Now A Convicted Criminal To Add To Trump List Of Shame

Donald Trump is guilty of many things, being an oompa-lumpah shade of orange to name just one of many but whether he was guilty of falsifying business records to hide his affair with a porn star we found out last night and he is, guilty 34 times actually.
Trump didn't expect to get off scott free though, saying even Mother Teresa wouldn’t be able to get free of the charges of having sex with and then paying off a porn star and if she had broken the law in the same way that he did then i doubt if she would, that's the whole point on having a jury although now that he is a criminal and has a shiny criminal record to prove it, he is potentially barred from voting and owning a gun but not, apparently, barred from running for President again.
It may be worth remembering here that last time he was in the White House he mishandled classified documents, attempted to overturn the election result and fomented the 6 January attack on the US Capitol as well as been found liable for sex abuse, defamation and impeached twice but according to some, falsifying his business records and now having the words 'Sex Abusing Criminal' beside his name is not the drawback it would appear in America, a country where a former president being convicted of multiple crimes is a boost to his prospects of getting the job again.
Before the verdict was read out his awful son, Donald Jr, said that he was proud to stand by his father in court which is a bit of a weird one when his father was in court for paying the silence of a porn star but it was the moron's words afterwards which made me smile, saying that 'America was turning into a third-world shithole' to which the reaction of many would have been: 'You're not wrong there pal' as we all sit on the sidelines and laugh.
So convicted criminal and sex abuser former President Donald Trump is now able to go about his business of being re-elected President and i am sure there are enough hapless gullible morons that will vote for him even if he is sat in a jail cell, which in some ways is incredibly funny but in others, quite scary if there are enough of them to vote him back into office.

Lib Dems Dicking About & Greens Pushing Things

The role of the other parties in this General Election who are not Labour nor Conservative is to make sure voters not forget they are there and the Lib Dems have come up with the wheeze of doing something so blatantly mad cap each day so we had Ed Davey falling repeatedly off a paddleboard and Ed Davey gurning as he rides a bike down a hill, legs akimbo so while the Lib Dems have gone for dicking around in lakes, on bikes, up trees or anywhere a camera waits to stay relevant, the Greens have gone much more grown up.
The problem the Greens have is that they really are a one trick pony, they all all over the important Environmental issues and many people are on board with that, who but the most dunderheaded wouldn't want to live in a cleaner world where you don't risk contracting any number of noroviruses while you paddle in the sea but after that, the Greens have very little and you need to have more than one policy to be in Government.
So the Greens kept their launch today very short and sweet, 15 mins from start to finish and featured knitted rosettes, pictures of sewage being spilt into our lakes and rivers and large plastic 'Vote Green' placards being held up.
Before any journalist could ask if they were single use plastic signs the leaders were giving us some meat on the bones of their policies and that was as meaty as a pencil because they will 'push the next government for bold action' and 'push Labour to be bolder and braver' and generally push other things with their main aim being to get 4 Green MP's in the Commons which is a worthy goal but as the only Green Party member anyone knows, Caroline Lucas, is stepping down then just getting 1 Green MP could be the definition of pushing it.

