Politics & Stuff

[cosmicway 1,333]

Bar the unexpected the bonkers is on his way out, come Wednesday morning.
What he needs now to turn the tables is a major scandal, one day before the election. Can he find one ?

But it looks like what precipitated Don's downfall was his what-me-worry attitude towards the pandemic.
Back in February-March the two candidates were level pegging if I 'm not mistaken, now the difference is 7.5 points, which is a LBJ-Barry Goldwater difference really, if true.
He said things like bleaches, he ignored the advice of the country's scientists.

Now it's true that anyone presiding during such a crisis will have a problem.
History teaches us that even national heroes had a problem in the past. Winston Churchill, the father of victory, lost the 1945 election. Eleftherios Venizelos the father of the Greek world war I victory who had the Greek troops march in the Champs Elysees, lost badly in 1920.
It's better to preside during a UEFA european cup success, or when Sarbel wins the eurovision.

Yet it's strange.
I can readily accept that the Don wanted a wall between USA and Mexico ever since he was a kid.
But make a corona *ss out of himself ? Why ?
What conservative principles dictate that we should make corona *sses out of ourselves ???
Therefore we must accept that he acted on advice. 
You will lose more votes from the clowns who voted you in 2016 the advisers said than you may lose to the Democrats rallying behind Jo Biden.
Such is the mind of the covid 19 denier. A neanderthal species that exists in all of the world's nations really.

[Fulham Broadway 17,305]

Probably better for most Americans, their country, and the planet if Biden wins. 

The flip side is no matter which multi millionaire is crowned, the reality is it will mean little difference to most. 

Regardless who gets to say I am top dog, the US will still have a gun epidemic, an opioid epidemic, an obesity epidemic, and info wars epidemic and a Covid epidemic. 

[Fulham Broadway 17,305]

The government’s decision to award a £122 million PPE contract to an associate of a Conservative peer is the “definition of corruption”, the Labour MP for Sefton Central has said.

According to reports PPE Medpro was handed a lucrative contract to supply 25 million gowns for health workers just seven weeks after it was formed.

PPE Medpro was incorporated in May this year with a share capital of £100 . It has just won, without tender, a £110,000,000 contract to supply PPE to the NHS

The govt is being run by a bunch of corrupt #Tories who award contracts to pals, paying them millions in tax payers money pic.twitter.com/BkRvHodCxg

— Pete Timmins 🇪🇺 (@petertimmins3) October 8, 2020

The company was started by Anthony Page on the day he quit as the secretary of the company that deals with Baroness Mone’s “brand”.

Just 44 days later it had won the Department of Health contract without having to go through a tender process.

P14 Medical Limited, controlled by former Conservative Councillor Steve Dechan, who stood down in August this year, was awarded three contracts worth over £276m despite having negative £485,000 in net assets and deemed not fit to run a company.

 

Yet the government like to point the finger at 'corrupt African countries'......

[1chelsea 864]

Please, is anyone here interest in buying Bonney Light Crude Oil from Africa or who have links I can discuss with? [mention=16599]vesper[/mention]

 

[NikkiCFC 8,286]

Apparently what Macron said was the reason for attacks in France. 

Then why more of this tonight in Vienna? 

World is such a fucked up place right now. 

[We Hate Scouse 10,326]

35 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Apparently what Macron said was the reason for attacks in France. 

Then why more of this tonight in Vienna? 

World is such a fucked up place right now. 

The scary thing is, lockdown likely breeds these monsters.

People (from all race/religion) will have so much free time on their hands that they're brainwashing themselves, being able to research more in to their fucked up ideologies. 

More time to research, plan and communicate with like minded individuals. The way the economies going wont help either. Lack of jobs and money, will lead to people being more depressive and darker thoughts being evolved.

Scary times ahead.

