Happy New Year 2023

 As is the tradition of this blog .....

Buster 31st December 1966

 

.... A British Comic cover from our childhood ......

Fat Phones - Thin Phones

 Someone somewhere must have asked the question .....

No Data Fat Phone - Data Full Thin Phone

..... 'Do devices USB drives get heavier when you store files and photos on them?' 

The True Heart Of Darkness

In the book, the heart of darkness was set in the Congo ...

The Heart Of Africa Faces A New Darkness

.... but, in reality the true hearts of darkness on that continent are wherever the Jihadi terrorists are operating.

Happy Christmas 2022

With most of the public sector on strike and demanding massive pay rises, while retaining their final salary pensions .....

Beano Xmas 1970

.... and with inflation going through the roof, with a lot of people huddling at home in three jumpers and under a pile of blankets .... it may not be the happiest of Christmases we have had in the UK, but hey, its another year gone by, and surely this will all pass some time.

Whats A Life Worth?

The value of a persons life can vary from place to place, time to time and circumstance to circumstances .... 

Whats The Value Life?

Of course in one sense, all life is precious, priceless in fact.

The Chinese Are Coming

Those Chinese 'private' state loans (from state owned companies) ......

The Chinese Are Coming .... To
A Neighbourhood Near You Soon!

...... that have brought a few Asian countries such as Sri Lanka to their knees, have also been quietly taking place in Europe's smaller economies.

Coco Nut

Brain damage can make people do funny things ....

Taking Tree Hugging To New Heights

Being hit over the head, by a man with a gun during a row, is perhaps more likely to bring on odd behaviour than not, if that's going to happen. 

New Barbarians

Berlin museums and galleries house and protects many great works from antiquity and the past ....

Reconstruction Of The Ishtar Gate of the ancient city of Babylon

.... but it struggles with protecting them from the new cultural barbarians who live inside its borders.

Oil And Gas - Putin's False Friends

Oil and gas fund up to 50% of the Russian annual budget income ...

To New Friends ....

 .... and so losing that income, should be a disaster for Putin;s government.

White Gate Boggarts

I once worked in the Fylde/Blackpool area of Northern England for a couple of years, and so got to know it quite well whilst I was staying in a boarding house for that time ....

I've Drunk In The No3 Pub In Blackpool

.... so when I saw a magazine reference to strange phenomena on a White Gate Lane in the Fylde, Lancashire, I was just curious enough to wonder if it was related to the Whitegate Drive that I did recall from those years ago.

Heaven or Death

In a little reported (well I didn't see it headlined), story at the time, in October 2018 President Putin of Russia reportedly said ......

Death Visits Kurgan ...

...... that in the face of foreign aggression to the motherland (Rodina) they would be met with nuclear war. 

Democracies Survival?

 A recent NPR/Ipsos poll found that 64% of Americans believe ....

Democracy At Risk?

.... US democracy is at risk of failing, and the fragility of America's democracy is what alarms foreign observers of the country. 

Fair Swap?

In the USA and the leftie woke press (like the BBC), the release of the previously largely unknown black lesbian basketball player Brittney Griner, in a prisoner swap, has been greeted as almost like the release of Nelson Mandela .....

Griner For Bout - A Fair Swap?

..... with almost minute by the minute reports of her progress westward.

Death Imitates TV

The popular TV show CSI Las Vegas in which crime scene investigators / scientists solve crimes that would take many weeks or months .... inside an hour (TV time 24 hours ... max!) .... 

A Suspicious Death In Florida
 ... CSI On The Case

.... is believed to have inspired at least two real life crimes. 

The Money Pot

We have often laughed at the gullibility of the religious on this blog ....

The Gullibility Spot Has Been Identified

 ..... from Christians who believe that some sexual pervert or paedophile is some sort of a messiah, to South Asians who believe in magic lamps (and all other religions in between).

Political And State Covid Death Rates USA

With the USA officially declaring that it has had a death toll from Covid-19 exceeding one million ....

Political And State Covid Death Rates USA

.... and the fact that we are all (apart from China) learning to live with Covid (with deaths still occurring, its interesting to compare the US political map, with the official US Covid death rates.

False Alarm

When a farm hand in Kinyana village Kenya thought he saw a lion just outside his employer's home ...

The Hedge Lion ....

... he raised the alarm, as the employer wasn't home.

