Fall To Your Knee's America

I didn't catch his name but there was a leader from an American Christian fundamentalist Group on TV today who proudly said that Christian Nationalism was on the increase in America and the time was ripe to push to make America a country that literally lives exactly as the Bible states.
A recent Gallup survey put the amount of Americans who interpret the Bible literally as the actual word of God at just over a third which in a nation of 350 million is a lot of people taking the what the Bible says as literal including i assume the bits about talking snakes, dragons (some with the head of a rooster), unicorns and multi-headed, fire breathing sea serpents.
So if the Christian Fundamentalists do have their way then there will be some big changes coming to America such as the diet because Leviticus 11-13 is very clear on what you can, and can't eat and especially animals which chew cud.
If your diet currently includes camel, rabbit, pork, eagle, vulture, kite (red or black), raven, owl, gull, hawk, osprey, stork, heron or bat, weasel, rat, lizard, gecko, snake, crab, oysters, whelks, octopus, squid or mussels then you had better buy another cook book.
You can eat ox, sheep, goat, deer, gazelle, roebuck, wild goat, ibex, antelope and mountain sheep as well as anything from the sea that has fins and scales and locust, katydid, cricket and grasshoppers.
After your dinner you can then set about feeding the women who have been isolated as unclean because they are having their period (7 days isolation), have given birth to a boy (40 days) or a girl (73 days) and once the isolation has ended, you can always sell them as per Leviticus 27:2-5 which sets out the scales as a woman aged 20 to 60 is worth 30 shekels and 10 shekels for a female aged 5 to 20.
Obviously one of the big Commandments is number 6, Thou shall not kill but the Bible does make some exceptions so God gives his blessing to kill gays (Leviticus 20:13), People Who Don't Listen to Priests' (Deuteronomy 17:12), Witches (Exodus 22:17), Fortunetellers (Leviticus 20:27), anyone who hits their parents (Exodus 21:15), anyone who curses their parents (Leviticus 20:9), adulterers (Leviticus 20:10), anyone who follows another religion (Exodus 22:19), non-believers (2 Chronicles 15:12-13), Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night (Deuteronomy 22:20-21),  Blasphemers (Leviticus 24:10-16), and Sunday workers (Exodus 31:12-15).
So you have eaten your Grasshopper stew, sold your wife and machine gunned down the sinners at the local gay nightclub but the Bible isn't finished yet because sins come in many forms including wearing gold jewellery having braids in your hair (1 Timothy 2:9) ripped jeans (Leviticus 10:6) and having a tattoo (Leviticus 19:28)
So by now you have thrown out your ripped jeans and sent all your jewellery to Cash 4 Gold and the only thing left in your wardrobe is a selection of polyester blend skirts. Oh dear, two kinds of material mixed together is a no-no (Leviticus 19:19) and that short back and sides haircut, hell awaits (Leviticus 19:27) as it also does of you own an American football, a pig skin American Football (Leviticus 11:7-8).
Obviously, to live your life according to the literal Bible doesn't sound much fun so it must come as a relief when you sit down and actually give the whole idea of religion some proper thought and realise, hang on, it's all a load of nonsense and live your life properly knowing there is not a loving and caring invisible man in the clouds wanting you to kill that guy who served you in Walmart last Sunday or banishing you to burn in hell for eating a Whelk or wearing those earrings you got for Christmas. Lucky eh?