Biden's Rapidly Disappearing Red Line

The problem with drawing a red line is when the red line is danced all over you either have to do something or look a complete fool and back down and Joe Biden has decided to look a fool and frantically rub out the line then actually do something to stop the Israeli genocide going on courtesy of the weapons he has provided.
Just over two weeks ago, President Biden told the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, not to go into Rafah and if he did: I'm not supplying the weapons' but Bibi not only went into Rafah, his military has been slaughtering Palestinians whether they were retreating for yet another apparent safe place or living in tents and used the American weapons to do it.
So all eyes on Rafah and Biden and we waited to see the response, would Biden withdraw the weapons? Stop funding the genocide? Join in the rtest of the world calling for an immediate ceasefire? What he did was change the definition of exactly what 'going into Rafah' meant.
Biden's security advisor told us about the increasingly elastic red line meant that there 'was no mathematical formula for working out when it had been crossed' and they would be judging it on whether there is a lot of death and destruction or if it is more precise and proportional.
Biden must have been happy with that as long as Israeli didn't do the usual Israeli thing and kill large numbers in the offensive it would be fine, unfortunately, the Israeli's did just that and days later 50 Palestinians are killed in an attack on a displaced people's camp in Rafah which Israel said 'oops, unfortunate accident' and added yet another investigation to the list.
At this point Biden must have sat in the Oval Office and wondered run the words 'Precise and proportional' and 'a lot of death and destruction' through his mind and came up with the idea that this STILL didn't cross his red line so that makes it ok to carry on providing the military aid.
As the call for Israel to be sanctioned for Genocide at the ICC and ICJ grow even louder and more and more nations are sidestepping America and Israel and recognising Palestine, Biden is looking more and more out of step and must be concerned that the 1948 Genocide Convention, outlines that complicity in genocide is a punishable act, and as he is continuing to give military and financial support to the very nation slaughtering large numbers of civilians using the weapons he provided them with to do, he is complicit up to his eyeballs and hopefully he wont get his second term but then the problem is that the other guy is even more of an arse in making America Israel's bitch.

UK Election For Newbies

There are just over 5 million 18 to 23 year olds in the UK which means 5 million people who were not able to vote at the last General Election in 2019 so all this stuff going on may be a bit tricky to understand so here's a little guide to understanding the UK General Election.
What is a general election for? It is not to pick a Prime Minister as you may think, that is just a consequence of whoever gets the most votes so you can't vote for who you want to be Prime Minister, you can vote for your local MP who will represent your areas or constituency which is one of 650.
Whichever Party wins the most constituencies, get to make up the Government and whoever is leader of that party becomes the Prime Minister.
Our system is called the First Past The Post System which means whichever party gets to 326 seats and therefore cannot be beaten and can form the next government.
To be able to vote you must be over 18, must be registered to vote in your constituency, must be either a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Irish Republic and must not be a convicted prisoner or in a mental hospital.
To actually vote you take your poll card and photo ID to a polling station on 4th July between 7am and 10pm and you will be handed a ballot paper with the list of candidates and their parties and you put a cross next to the MP you want to vote for and slip it into the ballot box.
Voting closes at 10pm and there will be an exit poll which is basically a survey of people being asked who they voted for and they are generally a very good indicator of what to expect because by the time the ballot boxes are collected and the votes counted it is generally after midnight and goes on through the night with the the final results coming in by late morning.
A hung parliament happens when no party has the 326 seats needed for the majority so parties come to an arrangement to get together to make the 326 between them and then the parties rule together as a coalition government as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats did in 2010.
If the ruling party win then they carry on but if they lose then the prime minister resigns and the King will invite the leader of the party that has won the election to form a government and move their furniture in 10 Downing Street.
Five years later we get to do it all over again.

DJ's Give Thanks To In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Radio Presenters of stations which still play music will be smoking more and giving their bladders a rest tonight because on the death of the Iron BUtterfly lead vocalist, Doug Ingle, they will legitimately be able to play the rock classic In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida today.
Usually, the 17 minute hit from 1968 is played when the presenter needs a smoke or a toilet break during their stint but originally they would have had time to pop home and feed the cat because it was cut down from an initial 35 minutes.
A great story is that the song was meant to be called 'In The Garden Of Eden' but when asked the title, Ingle was so drunk that what he slurred was written down as 'In A Gadda Da Vida' and once he sobered up he just went 'Oh Well' and just went with it.   
Taking up the entire B side of the album of the same name, it spent 81 weeks in the top 10 in the US and sold over 400,000 copies and despite being around 14 minutes too long and featuring a 13 minute instrumental break with a 2 minute drum solo in the middle, it's not a bad song with a decent organ led hook even if it is very much a 60's prog-rock type song which i imagine many a spliff was smoked to by people in very wide bottomed jeans and psychedelic shirts back in the day.
Radio presenters everywhere will be lingering just that bit longer in the toilet and rising their second cigarette today in appreciation of Doug Ingle and Iron Butterfly.