Biting The Hand That Feeds You

Seattle City Council approved a 2022 budget  .....

Mayor Bruce Harrell Under Pressure ....

 ..... that cut police department spending by more than $7 million, and in all has cut the police budget by $36million since 2019 .... in short its de-funding of the Police makes it the capital of Woke, USA.

History Never Ended

I think its fair to say that the era of political 'globalisation' .....

A Popular Movement Defeated Marcos

 ..... could perhaps be said to have started when the US refused to give political support to the autocratic President Marcos in the Philippines in 1986.

No Child Was Seriously Injured While Creating This Post

Those Florida women eh? ...... 

Amber Chapman - Florida Gal

..... They just keep a coming. Amber Chapman, a 35 year old Florida woman was arrested for stuffing a 4-year-old boy inside a laundry dryer and activating the machine. 

Another Magic Bean

Just when you thought that people couldn't be any more stupider, with magic cryptocurrency  (electronically created by 'mining' - although there is no mine), already being stolen by the billion ....

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT
Collection Sold By Sotheby's

... then along comes the Non-Fungible Token (NFT).

Nationalism Distorts Facts

When nationalism is the primary political ethos of a government, there is always a problem with the truth ....

Indian Nationalism Morphed Into Hindu Nationalism

.... after all, what your essentially promoting is the idea that the country (especially under your leadership), is better than any other country.

Florida Man Makes Announcement

"Florida Man Makes Announcement" has to be the funniest newspaper headline this week ....

Donald Trump 2024?

.... and no, its not one of my usual Florida man stories, that usually delight me so much.

French Sailors Ail

Its been reported that after the fall of France, some of the 'Free French Forces' in Britain ...

The Germans Knew The Free French Were
On Their Way, By The Garlic Dumps

 .... told the British government that they couldn't fight unless they had garlic for their meals.

More Unintended Consequences

Thirty per cent of the global export market of wheat in 2020 was by Russia and the Ukraine ...

Wheat Suppliers And Consumers

 

... These markets were obviously going to be disrupted by both the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and the Western sanctions.

Taxes - The Seeds Of Revolution

When Charles the first of England, couldn't get the English Parliament to give him more money, via more taxes, to fund a foreign war .....

Regime Changes After Taxes Can Be Violent

 

..... he dissolved it after a one day. He then ruled without it for 11 years.

Deja Vu Death

When football players agent Mino Raiola died of unspecified medical conditions on the 30th of April 2022 ....

Samuel Clemens - Premature Obituary

 ....  it was perhaps no surprise as he had apparently been seriously ill for some time.

History Is ReWritten By The Losers

It appears that the BBC, Netflix, Sky and other Anglo broadcasters are in a race ....

Netflix Cast Devin Terrell As King Arthur .....

 .... to rewrite British and European history and mythology, to fit current WOKE, PC UK and US racial politics. 

Medical Malpractitioners

Taking Advantage Of Our Stupidity .... Zholia Alemi, was a well paid (scale up to £110,683 - $139,083 pa), psychiatrist in the National Health Service, she even drove a Lotus Elise sports car ... 

 Zholia Alemi - Never Qualified

 .... but she still took advantage of an 87 year old patients dementia ...

When Democracy Turns Toxic

 What is the democracy of the United States of America turning in to?

Masked Men Stalk The Ballot Drop Boxes In Arizona

 

..... what is turning its democracy so toxic?

More Mullah Madness

Iran's ever more convoluted censorship laws ....

Spoof Iranian Censorship .. Actually, They
Don't Even Show Women's Athletic Events.

 

 ..... mean that physical contact between men and women is not permitted on TV screens in Iran.

In Days Of Yore

 When in days of old, when knights were bold .....

Small War Horses And Long Legs

..... most of them were probably well muscled, short arses.

Chickens Always Come Home Roost

In the US, store chains such as Walgreens in San Francisco, which has already closed 17 stores in the California city over the past five years ....

The Result of BLM, Defund The Police,
 Decriminalisation Of Crime Policies

 ..... have now been hit by waves of brazen daylight gang theft, with no help from the police or the District Attorney, who usually refuses to ask for jail time, in what is described by them as 'petty crimes' such as shoplifting, burglary, non violent drug offences etc i.e misdemeanours.