Trump: Impeachment 2

Japanese scientists challenged the ConceptNet 4 AI system to a IQ test and it scored an IQ of 85 or the same as 85 Donald Trump supporters who are still miffed that their man now has the word Ex-President in front of his name.
I haven't seen any of the Donald Trump impeachment trial but it would seem it's a pretty open and shut case, did he incite his supporters to riot which left people dead? Pretty sure that telling them to 'Walk down to the Capitol' after telling them the election was stolen and to 'fight like hell' is a very strong hint that they should go to the Capitol and fight like hell.
From what i have heard, he will probaly escape further censure because the Republicans won't vote against him, not enough to convict him anyway, so he will be free to run again if he wants.
Seems pretty shameful that the Party will be putting politics before prosecuting a man who caused so much pain and suffering but America does seem to have a right wing problem, and anyone with even the briefest glimpse of a history book knows where right wing politics end up.
What makes America even scarier is the absolutely crazy gun laws it has, a large group of demonstrators is scary enough but when some of them are armed with semi-automatic weapons it takes it on to a whole new level, and then you throw in the 'God' part as well, it's madness.
Members of the Guns and God crowd were spotted at the storming of the Capitol building and the FBI are warning that right wing extremism, they call it domestic terrorism, is on the rise and is the greatest threat to Americans, far outweighing the threat from Islamic Terrorists which have been the main focus for the past decade.
If Trump isn't found guilty then he gets away with it although he probably wont get another go at the White House, the list of Court Cases in his pending folder will keep him, busy enough but America should beware if someone a bit brighter, a bit more savvy and a bit less obvious rises up out of the Guns and God mob currently running roughshod over the norms.
Trump may just be the battering ram who has happened the door and normalised things which should have stayed firmly on the fringes.

Biden Saying All The Right Things For Now

Put to one side all the jingoism and God blessing of America that seems to come with any American pomp and circumstance, the Joe Biden inaugural speech was a good one, he said a lot of stuff about unity and the line about repairing alliances by 'leading not merely by the example of our power, but by the power of our example' was a great quote and we can only hope that America does because America hasn't been great and that was before Donald Trump came along and turned it into the global laughing stock it became since he took office.     
Inauguration speeches always sound out hope for a better future and i don't particularly care what Biden does on America, it is the foreign policy we look at outside of the American borders.
He has promised to immediately re-sign the Paris Climate Accord, the Iran Nuclear deal and rejoin the World Health Organisation making the World a slightly cleaner, safer and healthier place but Trump, for all his many considerable faults, never sent his nation to war unlike every President back to Jimmy Carter in the 70's.
Trump promised at his inauguration that 'American carnage would stop now', which is not quite what came to pass considering the carnage on American streets at his prodding, the promise to 'drain the swamp' lasted days before Kellyanne Conway was urging American's to 'Buy Ivanka’s stuff' from a homeware product line endorsed by the President’s daughter.     
He even promised to 'free the world from the miseries of disease' although with 400,000 dead Americans dead from a disease he ignored, ridiculed and dismissed, it didn’t quite work out that way.
So America has a new President, one that has to be better than the last one mainly because nobody can be that bad again, and he is saying all the right things but we don't want the America we had before, we want a new, less warmongering and arrogant one so time will tell if we get that from the 46th President or it's business as usual.

Happy To Help Joe

Interesting fact on the News earlier that there are more US Troops protecting Washington DC then there are US Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan combined which should give American's pause for thought about just what has happened to them over the past four years after voting a moron into office although it probably won't, 70 million American's looked at what the idiot had done during his spell in power and thought hmmm, so he may have admitted being a sex offender, he may have dismissed a virus that has killed over 300,000 of us so far and put us in a position to suffer more from climate change and backed racists and fascists but i think i will give him another go.  
I said here that now that Joe has beaten the laughably awful Trump, his first day should be spent on the phone to Paris to returning to the Paris Accord on Climate Change, Tehran to rejoin the Iran Nuclear Deal and Geneva to beg the World Health Organisation to take America back.
Today, Biden has outlined his plans and agreed with me that he will sign a series of executive orders in his first days in office, attempting to roll back damage done by Donald Trump, which includes returning the US to the Paris climate accords and the Iran nuclear deal and although he did not mention rejoining the World Health Organization specifically although he previously mentioned it would be a priority so maybe that one slipped his mind, he is 78 remember.
Ever since the Democrats got my lightbulb changed last year, i have looked favourably upon them and they are obviously reading this blog so my next suggestion after the phone calls and sorting out the Coronavirus that Trump allowed to ravash the country while he played golf, my next suggestions would be sort out your bat shit crazy gun laws, don't invade anyone, stop backing Israel in their genocide of Palestinians, move the date of election and the date you take over closer together, ditch the pardon rule which makes a mockery of your justice system and pass a law that David Boreanaz HAS to be in every single TV show you sell to Britain.  
You are very Welcome America.