[Vesper 30,090]

21 hours ago, 1chelsea said:

Please, is anyone here interest in buying Bonney Light Crude Oil from Africa or who have links I can discuss with? [mention=16599]vesper[/mention]

 

Our commodities desk in London went heavily leveraged short on Bonny at 65 usd pb

closed out all positions at 20 usd pb

and are getting insane year end bonuses

other than that, I do not have much to add

I myself do very little business with Nigeria

the security risk is off the charts atm

[Vesper 30,090]

Britain Is Holding Its Breath

The results of the U.S. election will pose existential questions in London.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/11/american-election-spurs-british-reflection/616955/

It is that time again, when the world outside the United States stops, when we foreigners hold our collective breath and look up from our own domestic concerns to discover whom the citizens of America have chosen as their new Caesar—and ours.

The outcome has always mattered, and mattered enormously, but has rarely affected an American ally’s core strategy: The U.S. was simply too important, its foreign policy too settled, for any other country’s policies to be tied to one particular candidate. A leader of a European state might dislike or disapprove of an American presidential hopeful’s politics, philosophy, or temperament, but this did not usually swell into fears about the fundamental interests of the state itself. Ronald Reagan’s election was beneficial to Margaret Thatcher, but a Jimmy Carter victory would’ve been fine for Britain. Barack Obama’s election was welcomed by most in Europe, but John McCain was perfectly acceptable. Even George W. Bush’s victory in 2000 was not existential. (Perhaps the one exception to this rule is the 1940 election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon whose shoulders Winston Churchill rested many of his hopes—and the free world’s. But even in that case, Roosevelt’s opponent, Wendell Willkie, was very pro-British, and FDR ultimately used him as an informal envoy to London in 1941.)

This rule no longer holds. For weeks, if not months, the angst of the British establishment has dripped onto the pages of its national newspapers and magazines. Boris Johnson’s government is panicking about a Joe Biden victory, one report says; the claim is then quickly dismissed in another outlet, which points out that the prime minister certainly wants a Democratic victory. The arguments and briefings go round and round. On the one hand, Britain needs Donald Trump’s support for a post-Brexit trade deal, we read—something a Democrat-controlled White House and Congress are unlikely to prioritize. But on the other hand, we’re told that this is nonsense and that of course Johnson’s government favors a Biden win, because Trump threatens everything the British government holds dear, especially after Brexit, whether that be NATO, global trade, the United Nations, environmental protections, or the Iranian nuclear deal.

Whatever the merits of these claims and counterclaims, the important point for Britain is that it is no longer simply an interested outsider observing the American democratic process, but a co-opted combatant whose national interests appear to be on the line. Suddenly, its political characters are onstage introducing Trump at rallies, while its prime minister is a bogeyman of one party—a name to drop into sound bites to signal distaste. Britain’s current government risks joining Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel in aligning with one party, which means that the opposition aligns with the other. Not only has American politics changed, but the ferocity of this change has dragged other countries into the drama.

Britain’s security and economy are so closely tied to its special relationship with the U.S. that the election poses particularly difficult questions. How, for example, can Britain develop a security strategy if it cannot rely on American support for NATO? How can it design a trade strategy outside the European Union if it does not know whether the U.S. will support free trade, the World Trade Organization, or the idea of an agreement with Britain from one presidency to the next?

This leads to a truly existential question for Britain: If the potential election of Biden—the most centrist, cautious, trans-Atlantic, status quo candidate imaginable—causes apparent soul-searching in London, then perhaps the problem lies not with America, but closer to home. Indeed, if the election of one president or another is an existential challenge, then perhaps the issue is Britain’s strategy itself. If Britain’s global trade policy is dependent on reaching a deal with the U.S., then is that strategy wise to begin with? If Britain’s national defense relies on an America that is now stretched and resentful of its burden, is this sensible either?

To ask such questions invites an even deeper discussion about the very nature of what Britain wants to achieve with its foreign policy. For example, it has long been taken for granted that Britain should seek to maximize its influence in Washington. But few officials or advocates in London ask: to what end? We are told we must invest in our military to protect our standing in America. But again, to what purpose? Will spending more than Germany on defense mean that Biden visits London ahead of Berlin, or gives Britain preferential treatment on trade or, well, anything? If no, then why spend the money? Does the British national interest require sending warships through the South China Sea? Does Japan suffer by not sending ships to the North Sea? Does Germany suffer by doing almost nothing, by comparison, for international defence?