The Usual Suspects

The Axis of evil is exposed again at the United Nations, with just 4 countries backing Russia in a UN vote on Russia's attempt to land grab by military force the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, and declare them integral parts of Russia.

UN Annexation Vote

The evil 4 were Belarus, North Korea, Syria and Nicaragua ... everyone a democratic paradise ... NOT!

What A Ballache

Nicholas St Clair was jailed for three years in February 2015 for blackmail.

He's Not Half The Man He Used To Be ....

..... after he had taken his 'friend' hostage, and attacked him with a baseball bat in West Hull. 

Rewarding Gang Culture

One of the Sacramento shooting suspects .....

Smiley Martin ... Not So Smiley Here.

.... has been awarded $7,500 from the county to settle a jail treatment lawsuit.

Butchers of Bucha

 One thing that Russia's attack on the Ukraine has created ...

Hatred Is Fuelled By The Mass
Graves Of Murdered Civilians

 ... is hatred.

Getting Away With Murder

In a real indication of what a nasty arrogant nationalist regime is controlling China ....

Four Chinese Consulate Thugs Destroy Democracy Posters

... they now believe that Chinese communist laws and censorship applies equally to Chinese descent people (and presumably to foreigners if they get in their way), who they don't approve of.

Beaten By The Bell

"Rockin" Robin Deakin had a dream ....

"Rockin" Robin Deakin Celebrating A Rare Win

.... he wanted to be a professional boxer.

Modi Showing His True Colours

I have noted before the obsession with lighter skin amongst the worlds non white populations  (while white people often try hard to get browner by tanning) ...... 

Modi Masks Worn By Admirers

 .... But I was reminded of this when seeing facemasks of India's Prime Minister Modi.

Mobsters And Madmen

 Sadly, these days there are many countries where law and order is weak .....

Isolating Oneself Can Lead To Madness

.... and where the Mob, and Narco's are able to act with near virtual impunity.

Liberal Values Tested By Reality

In recent years several liberal, Democratic Party run areas in the north of the USA have 'bravely' declared themselves as asylum sanctuary zones ....

Asylum Sanctuary Zones

 .... meaning the police and authorities don't question the immigration status of anyone in the city or even state and that have policies to aid undocumented immigrants.

Ain't Got No Body

Workmen were sent to clear a rough sleepers 'hobo' encampment .....

The Back of Budgen's, Totnes
Was A Rough Sleeper Magnet

..... behind the behind a former Budgens supermarket in Totnes, Devon, in July 2017.

That Not So Old Black Magic

In April 2022, António Chicopa a Mozambican trader in the Milange area in Zambézia province was approached by two men ...

Traditional Medicines Used By Many
 Including Footballers

..... attempting to sell severed male human genitals, for 35 million kwachas ($42,000; £33,000). They were being sold as having powerful totem or Ju-ju for traditional healing (or black magic).

The Wild Purge

In France it was later called the épuration sauvage (the wild purge) ..... 

Head Shaving Shame Was One Of The Punishments ......

 .... when in the weeks and months immediately following the D-Day landings of June the 6th, 1944, the French public unleashed a flood of collective punishments on those accused of collaboration, across the country.

Don't Piss Me Off

A prisoner at a low security unit was ringing his girl friend or wife ...

Don't Piss Him Off

 ..... when a male voice came on the line and said that he was seeing to her, adding 'You're in prison, what you going to do about it?' .... well those were the wrong words.

Terror Tactics

It says a lot about the current trajectory of Putin's Russia ....

Memorial Closed

 ..... that alongside of the expulsion of Western journalists, and the branding of some Non Government Organisations (NGO's) as 'agents of a foreign government', Russia's Supreme Court ordered the closure of 'Memorial', Russia's oldest Non Government Organisation, which was devoted to uncovering examples Soviet-era oppression.

A Short History Of Failure

Since independence in 1947 .....

A History Of Failure ...

..... no prime minister has ever completed a full five-year parliamentary tenure in Pakistan.

Small Surprise

A girls Hen Party is meant to be a safe way to go out with her friends ....

Hen Party Strippers
Come In All Sizes

..... and blow away the last vestige of the single girl, before becoming a wife. 

Belly Flop

Hamo Beeka and Omar Kamal, two popular Egyptian mahraganat singers made a video in 2020  .....

Convicted For This Video

.... that featured the well known Brazilian dancer Lurdiana.