Americans Stay Over There

Not having much decent 21st Century history to celebrate so far, Americans can now also add banned from visiting England to it's achievements as the US makes the list of places where we we don't want to see it's citizens darkening our doorstep.
Officially it is down to the very high numbers of Covid-19 infections in the country due to the bang up job President Idiot has done over there but the ban only applies to England, Americans can still go to Scotland but to be honest, why would anyone do that voluntarily?
I expect the ban will be lifted either as soon as the infection rate drops to an acceptable level or once every American has caught it and become immune which could be in a few weeks the way they are going but i think this is too good an opportunity to correct a few things before we let the yanks back into our green and pleasant land again.
Firstly, you must be able to pronounce the names of the cities you are visiting. One of the best things about the lock-down in Leicester has been hearing American news channels try to pronounce the city, i am hoping the next lock-downs will be in Gloucester, Durham, Marlborough, Ruislip, Holborn, Chiswick, Lincoln and Dulwich, hours of fun listening to them try to say them places bless them.
Next, understand that England, the United Kingdom and Great Britain are not the same place and unless it's stomachs, backsides or thighs, we don't want to hear how much bigger things are in the States and you can self-promote all you want to in America, but do it here and you will be labelled a Billy Big Bollocks and cruelly mocked.
You will be back on the plane if you call anything awesome, amazing or incredible and would it kill you to tone it down a bit and that goes for clothes and volume and why would you put the month before the day when you write dates, what's the point in that? 
Try to do a British accent or mention your fanny pack and you are outta' here and we have an additional letter in our alphabet, we use the letter 'U', to leave it out just makes you look like proper cnts and remember if you visit between 1 September and 30 November its Autumn, not fall.
Finally, we know we have two taps, ones hot and ones cold, is it really that hard to work out how they work when they are attached to a sink with a plug? 
Take all this on-board and promise to not be quite so 'American' when you get here and we will welcome you back, awesome, y'all have a nice day now.

Is America Great Again Yet?

The question ‘when was America ever great’ has been posed so let's take a look and see if we can answer it.
America became America in 1776 so we have a pick from 244 years although the criteria isn't easy to nail down.
George Floyd's niece was obviously looking at it through the eyes of race and America with a history of Slavery, the KK and it's all round terribleness towards anyone not white, the easy answer is it's never been great, always been awful.
Donald Trump, the man who started the whole make America great again buzz, is probably looking at things through an economic viewpoint and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that the only year there was no national debt was 1837 during the presidency of Andrew Jackson and the lowest ever unemployment was under Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1967 at 2.50% and the lowest poverty rate came during Richard Nixon's Presidency in 1973 with a record low of 11.1% of the population in poverty. 
Regarding wars and conflicts, in its 244 years America, wikipedia shows that it has not been involved in a war or conflict somewhere for only 18 years, at peace for a paltry 7.4% of it's existence and none of those years chime with the years of the best economic measures so we still can't nail down when America was great.
The final measures would be approval of the President and when the voters were most happiest with their lot and that would be Harry S Truman who had the highest approval rating of 91 in 1945 and as 1945 was also one of those rare years when America wasn't actually at war with someone, that would make 1945 the year that America was last great, at least in the eyes of Americans.
Not very scientific but with race protests filling the streets, a current debt of $24.95 trillion, 13.3 unemployment rate, 12% poverty rate, conflicts ongoing in Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Iraq, Yemini and Libya and a President with a record low approval rating of 45, America certainly isn't great again just yet.

America Not The Good Guy?

