We’ll know by morning
Welp, the Scots are at it today. If you’re wondering why you haven’t seen much speculation yet, there’s a very tight embargo on election results until the whole vote is in. The announcement is expected in the morning, around 7:30 or before. That’s in the wee hours for most of my readership.
I’m going to go out on a limb and predict the No vote will win — not because I’m terribly confident, but because occasionally it’s fun to post something that will be definitively proven right or wrong within a few hours. It’s like playing Internet Pundit Chicken.
I base that on the fact No has been ahead all along, and still is. Just. Though Yes has had a tremendous last minute surge, it’s mostly among the yoot. And we know young people are excitable and love change but don’t turn up reliably at the ballot box. Still, they’re rounding people up and turning them out to vote, so I could have it wrong.
Had Scots politicians handled this better, they would end up in a stronger position, no matter how the vote turns out. Everyone in the UK is pissed off at Westminster and feels powerless, poorly represented and condescended to by that small bunch of snot-nosed mediocrities in government (of all parties). They could have capitalized on that and parted but stayed friends.
But no. Scots politicians are also snot-nosed mediocrities of the same general political class and they ran this thing on a lot of lefty anti-Tory bullshit and traditional bad feelings. If Scotland stays in the union, they may find Dave has promised them a whole bunch of stuff he can’t deliver, on account of all-around fuck-off-Scotty feelings in England (in fact, the one awesome silver lining is a tiny chance this referendum could ultimately topple Cameron).
If they opt out, things will get very chilly indeed. Lots of bruises and bad ideas. A commenter on Hot Air described this outcome as Venezuela with haggis.
Not too smug, though. The financial turbulence could be rough on the only constituency that matters — Badger House.
p.s. Re: the French caption. In the days of the guillotine, a favorite tattoo among French career criminals was a dotted line around the neck and “coupé ici”. I just. I dunno. Thought it was. Funny. I guess.
September 18, 2014 — 7:55 pm
Comments: 11
Hurrrr
NATO is meeting in Wales at the moment, so this doof is over our side. It was reported on the radio this afternoon that so many things are happening in NATO’s territory, there’s a chance the meeting will hold Obama’s interest this time. That, ordinarily, he finds these meetings so boring, he sends his aids out to buy crossword puzzle magazines to get him through.
I shit you not. It was a straight news broadcast, so maybe I…surely I misheard…?
You know, if everything bores you, it isn’t an indication that you’re extra super smart. If the most important job in the Western world seems beneath you, you aren’t a sooper genius. You’re a malignant narcissist and borderline retard.
So, anyhoo, changing the subject…RIP Joan Rivers. The way they were reporting the story sounded bad to me — like, it doesn’t sound as if she ever recovered consciousness — so I’m not in the least surprised.
Time enough to queue it up — Tomorrow, 6WBT, Dead Pool Soixante Neuf.
September 4, 2014 — 9:25 pm
Comments: 28
spectators
You know that itching, burning, apocalyptic feeling? Yeah, me too.
Not our leaders, though. It’s not just Obama — Call Me Dave is on vacation, too. And it’s just grand to see snaps of him on the beach in the middle of this unholy shitstorm.
I get the feeling these guys think if they act like this is no big deal, it won’t be. Because if they act like it’s a big deal, it will be obvious how badly they’ve misjudged the ‘Arab Spring’ from the beginning. And that would be too, too embarrassing.
As part of a radio feature about WWI the other day, the BBC reeled off all world’s current war zones. With the exception of Ukraine and the Koreas, every single one of them was a case of Islamists versus the world.
They got around having to admit this explicitly by blaming ISIS in one place, Israel and Hamas in another, unnamed Islamists in another, Boko Haram in another, “separatists” in another, “militants” in another. Without ever acknowledging what all those fights have in common.
Odin help us all.
August 11, 2014 — 9:39 pm
Comments: 27
Sophisticated
I’m going to recommend another egregious lefty entertainment product to you: A History of the World in 100 Objects. It’s one hundred handy fun-sized fifteen-minute BBC podcasts based around objects in the British Museum and it’s very cool.
The series ran daily for twenty weeks starting way back in January of 2010, but the whole thing is still available (at the link) for downloading. Also, have a look around the website — it’s cool, too, and includes much more than a hundred objects, in part because they solicited listener submissions. I’ve talked about this series before, but I’m currently re-listening to it from the beginning.
The objects are awesome, but the bias is unmistakable from the beginning. The narration was written and read by the curator of the BM, a lefty cunt-whistle named Neil MacGregor.
Take the above object. It’s a little sandal tag carved out of hippopotamus ivory for Den, one of the earliest Pharoahs of Egypt. Wikipedia says: “Den is said to have brought prosperity to his realm and numerous innovations are attributed to his reign.” Which is the sort of observation we used to make about kings.
MacGregor says this object shows that powerful men have used war and the propaganda of war to control their own people from the beginning of civilization. He called it sadly familiar. To support this contention, he brought in an editorial cartoonist (bound to be from the Guardian, though I was too lazy to check) who said yes, indeedy, he also sometimes drew important people larger than ordinary people. So there you have it.
I’m not reading too much into this, I promise. 2010 was Peak Butthurt over the Iraq War, and he was very clearly calling out Bush’n’Blair.