In the end, all these challenges reveal the essential question that lurks underneath: What kind of country does Britain seek to be? This question may well have been prompted by the U.S. election, but it is not for Biden or Trump to answer.

In January 1961, John F. Kennedy gave his inauguration address. “Let the word go forth from this time and place,” he declared, “that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.” But this new generation did not have fundamentally different ideals, he said. They would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Such promises, of course, led to Vietnam and a changed America that today offers few of these assurances.

Kennedy ended his speech with the appeal for which it is now famous: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” Yet a subsequent appeal, not as well known today, was added for the citizens of the world: “Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

Perhaps Britain, like the other countries of the American alliance, must follow this advice 60 years on, even if it’s for the less grandiose goal of its own freedom rather than that of mankind.

[Vesper 30,090]

Trump calls Lil Pump on stage but mistakenly calls him "Little Pimp"

 

 

 

[lucio 5,418]

Why choose between 2 millionaire paedophiles who are ultimately puppets?

[cosmicway 1,333]

I don't like the idea of making funny Muhammad sketches.
I said the same thing back in 1988 with Rashdi and his "Satanic verses".
Margaret Thatcher did well of course to stop the executionists dispatched by Ayatollah Khomeini but it was wrong.
We got to respect religions and the Muslims are those who decide what their religious rules are - not someone like me who is not a Muslim.

Imagine this is happening:
You are a Jew and you are in a place where they call you "dirty Jew" and things like that.
How would you react ?
I would react by saying that the racist talk is rubbish and the peoples of the world should become friends and not enemies.
I have nothing else to say till my days are over and also it does n't make sense to say something else, in response to the racialists rantings.
Many people would do the same thing as me.
But under the circumstances, as I describe them, certain individuals would become violent jihaddists.
Can I stop them ?
Could I have stopped by myself the communists in Greece in 1943-44 from becoming strong, under the German occupation, so as to threaten the 
country with their occupation after the war. No, I could n't. One extreme situation fed the other.
Therefore religious intolerence is wrong and helps terrorism rather than defeat it.
 

[Vesper 30,090]

6 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

I don't like the idea of making funny Muhammad sketches.
I said the same thing back in 1988 with Rashdi and his "Satanic verses".
Margaret Thatcher did well of course to stop the executionists dispatched by Ayatollah Khomeini but it was wrong.
We got to respect religions and the Muslims are those who decide what their religious rules are - not someone like me who is not a Muslim.

Imagine this is happening:
You are a Jew and you are in a place where they call you "dirty Jew" and things like that.
How would you react ?
I would react by saying that the racist talk is rubbish and the peoples of the world should become friends and not enemies.
I have nothing else to say till my days are over and also it does n't make sense to say something else, in response to the racialists rantings.
Many people would do the same thing as me.
But under the circumstances, as I describe them, certain individuals would become violent jihaddists.
Can I stop them ?
Could I have stopped by myself the communists in Greece in 1943-44 from becoming strong, under the German occupation, so as to threaten the 
country with their occupation after the war. No, I could n't. One extreme situation fed the other.
Therefore religious intolerence is wrong and helps terrorism rather than defeat it.
 

non sequitur

the now-beheaded teacher (to pick but one example) in France was not belittling the religion, he was teaching a class on freedom of speech

fuck tolerance of medieval head choppers

no religion is above the law and immune from critique, and yes, ridicule in a free, pluralistic society

to accept that it is to accept the yoke of a slave

Islam does not get a special pass, and to give it one is a suicidal move

[cosmicway 1,333]

1 minute ago, Vesper said:

non sequitur

the now-beheaded teacher (to pick but one example) in France was not belittling the religion, he was teaching a class on freedom of speech

fuck tolerance of medieval head choppers

no religion is above the law and immune from critique, and yes, ridicule in a free, pluralistic society

to accept that it is to accept the yoke of a slave

Islam does not get a special pass, and to give it one is a suicidal move

I never said Islam gets a special pass.
It's the same for Christianity, Islam, Judaism and the religion of the Japanese.
Also I don't even know the content of the lecture of the French teacher to say he was provoking or not.
I 'm against religious intolerence and so is the Orthodox church.