NBC Reporters probably don’t get out of the USA much because it seems that one has only just found out that not everyone shares his view that America is the good guy.
'The more I talk to sources, the more i’m hearing America has become the bad guys' he wrote, adding that hearing it was a gut punch.
He also lamented the days before Donald Trump, when American foreign policy decisions were apparently always carried out with noble intentions and without ulterior motives, oh dear, i wonder which cave Mr Engel has been in that he missed the pre-Trump years of wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Korea, Yugoslavia, Guantanamo Bay and the 70 year embargo on Cuba, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and support for Israel amongst many other things.
Trump has been awful but the awfulness started a long time before he plonked his massively rotund backside in the Oval Office so it is even more shocking that a foreign correspondent was unaware that American foreign policy wasn't as popular elsewhere outside of the American borders.
That it was greeted with a Duh!! You think!!' by everyone else shows that being a foreign correspondent for NBC doesn't necessarily mean being aware of US foreign policy.
Despite not knowing that America is not as well thought of as America thinks it is globally, the next question posed is just when does Mr Engel consider America was the good guy carrying out their policy with noble intentions and without ulterior motives?
Even Britain in it's Empire building, mass murdering pomp never had the brass neck to try and pull that one.

America's Criminal Founding Fathers

We often have a little joke with our Australian pals that their country was founded by a bunch of criminals, Britain sending over 165,000 of our worst to the land down under between 1788 and 1868 but it wasn't only Australia who were the recipient of our murders, America took shiploads also.
Over 55,000 British prisoners were shipped off to colonial America between 1718 and 1775, before we started sending them to Australia when the yanks got up-tight about Britain ruling over them.
Where Australians have reluctantly accepted their original less than law abiding population, most American have no idea that their country’s founding included a massive prison population which would eventually become known as the United States.
Thomas Jefferson tried to downplay the history of penal transportation to America, writing in 1786,
that even if British criminals had been sent, they 'were not sufficient in number' and were 'principally men eaten up with disease, they married seldom and propagated little'.
Some colonies tried to pass laws that would prohibit the practice with Virginia and Pennsylvania so fed up with the practice of Britain dumping tens of thousands of it's undesirables on it that they both passed laws prohibiting it which the British Government ignored and continued to send over anyway.
Americans have a rather romantic ideas about how their country was founded, the Pilgrim Fathers and all that but along with the religious folk who left England due to it not being holy enough for them, its origins also has a good dash of the deplorables we didn't want here so if you live in Virginia or Pennsylvania, you may want to go check your family tree circa mid 18th Century.
Explains Wall Street though i guess.

Manoeuvring To Become Next Global Power

Great debate on the radio today with a bunch of analysts all agreeing that under Donald Trump, rather than making America Great Again, he is finishing what the first George Bush started and has taken it far enough backwards on the global stage that it is giving way to a successor shaped by the emerging global powers.
With the recent Syria retreat being used as a watershed moment, the analysts gave three possible contenders for America’s crown as number one global superpower, the European Union, Russia and China.
If Trump was to win another term, they reasoned, then his hostility to International Organisations such as NATO and the United Nations along with his America First isolation and general unlikeability, will bring about the succession even quicker although Trump being replaced in 2020 by a more multilateral President who will not cede global leadership to others so easily could restore America’s reputation and delay the inevitable runner up role in the 21st century World.
Of the three competing wannabe's named, the problem i see with the European Union taking the top spot is that it is not integrated enough, old rivalries continue between the individual nations and rather than speaking as one voice as it does on issues such as Climate Change, it is divided on other issues with 28 leaders with different views, some left wing, some right wing, which leads for disagreements and arguments such as we see with the plan for an EU Army and sanctions on certain other countries.
If it can become a United States of Europe, rather than 28 nations trying to reach an agreement then it's chances would improve but closer integration is not likely anytime soon.
Russia is far too corrupt and authoritarian although under Putin it has moved into a position where it is in all the right places globally and mixing it with all the dominant powers but for its sheer size and power, it is too much of a loose cannon to command the respect of the other powers.
China is where i see the next seat of global power, it has been quietly expanding into other nations building infrastructure and pushing their own national interests and it is now confident, and economically strong enough, to assert itself against the other World powers.
The view that China is an authoritarian, undemocratic regime could prove a hindrance although that is softened by it's refusal to join in the West's devastating wars despite increasing its own military strength which so far has stayed in it's bases, relying on soft power instead to push its agenda along with a different type of working Governance.
The age of America may have began properly in 1989 with the demise of Communism but too many illegal wars and belligerent leaders along with an arrogance that the World is there for it to demand of what it will, has proved it's downfall and the manoeuvring for it's replacement has already begun with earnest.

