hinduism (as opposed to Hindu Nationalists), as a peaceable religion, except where it clashes with Islam (a trait which it shares with every other religion which bumps up against Islam), so its with some surprise to find that a book written by an American scholar, Wendy Doniger, has elicited a response from Hindu's that reminds one very much of the treatment of Salman Rushdie for writing his book 'The Satanic Verses'.

Her book, 'The Hindus: An Alternative History', published by Penguin Books in India, has attracted much criticism, because according to the complainants, the book 'is insulting to Hindus', containing what they describe as "heresies".  Some of which meant that "She denounced the Hindu Gods and freedom fighters of India", as well as containing some factual errors.

The case went to court, under another of India's archaic laws, that makes it a 'criminal' rather than a 'civil offence', to publish a book that offends any Hindu .... much like the Muslim view that anything that offends them is to be condemned via a Fatwa (religious ban).

A Declaration Of 'No Free Speech'?

 
And guess what, the threat of a court case running over many years has allegedly (they haven't officially confirmed the climbdown), led to Penguin Books in India to agree with the complainants, and to recall and destroy all remaining copies of the book - an act of self censorship, which has profound implications for freedom of speech in India.

However, many Indians have been quick to realise this implication, and the decision of Penguin India to bow to religious groups pressure, and withdraw the book, has brought criticism .... Indian cabinet minister Jairam Ramesh told the Press Trust of India the decision was "atrocious", adding the book was "not blasphemous by any means". Well known Indian Historian Ramachandra Guha called the news "deeply disappointing. The answer to a book one doesn't like is another book, not a ban, or legal action, or physical intimidation," ... and that's the difference between India and its neighbour and enemy.

In India there is a fear and recognition that some religious groups are stifling free speech and artistic expression ..... nearly last word to Doniger herself  "The true villain of this piece  ... is a law that jeopardises the physical safety of any publisher, no matter how ludicrous the accusation brought against a book."

This story has escalated since I wrote this earlier in the month ..... so it may have legs.
 

Sea Of (Political) Troubles

Water water everywhere, and not a drop into the drain  .... like the ancient mariner, the British Government (a term we may only be able to use this year), has found itself drowned by the tidal forces of nature, as the flooding in some parts of the south of England cause it a sea of publicity sorrows.

Now if you read the BBC and Newspapers, all of which a London centric, then the flooding of houses near the Somerset levels, or worse the breaching of the River Thames north of London, is a disaster of biblical proportions and all the Department of Environment, or cost cutting governments fault .... its not, and its not.

Fact: We are having the worse winter rains since no one knows when (when incidentally, last October it was predicted that we faced the coldest winter ever!!), and of course its what used to be described as "an act of God", but which probably is better described as "an act of Man", with some scientists saying that as four of the five wettest winters on record, have occurred since the year 2000, we are in fact now inside "Global Warming".

This has been combined with many many sea storms lashing the coasts, and tides backing the rivers up. So ground water levels are at record highs (many boreholes are under record pressure levels), so that rain water has nowhere to drain to, and is bursting some river banks. It's therefore no wonder that there has been some flooding.

I say 'some flooding', because out of an overpopulated nation of 68 million, with maybe 35 - 40 million dwelling places, until this week, whether its 100 or 1,000 homes that had actually been flooded in recent weeks (with admittedly more under threat as the wet weather continues), its still a tiny proportion of the UK housing stock.

This media sense of the apocalypse arriving was added to this week when the high winds disrupted the rail traffic for a couple of days .....in response the government has kicked off the biggest emergency services response since WWII.

Dawlish Railway - Damaged Again By Storms

But despite the hardship all this brings locally (and I am not pretending that its not horrible for those affected - I spent 2.5 hours getting home on Wednesday night), it's still affected only a tiny proportion of the UK's population, with the rest suffering just some travel inconvenience and some fences broken. The reality is that if the government hadn't already spent hundreds of millions on flood defences in the UK since 2007, then at least 1.3 million other properties would have been flooded this winter ... now that would have been apocalyptic.

Dawlish Railway - Damaged In the Past By Storms!

By many countries standards (and I am thinking  of Italy for example, where earthquake victims are still waiting for action more than a decade after the events of 1997), this would be hailed as a fantastic result of forward planning and public defence .... so in fact, by many standards this actually a success story .... but you wouldn't know it. We have had much the same weather, but with much worse results in the past

As Harold Macmillan once said, what brings a Government down is 'events dear boy, events' and we have had a lot of those recently.