 

[Vesper 30,090]

10 hours ago, cosmicway said:

I never said Islam gets a special pass.
It's the same for Christianity, Islam, Judaism and the religion of the Japanese.
Also I don't even know the content of the lecture of the French teacher to say he was provoking or not.
I 'm against religious intolerence and so is the Orthodox church.

 

Islam's entire foundation is religious intolerance

it never underwent a reformation

it literally holds that the Quran is the inerrant word of god, and that anyone who doesn't follow that belief is an apostate and must die

that is NOT the 'radical' stance, that is the mainstream chance

the biggest lie on the planet about Islam is that the average follower is openminded and tolerant and peaceful

look at any nation state actually run on a Islamic basis

none are tolerant

the entire orthodoxy of the religion, accepted by close to billion people, is a death cult at the end of the day, especially when it gets systemic control

I have plenty of so-called Muslim  friends who are wonderful, tolerant people, including a few LGBTQ ones

they are considerate apostates and thus worthy of death by the majority of Muslims on a global basis

the more that Islam gets a foothold in Europe, the more the madness will occur

once an inflection point is reached in a European nation state, and they have true, broad-based political power, the shit will really hit the fan

the 'moderate' reasonable ones are NOT true Muslims according to the vast majority of the others on the planet

there was a time where it did not have to be like this, but now the whip hand is increasingly wielded by madmen like the Saudis, who spend hundreds of billions to promulgate that shit fuck Wahabi barbarism, one of the most brutal, violent, hateful forms of an already intolerant, violent, hateful religion

their madrassas are global, and infect every nation in the EU and the rest of the western world

come to Sweden and see the affects, as they are now radicalising the 2nd and 3rd generations to eventually go full multi-variate jihad

[cosmicway 1,333]

2 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Islam's entire foundation is religious intolerance

it never underwent a reformation

it literally holds that the Quran is the inerrant word of god, and that anyone who doesn't follow that belief is an apostate and must die

that is NOT the 'radical' stance, that is the mainstream chance

the biggest lie on the planet about Islam is that the average follower is openminded and tolerant and peaceful

look at any nation state actually run on a Islamic basis

none are tolerant

the entire orthodoxy of the religion, accepted by close to billion people, is a death cult at the end of the day, especially when it gets systemic control

I have plenty of so-called Muslim  friends who are wonderful, tolerant people, including a few LGBTQ ones

they are considerate apostates and thus worthy of death by the majority of Muslims on a global basis

the more that Islam gets a foothold in Europe, the more the madness will occur

once an inflection point is reached in European nation state, and they have true, broad-based political power, the shit will really hit the fan

the 'moderate' reasonable ones are NOT true Muslims according to the vast majority of the others on the planet

there was a time where it did not have to be like this, but now the whip hand is increasingly wielded by madmen like the Saudis, who spend hundreds of billions to promulgate that shit fuck Wahabi barbarism, one of the most brutal, violent, hateful forms of an already intolerant, violent, hateful religion

their madrassas are global, and infect every nation in the EU and the rest of the western world

come to Sweden and see the affects, as they are now radicalising the 2nd and 3rd generations to eventually go full multi-variate jihad

I doubt it.
I have known many muslims and never quarreled with anyone really.
Anyway most of them were Arafatists really but not what you say.
One of them had picked up a fight with an Israeli and the police was called in.

In addition those words you use were never heard before 9-11 !
Remember when Hillary Clinton wished us "happy ramazan" at the airport of New York ? She was returning from some place and it was the summer before the 2000 election (Bush-Gore).
There have been issues with muslim countries before.
The Suez crisis of 1955, Arab-Israeli wars, Greek-Turkish disputes, Saddam and others. It was what it was but no religious angle whatsoever back then.
Therefore we are against one particular sect now, admittedly a very dangerous one.
But it's not the religion to blame and it is certainly not enough to shift me from preaching religious tolerence.