Amendments To We The People

As we get told after every mass shooting in America, the right to bear arms is in the constitution and nobody has yet come up with a way to change the constitution, let's call it an amendment for arguments sake.
Luckily America has these already and have a history of amending existing laws enshrined in the constitution to improve the lives of its citizens with the most famous being the 2nd Amendment which allows for the owning of weapons but there have been a number including the one before that mad law which sees tens of thousands of Americans shot to death each year.
Amendment 1 made the freedom of speech a thing and the 3rd stopped soldiers from being posted in your home without your consent while the 4th Amendment meant that Americans could no longer be searched at any time for any reason without a warrant.
The 5th Amendment protects individuals from being forced to incriminate themselves in a criminal prosecution and without the 6th Americans would not be entitled to a fair trial-by-jury.
Without the 8th Amendment punishments for crimes would still be excessive, cruel and unusual and slavery would still be legal if the constitution had not been amended by the 13th which abolished it.
The 15th Amendment gave black and Hispanic people the vote, the 19th meant women could join them in the polling booth and after the 26th Amendment, US citizens over the age of 18 could also vote.
Far from not being able to do anything to end the awful and lethal gun laws in America, the mechanism is there to change it and they are called Amendments for a reason but it seems to leave things as they are and just look solemn and mumble something about 'thoughts and prayers' is the preferred way to deal with the additional 40,000 bodies with big holes in them clogging up the cemeteries each year.

Becoming The US President

According to the US Constitution, a Presidential candidate must be a natural born citizen of the United States, a resident for 14 years, and 35 years of age or older although being male and white also seems to help but where the UK Elections is all done and dusted within 10 weeks, the run for the 2020 American Election has begun already with 20 Democratic candidates holding the first debates and Donald Trump has launched his (hopefully unsuccessful) re-election bid.
Most candidates running for office usually have a background in politics and have held an elected position, like senator, governor, vice-president, or member of Congress and most modern candidates hold university degrees and over half the former US Presidents graduated in law.
The US has never elected a non-Christian or a woman and only one President, Barack Obama, has not been white.
Becoming President - or even trying to be - can be eye-wateringly expensive. The ability to raise funds from your supporters, or spend your own cash, is of the utmost importance as the 2016 election cost a combined £1.8bn according to campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.org.
You need to be in one of the main two parties of either the Democrats or the Republicans but even winning the most votes might not ensure you get to place yourself in Donald Trump's reinforced chairs butt groove because Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 gained the most votes but found themselves watching someone else go by in the Presidential Limo.
There are far too many Democrats to even consider looking at them just yet so we will let them be whittled down and anyway we have our own Government to worry about and if, as expected its Boris Johnson, we could well be America's 51st State by then so we will get a vote anyway.