Art Imitates Life

Believe it or not, this is actually a statue, which was placed in the grounds of a Massachusetts college in order to promote "unexpected new ideas" in the viewers, prior to a display of the artists works.... I bet it did. In fact according to reports those new ideas included 'feelings of apprehension' and of 'fear' amongst some of the female student body.

Life Like Statue ...Too Life Like For Some

That aside, I am amazed at how lifelike it is - is it wax, or wood, or plastic, the reports that I saw didn't say, but if someone plonked that in my front garden I'd be calling the police.

Apparently many hundreds signed a petition asking for its removal .... I can understand why.
 
Its a strange old world. 

Moyes Hell Season

Sometimes there is a terrible attraction in watching a mans suffering - I guess many people at the Roman Coliseum must have been drawn partly by that same feeling - and so there is now a terrible new sport developing ......

 

David Moyes Takes Over Man Utd

.....in which the public failure and subsequent ordeal of Mr David Moyes, the man who took over managing Manchester United from the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson, is subject to ever increasing ridicule.

 

What Wimmin Really Want

I have questioned before what feminists want in the UK ..... it seems to me that unlike their foreign counterparts such as the Femen group, their campaigns are largely over small puerile 'issues' that are of no interest to 90% of the women in the UK, and that they dodge the big issues that really affect women. For instance there have been feminist 'campaigns' against:

• Page 3 models. They have been after these for 40 yrs .... the Sun and Star newspapers have resisted, mainly out of spite LOL.

Page 3 Forever?

• The worlds oldest professional service (were lawyers the second oldest? .. You know ... Moses and the Laws?): As part of this futile campaign, Jaqui Smith, who may have been the worst 'Home Secretary' in British political history, sponsored a bill in Parliament to make it a criminal offence to 'knowingly' have sex with a woman who was trafficked into the UK to become a prostitute. Specifically they were open wording it, to include anyone, having sex with any woman who was "controlled for another person's gain" .... rather obviously users of prostitutes were never going to ask the prostitute ... in the end, the act never got anywhere in the dying days of the Brown regime.

The Worlds Oldest and Most Honest Profession?

• And finally, against British banknotes not having a woman's face on any denomination when Florence Nightingale was rotated off. Yes apparently, this was the latest big issue for Wimmin in the UK  Or at least that's what  a feminist called Caroline Criado-Perez believes. It was she who according to the BBC, who apparently 'led' the campaign to ensure that a woman's face was still on one of the banknotes of the UK ... not counting the Queen apparently. She was roundly abused and threatened by a section of 'social media users' for this, and convictions have occurred already (The Raoul Moat and Dale Cregan Chav brigade out in force again) .... this was considered a major news story on the BBC. 

Jane Austen Banknote - Worth All The Fuss?

Although I had noted the argument about women faces of banknotes, I had considered it just another dead campaign by the PC wimmin of the left, and had never heard of this woman. However, if she is going to be trumpeted as the new Germaine Greer by the BBC and the wimmin of the left, then perhaps she will have the balls to take on the real issues of women in the UK.

And to show that I am not just some 'sexist' man, using the diversionary tactic of  trying to ask, why are feminist fighting over tits on newspapers, or faces on banknotes, when 'children are starving in Africa'? Both of these feminist campaigns are issues that I would guess that 99% of the women in UK couldn't give a toss about. I asked at work about the banknotes campaign, and out of approximately 15 educated women casually questioned, only two had heard of this 'banknote campaign', and none knew the name of its leader, or cared about the issue. 

Here's few issues that directly impact women in the UK and feminists should be fighting:

• Clitoral circumcision in the Thames Valley area.
• Forced Marriages and physical abuse in the Asian Communities.
• Under-age Grooming. 
• 'Honour' Killings where women are usually the victims.
• Acid Attacks, a crime which has crossed from the Asian community into the general one. But women are invariably the victims.

When UK feminists stand up to the men and groups that practise these activities, and actively campaign against them without fear of offending them on PC grounds .... then and only then, will I care about the little nonsense campaigns that they inflate into great victories for womankind against their male 'oppressors'.   

The Robber Barons Of Capitalism

Its being widely reported that the legally richest 85 people in the world (excluding drug dealers, and state asset appropriation), a group who could fit in one rail carriage (or to use another analogy, would comfortably fit onto a single London double-decker bus), have a total combined wealth of $1.65tn (£1tn), that is the equal of the entire combined wealth of the poorest half of world.

Trickle Down Economics At Work

That is simply shocking when you think about it .....