It's A Miracle...Or Is It?

A Eucharistic miracles consist of unexplainable phenomena such as an apparition of Jesus or the Virgin Mary, unexplained voices, writings or messages from the beyond, the weeping or bleeding of sacred images and generally things in those sort of areas but the views of the Catholic Church may be mired in ther 15th Century (gay marriages, women in general etc) but in some ways it has moved into the 21st Century because the amount of 'miracles' appearing on Social Media has forced it to reevaluate exactly what a miracle is.
Where the decision of whether a miracle was real or fake was originally down to the discretion of the local bishop but now that miracles are under new management, the decision is now in the hands of a central team who get to decide if it is God's work or a bored teenage with Photoshop.
There are now six classifications a miracle can fall into ranging from definetly super-natural through concerns about the credibility of the phenomenon to increasing doubts to finally a massive fake, kind of yep definetly, likely, benefit of the doubt, doubtful, unlikely and finally to how dumb do these people think we are?  
The Church does acknowledge that the outcome of the new norms will minimise the number of phenomena recognised as 'Miracles' but they hope, this will make the real miracles even more impressive
so that face of Jesus on your toast or the Virgin Mary on that door of the local Wetherspoons may indeed be a miracle but the biggest miracle is how, in 2024, people still believe in this religion rubbish.

What Made It Through Friday?

Rishi announced the General Election on the Wednesday and Parliament was prorogued on the Friday which meant that the Members of Parliament only had two days to vote in any new laws so they abandoned the 'harder' ones that would have struggled to have have made it through and voted in the 'easy' ones everyone agreed on and could be fast-tracked through Parliament so what was ditched and what made it onto the law books?
Out went the Tobacco and Vapes Bill which would have banned anyone born after 2009 from buying cigarettes and the Renters Reform Bill which would have banned no-fault evictions. The Football Governance Bill which would have set up an external regulator to look into Football teams going into financial bankruptcy was booted into Row Z joined by the Criminal Justice Bill which would have given police powers to move rough sleepers, creating an offence of causing death by dangerous cycling and banning sex offenders from changing their names.
Laws to ensure annual licences for oil and gas projects in the North Sea, a replacement for the EU data protection regime, banning public bodies from boycotting Israel and a new law for whole-life sentences for the worst murders also fell by the wayside so what did they vote through?
The Post Office Offences Bill quashing the convictions of sub-postmasters convicted in the Horizon scandal was waved through as was compensation for victims of the infected blood scandal as was the Bill which makes online stores from adding additional fees to an item once the customer reaches the checkout and foreign governments are now banned from owning UK newspapers.
Also through are higher jail sentences for people stealing cats and dogs, the British Nationality Bill which makes it easier for Irish nationals to register for British citizenship and a tweak to an existing law making it easier for pubs to stay open later if England or Scotland reach the semi-finals or finals of the Euros.
The Rwanda plan is already law so couldn't be dropped even if Rishi has admitted that no flights crammed full of illegal immigrants will be taking off for Africa before the election and as Labour have said they will scrap it straight away of they get in, you do have to wonder if we get the £240m we handed over to the Rwandan President Paul Kamage who must be thinking wow, and they say we are a backward nation.