Dangerous Abortion Misinformation For New York Act

Abortion is always an emotive subject and i hold the view that it is too big and important a decision for anyone but the people directly involved which is why i despise the religious trying to force their opinion onto people already struggling with not only the decision but the aftermath of it.
I only recently heard about New York updating their abortion laws to include a passage that a woman could have an abortion after 24 weeks where there is an 'absence of foetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient's life or health'.
Religious folk have hit upon the idea of spreading misinformation, conspiracy theories and distortions that this means the New York ruling now allows abortion up to the second before birth, even Donald Trump explained late term abortions as: 'allowing children to be ripped from their mother's womb, right up until the moment of birth'
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists state that 'an absence of foetal viability' are problems that are 'incompatible with life' such as a baby without a brain or organs that form outside the body or where 'death is likely before or shortly after birth and the patient may decide whether to continue the pregnancy and deliver a nonviable foetus or have an abortion'.
That determination must be made by a 'health care practitioner licensed, certified, or authorized” under state law, acting within his or her lawful scope of practice'.
To make it sound like mothers are choosing abortion as a form of contraception or willingly 'killing' their child just before it is born is not only a monstrous, incendiary and horrific lie, but it is factually wrong and could put doctors’ and women’s lives at risk in a country with such an extremist and violent anti-abortion movement.
Not only does it minimise both the suffering of the parents and the efforts made by doctors and nurses but it rides roughshod over one of the hardest, most heart breaking choices a parent will ever have to face in their life.
The American right wing may rail against the left wing media for fake news but this is just pathetic and cruel misinformation spread by dangerously ignorant and unreasonable religious extremists.

Paying The Man What You Owe America

The US National debt website shows the countries national debt stands at an eye watering $22 trillion but the US Fed have said that the true figure, once corporate borrowings, consumer loans along with debts being added by state and local government is included, is $72 trillion.
The Fed said that over the past 40 years, the US Treasury has been borrowing at a rocketing rate with the state debt soaring from less than $5 trillion during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, to $54 trillion when George W. Bush left office and Obama and Donald Trump adding another $18 trillion to reach the figure of today.
Using a calculator and my Grade D maths qualification, with a current US population of 328,675,066 according to the World Population Review, every American owes $220,000 each to Uncle Sam.
Better get that overtime bid in sharpish Mr and Mrs America.

Trump Making Mexican Homes Safer Again

Donald Trump's wall may have turned into a wire fence but the Mexicans are very happy about that, mainly because as fast as the fence goes up they are nicking it. 
Far from Mexico paying for it, American tax dollars are funding the fence between San Diego and the Mexican Town of Tijuana but while designed to keep out the rampaging flood of Mexicans, it is attracting them because the barbed wire is exactly what they need for their own home security.
Such is the problem that the United States have asked for help from Mexican authorities to stop the locals from pinching the wire which goes missing as soon as it is replaced, but the request was greeted with a shrug of the shoulders by Mexico and an explanation that 'the wire is stronger, sharper, and of better quality than anything sold in Mexican stores'.
He may not exactly be making America Great again but Donald Trump is certainly making Mexican homes safer and decking them out in freshly-stolen barbed wire, all at his nations expense.
I imagine those on the Mexican side are hoping he returns to the idea of bricks and cement as they could do with some higher walls to place all that the shiny, new barbed wire on.

How America Has Not Been A Force For Good In Middle East

Much of what comes out of the current American Government is laughable but i had to get some extra strong stitches put into my splitting sides after US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, called the US 'a force for good in the Middle East'.
'The United States under President Trump has reasserted its traditional role as a force for good in this region' he said before referring to the US as 'having always been a liberating force, not an occupying power' Pompeo quipped while keeping a commendable straight face.
Such a shame that something like evidence and facts gets in the way of Pompeo's huge whopper, like backing the known Al-Queada operatives who had fought against the USA in Iraq to topple the Libyan government, essentially providing air cover for these jihadist to run rampant across the country, that wasn't particularly a good thing.
Before the Libyan horror show there was the highly misguided and mistaken Iraq war which filled the country with terrorists who made the short trip into Syria and were the grateful recipients of American weapons and financial backing until they crossed back into Iraq when they became the bad guys again, only bad guys now armed with American weapons.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the first American invasion is still ongoing and Yemen is being razed to the ground by Saudi Arabia with American backing and Israel continues to poison the whole region while it goes about its deadly business of killing Palestinians who object to their land being stolen and the population held under military occupation.
Then there is the Iran deal which they have pulled out from which was stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons so how we are supposed to believe that the words 'force for good' could ever be attributed to a nation responsible for the suffering of tens of millions of civilians?
A force for death and bloodshed in the Middle East certainly, but a force for good is a stretch to far for even this appallingly awful American Government.