The BBC is all but unavoidable in this country. We often bitch about it, Uncle B and I. The steady drip-drip-drip of cynical lefty worldview gets into your head no matter how hard you push back. I think it was Melanie Phillips who first described the modern Left as an auto-immune disease: us bad, not-us good. Over and over, all day long. It works its way into the dispirited bones of the unwary.
To this day, they can find a George Bush joke in the gardening program.
Just saying. Listen to the podcasts anyway. Despite everything, there are some wonderful objects and fascinating facts in there. And fifteen minutes is the perfect chunk size for doing doing chores.
July 14, 2014 — 11:23 pm
Comments: 9
Rule by ignorant busybodies
For many purposes, cadmium is banned in the EU. An exception has been made, repeatedly, for artists’ pigments because quantities are tiny (it’s hella expensive!) and the kind of cadmium used for colors doesn’t get into the human body that easily. The cadmiums are an important and pretty irreplaceable of light-fast series opaque reds, oranges and yellows (I use them only in the tiniest concentrations, but I’m not sure what I’d substitute).
Once again, they are considering applying the ban to colors, as well.
Not a big deal on its own, but of a piece with the EU Experience. I cannot tell you how nagged and nannied we have become. Just in the time I’ve been here — oh, the weed killers and pesticides and cleaning products that have been whisked off the shelves. Not on the advice of the experts, but by diktat of “ZOMG It’s A Chemical!” green ignoramuses in Belgium.
Beg pardon. I say Belgium. Richard North of EU Referendum makes a very good case that many of the most obnoxious impositions that we blame on the EU actually are imposed on the EU by the UN. North is a bit of a Mikey-Hates-Everything, but he does his homework.
Global governance via the UN. I know, I know. I see you over there reaching for your Reynold’s Wrap chapeau.
But if you don’t believe in a de facto, shadowy world government, lemme ask you a question: how y’all liking those twisty light bulbs?
July 7, 2014 — 10:20 pm
Comments: 20
Hillary feels ya
Dear posterity: current events reference here (warning: Slate link).
June 11, 2014 — 10:08 pm
Comments: 17
The weakest of weak tea
So Obama delivered a few bland, wet remarks about Scottish independence at a press conference for the G7 summit. It was a classic Obama “on the one hand this, on the other hand that” nothingburger.
Douglas Alexander, the shadow Foreign Secretary (that means the party out of power) noted, “His clear statement of support for the UK staying together will resonate with many of us here in Scotland.” Which is a hilariously (an hilariously?) inapt description of his few weak, mumbled lines.
I don’t know how to break it to anybody here, but we have never had an American president who gave less of a small wet fart about Britain, Europe…the whole of Western Civ. Dude is an African/Indonesian/Hawaiian Muzzy simp with a side order of Pok-e-stohn.
p.s. by the way — go Scottish independence! If they break away, Britain will never have a Lefty government again.
June 5, 2014 — 10:44 pm
Comments: 17
Oh, that is some cherce stupid
Check this out; it’s a flyer someone poked through our next-door neighbor’s mail slot just before the Euro elections two weeks ago. For some reason, they didn’t put one in our box, so she shared.
It’s from the World Socialist Party, and it’s a truly rich and steamy vein of bullshit. Here are highlights from the above excerpt:
There is no money. There is no war. There are no rich people. There are no poor people. There are no leaders. All decisions are shared. All responsibilities are shared.
[…]
You now have no bills to pay, no rent, no mortgage, no debts. Everything is free, nothing is for sale, and neither are you. But you want to help, just like others do.
[…]
You might have chosen to drive a bus or a train, fix plumbing, coordinate a data network, plough a field, teach a child, organise an event, study engineering, cure a disease, brew beer, rehearse a play. You might choose to work four hours a week, or fouteen or forty.
So, lemme get this straight, four hours a week I brew beer (if I feel like it). For ten hours a day, my neighbor ploughs a freaking field he doesn’t own to grow crops he doesn’t control. Then we share equally in everything. Oh, no need for leaders or guys with guns to make this happen or anything.
Does anybody really believe this could work? C’mon. It has to be a put on, surely.
Click the picture for the whole flyer; there’s much more stupid where that came from. Or visit their website, if you think you can keep a straight face.
What do you bet their meetings always end in bitter acrimony and down-twinkles.
June 3, 2014 — 9:45 pm
Comments: 23
Yep. Here it is.
Davem123 speculated in the Dead Pool thread that the White House would shortly commemorate the passing of Maya Angelou (1928-2014) with a photo of himself. Yep.
Though it’s at the end of the entry, not the beginning. And it’s not the soulful “Barack Obama has a sad” picture I was expecting.
You know, I’m going to stop right there before I say unkind things about the departed. Flights of angels sing thee, etcetera.
May 28, 2014 — 9:54 pm
Comments: 13
Full moon over Westminster
Not a very good likeness, but this is my first attempted Farage.
Attempted Farage. Huh. Sounds like something you’d get arrested for after a stag party.
Anyway, there’s all sorts of reasons why Thursday’s election was not the beginning of the revolution in Britain. But it was a thing of beauty still, and I’m a great believer in savoring the moment. So here it is:
UKIP: 27.49%
Labour: 25.40%
Conservatives: 23.93%
Greens: 7.87%
LibDems: 6.87%
Savor, damn you!
May 26, 2014 — 10:11 pm
Comments: 13