The Questions The Politicians Won't Want To Be Asked About

The starting gun has been fired and the election machines crank into life so you won't be able to turn on the TV over the next six weeks without some politicians gurning back at you but what will they be saying, or more importantly, not saying?  
The Conservatives message is to stick with whatever plan they have been applying over the last 14 years and not to risk ruining it by voting Labour. What they won't want to be asked about is anything from the previous 13 years such as Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, NHS, Brexit or basically anything pre-October 2022, when Sunak became PM
The Labour message is it is time for a change and to repair the economic black hole which is the British economy. What they won't want to be asked about is Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, Gaza and Angela Rayner's Capital Gains Tax arrangements.
The Liberal Democrats push is that they are the party for anyone who doesn't like the Conservatives but are not keen on Labour and this has worked in by-elections. There main message is to hammer the Sewage problem under the Conservatives but they won't want to be reminded of their immediate reversal of Brexit pledge, their previous teaming up with the Conservatives or leaders Ed Davey's role in the Post Office scandal when he was the Business Minister.
The Scottish National Party will go big on how they are the only party who can speak for Scotland in Westminster but won;t want questions how that forensic tent outside Nicola Sturgeon’s house, Humza Yousaf, police arrests of previous leaders, luxury motorhomes or the NHS waiting lists up there.
The Greens big message is Labour is going to win so why not have a few Greens in Parliament also so they can push them on the environment and net zero but what they won't want questions on is
Transgender issues which seems particularly divisive for the Greens after they suspended senior members for 'gender-critical views' .
The Reform UK Party's message is that they are more right wing than the Conservatives and speak up for those disenchanted with Rishi Sunak and they will hammer legal and illegal immigration and woke culture but don't ask how they will split the right wing vote and allow an even more thumping Labour win.
There we go then so when a Tory, Labour or any of the other assorted politicians turn up in your town banging on about what they will do, you know what to ask to make them squirm uncomfortably.

You Are Welcome American Gun Nuts

I have often stuck my nose into American bizarre gun laws and always thought that as the screwy gun nuts won't allow a ban on guns and offering thoughts and prayers after another loony shoots a bunch of school children, why not just make it exorbitantly expensive to buy a gun and the bullets in the first place which would shift them out of the hands of anyone but the most dedicated of people fond of propelling a bullet into someone.     
Appears that someone in California read my blog and decided that English woman may be on to something and from July, California will be whacking an extra 11% tax on guns and ammunition to reduce gun sales which immediately got the National Rifle Association squeaking in protest which means they know this would have an impact on gun sales.
It is a well worn path they are treading which is that by making a given product more expensive, cigarettes and alcohol for example, such a tax leads people to buy less of it, reducing the harm to society and with the annual gun death rate hitting 40,000 in America and 120,000 injured, that is a lot of harm to society being done right there.
Economists are estimating that the Californian gun tax should be highly effective and consider that for every 1% increase in price, demand decreases by 2.6% and the the California tax would reduce gun sales by between 30% to 44%.
If applied across the country, a drop of a third of guns sold would do wonders to reduce the amount of people attending funerals or praying next to hospital beds of loved ones but the obvious problem is anyone wanting a cheaper gun or bullets would just pop over the border to buy it but other states struggling against gun related deaths would be watching closely how things work out in California and replicate it themselves and reducing the opportunity for the sort of deranged people who like to quote their rights under the second amendment after each shooting.
Relax gun nuts, you can still compensate for whatever inadequacies you feel owning a gun makes up for, you will just have to pay through the nose for it. You are very welcome.

An Expensive Stones Throw From The Seaside

I live literally a stones throw from the beach and as the beach is one of the pebbly types, there are a lot of stones available to throw but i wasn't aware that the 1949 Coastal Protection Act makes it 'unlawful to excavate or remove any materials on, under or forming part of any portion of the seashore' and that includes sand, pebbles or fossils so if like most people you have a souvenier pebble on the sideboard or that rockery in your garden came courtesy of a bag of stones from the beach then march yourself down to the local police station because you are a dirty criminal.
Cumberland Council in the north of England has been looking through the law books and have announced that anyone caught taking pebbles from beaches will now face fines of up to £1,000 but they do have science behind them because the pebbles and sand on the beach is there to provide natural protection for homes and infrastructure from the sea.
The science is that the more pebbles and sediment on the beach, the more able the beach is to absorb wave energy and removing pebbles and sand makes the beach less able to act as a natural barrier to flooding and erosion.
I agree that one person taking a few pebbles from the beach as a momento of that Summer holiday may not significantly affect the the overall beach volume, the cumulative effect of many people removing numerous pebbles may be more significant especially as the sea level creeps up thanks to Global Warming so now we know it is illegal, and the local Council can raise money from it, i expect to see it being enforced and look out my window and see kids crying because Mummy and Daddy have been hauled away to a local court to be fined for stepping off the beach with that pretty coloured stone they found.