Both Reps & Dems At Fault In Kavanaugh Case

I don't really know the full story behind the Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford case but the jist of it seems to be she said he sexually assaulted her and he said he never.
What i did see though was both of them being either castigated or dismissed even before the evidence had been presented which doesn't show neither side, Republicans and Democrats, in a good light. 
Innocent until proven guilty should always be the way to go so he shouldn't be labelled a sexual deviant until it has been proved, or disproved as she shouldn't be believed or disbelieved until the evidence has been presented. 
As it wasn't a court case and it pretty much came down to his word against her's with no evidence supporting either person, then it is wrong to reach any kind of conclusion based on nothing more than if you support his or her political leanings.
The #MeToo movement haven't done themselves any favours by immediately jumping to the conclusion that because someone accused Kavanaugh then it must be true but then the Republicans are equally at fault for dismissing her claims as untrue just because she is a Democrat supporter.
One of them is telling the truth and nobody should be jumping to conclusions until it is fully settled without reasonable doubt which one it is.

Was McCain Really A Hero?

I don't know much about John McCain apart from he introduced us to the comedy show that was Sarah Palin, he was shot down during the Vietnam War and he was beaten to the White House by Barack Obama.
There does seem to be a move afoot to make him into some great American war hero but surely there are better Americans who can be lionized.
He may have been shot down and tortured but he was fighting in the Vietnam war at the time, an ideological war that was hugely unpopular and he was shot down whilst dropping tonnes of bombs on civilians at the time.
Then there was his support for the Iraq War, another unjust and unpopular war, Obama called him the 'leading supporter of an invasion and occupation of Iraq' although my overriding memory of the man is a visit to Iraq in 2007 where he wanted to show the recent wave of terror attacks had subsided and Iraq was returning to normal thanks to the Iraq War he so vocally supported.
After the secret trip, photos emerged of him confidently strolling down the middle of a Baghdad Market and then at the press conference afterwards he claimed 'Things are getting better, there are encouraging signs' which was excellent news as long as the Iraqi's took the few minor precautions McCain undertook before his little jaunt.
All they needed to do to be as safe as McCain in their own nation whilst out shopping was to first send in soldiers to search for explosives, set up a perimeter and secure the neighbourhood, deploy snipers on rooftops, wear a flak jacket at all times, travel by a Humvee to the market and surround yourself with 100 armed soldiers while three Black Hawk helicopters and two Apache gunships patrol the skies above.
It really was that simple if the locals wanted to get back from the market-place in one piece. 
I don't know what else he did, maybe he really was the hero he is being made out to be but the unwritten rule is that you don't speak ill of the dead but the other one is you don't make out somebody to be a hero when they were anything but just because they died.

Wanna Do A Deal America?

It is hard to ignore America. That great wedge of land beneath Canada and above Mexico has spread its tentacles all around the globe and no more than to Britain where we have a history of borrowing some aspects of the American lifestyle. As, due to Brexit, we are soon to be in negotiations with Uncle Sam over all manner of things, I have put forward a few suggestions of things we could thrash out for things we both have that would benefit the other.

The first thing i would ask for is the US National Anthem. Great tune which soars to a passionate crescendo of pride filled gusto. Ours is so bland and tuneless even a rockets red flare up the backside wouldn't be enough to breath life into it. For this we would give you changeable weather. Yes we are obsessed with it here but that's because it is so unpredictable that we literally can have 3 days of weather in 1. It is what ex-pats miss the most apparently because the weather in most of America is so reliably unchanging.

Next on the table is your sportsmen. I don't know if you have noticed but our sporting fraternity isn't bad but we could do better. We have terrible tennis players, awful athletes, god awful golfers and shite swimmers. We will take any on offer, we are not proud.
Your sportsmen in exchange for the British Communications Regulator (OFCOM) who ensure that the television news channels keep to a Broadcasting code of accuracy, impartiality and fairness in television and radio programmes. I have seen Fox news. You need OFCOM.

Something we need that you have is exciting politics and politicians. Watch our House of Commons, most of them are either asleep or have lost the will to even pretend they are not bored to death. No Obama-esque orations or Clinton style passion. Heck, i would even settle for some Hillary type pointing and manic grinning over Theresa May and her strangely eerie smile. No Trump though, you can't foister him off on us.
For this we offer you the letter U. The amount of times i have been accused of having the spelling skills of a monkey by you Americans. It's our language, we had it first so would it kill you to stick some U's into words? We would throw in an -ise to sweeten the deal so you can get shot of that -ize.

With the exception of a few bands you could count on two fingers, British music is in a bad way. You have more decent bands than you could shake a Amy Winehouse spliff at so throw a few of them this way and we give you the ability to not applaud every ten seconds. It drives me crazy trying to listen to someone over there and the speaker is constantly interrupted by applause and whooping.

Judges that hand out creative sentences like the man who called a police officer a pig and was ordered to stand on a street corner next to a pig with a sign saying the pig was not a police officer. You can have our game of football, or soccer as you insist on calling it. American football just looks like a load of men who jump on each other and then get substituted by another group of men who do the same thing over and over again. Seriously lacks the poetry and skill of a good old fashioned soccer match.

Finally, David Boreanaz, George Clooney, Brad Pitt. We have no good looking male actors. We have Hugh Grant. Not very fair but i think you will be more than pleased to accept a selection of British swearwords for the trio. I know you don't have 'T*s**r' and its stronger cousin 'W*a*k*r' but how about ar*e, bo**ocks, bugg*r, sod and git? Tempted?

That's that then, mull it over and let us know what you are interested in.

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Keep Your Head Down Yankees

American's in Britain have been warned by the US Embassy to keep their heads down during Donald Trump's visit to the UK and to 'exercise caution in the vicinity of large gatherings'.
As my Canadian Colleague finds out regularly, to British ears American and Canadian accents pretty much sound the same so American's can just pretend they're Canadian, and everybody likes a Canadian like they did at the height of the Iraq War and the dumbass in the White House then that we were getting uppity about was George W Bush.
Canadian's don't like you doing it because there is a chance that a real Canadian will get mistaken for an American pretending to be a Canadian so my colleague has come up with a guide to not make yourself known, top being try and speak quieter, Americans apparently, are much louder and boastful than your average normal person.
Personally i think as long as you don't turn up at the protest with a picture of Trump, a cowboy hat and a Confederate flag then you won't have a close up view of how great our socialised Health Service is.
If you do find yourself surrounded by angry Brits, my advice would be to shout 'it's coming home' which will almost guarantee you safe passage to a burger place where all the other Americans will be, they will be the ones shouting as they talk to each other about how they wish they could have bought their guns with them.

Looking For The Other Irsael

I have been poring over an Atlas to find the other Israel, the one that the Americans say have been unfairly criticised at the United Nations and the reason why they are pulling out of the UN Human Right Council.
That Trump is berating anyone on Human Rights while caging children is laughable but i'm perplexed by exactly where this Israel is that is being picked on by the United Nations.
It obviously can't be the Benjamin Netanyahu run Israel because last time i looked they had just killed 110 unarmed Palestinians and injured a further 14,000 for protesting against the 70 year military occupation and monstrous border wall deemed illegal by the international court of justice.
That since they forcibly took over Palestine they have invading at will and built apartments on occupied land in defiance of United Nation Resolutions and have broken another 65 UN resolutions and have a secret nuclear weapon program and up to 400 nuclear warheads so it can't be that Israel that America are standing up for.
That particular Israel has scuppered peace talks at every turn, hold over 9,000 Palestinians in its prisons, destroy farms, bulldoze homes and businesses, use Palestinian children as human shields and have been accussed of war crimes on numerous occasions so there HAS to be another Israel because nobody would want to be seen backing this Israel and accussing anyone of bias, especially
not a nation run by a racist sex-pest with a iffy record themselves including starting illegal wars, backing terrorists and dropping nuclear bombs.
I will have to keep looking through the Atlas i guess.