Trump's Latest Toddler Tantrum Backfires

The Orange faced best friend of various pedophiles in the White House must have been very angry when he found the remote control in his stomach folds and turned to the News on to see that European countries had sent some of their military to Greenland after his latest attempt to bully the Arctic Island into becoming American failed spectacularly, so angry with us Europeans in fact that he is going to make Americans pay more for things to show that he is not to be messed with.
The Marmalade Mussolini wannabe has announced that from February 1st he will impose 10% tariffs on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland and these will rise to 25% from June 1st and will be: 'due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland'.
Seems a bit like holding a gun to your own head and threatening to blow your own brains out unless you get your own way and Europe responded by saying, 'Want us to hold your coat?' because Epstein's sex pest mate might not be the brightest, and his multiple bankruptcies prove that when it comes to economics he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even he must realise that it's a massive act of self harm.
I called one Economist to explain it and taking out the swearing and insults, the bits I can use are: 'What the....EU...Single...Market....idiot....pedophile protector....Lee Harvey Oswald....the fat Dickhead'.
Luckily less sweary Economist's were lining up to explain that you can’t impose tariffs on individual EU countries because of the European single market so imposing tariffs on one is imposing tariffs on all 27 of them because tariffs are the same across all EU countries.
A report i read said that Trumps tariffs have cost each American 16% more than they would otherwise be paying so go ahead Fat Boy, make us give you Greenland by punishing your own people.
What a moron, tried to bully little Denmark but it's 450.4 million friends in the EU stood up and said 'Something you want to say you little handed sex offender?'  

Americans Rise Up Finally

I have often wondered why Americans are not protesting and demonstrating in the street as Trump goes more and more Fascist and it seems that finally they are with news of clashes between the hired thugs of ICE and protesters in Minneapolis.
On the back of one of Trumps blackshirt goons shooting a woman in the face three times last week, and the lies the Government then said to try and discredit her, protesters have been clashing with the brave federal agents who hide their faces who fired tear gas into the crowd.
The Tangerine Tyrant went onto Social Media to spout nonsense about professional agitators and insurrectionists attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job which unfortunately seems to include murdering and kidnapping American citizens and the Mango Moron is now threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy troops to Minnesota.
Maybe it will all die down or maybe it will snowball to other cities and states but as Trump tired to persuade troops to shoot protesters when they protested outside the White House in 2020, he won't be giving the orders to speak nicely to then so to the protesters, keep going and maybe take over institutions and take names as he suggested the Iranian protesters do.

Greenland Saying Naamik

Greenlander's have said in a very loud voice that they want to be Danish and not American, and to be fair who could blame them, one look at the madness going on over there and nobody in their right mind would think: 'You know what, I fancy some of that'.
Being American they would get a better flag, the Greenland Flag is pretty rubbish but  that's about it, oh they they get an increasingly Fascist Government run by a sex pest and pedophile protector but despite the orange moron banging his teeny tiny fists on the table and demanding Green;land become the 51st State, it ain't happening.  
The Danish and Greenland Foreign Ministers who turned up at the meeting today with JD Vance and Marco Rubio saying that said that it would be a very short meeting if America didn't back down and as it was barely 50 minutes between the photographs of them going in and then the photographs of them coming out, it wasn't a success.
Apparently Marco Rubio was tasked with: 'Crafting a proposal to purchase the semi-autonomous Danish territory' but that comes with a £700bn cost estimate but it’s not entirely clear how it was calculated because most of Greenland is Ice and snow with a few Polar Bears mingling around but Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said that the island would not be owned or governed by Washington and 'If we have to choose between the US and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark, Nato and the EU'.    
The European parliament leaders issued a statement declaring their 'firm support for Denmark and Greenland' and they 'unequivocally condemn the US ambition to control the semi-autonomous territory' so the tangerine tyrant will just have to make do with Jeffrey Epstein Island instead, i hear that's available and he know where that is.

Reform Just Tories 2.0

Is there no former Conservative MP that Nigel Farage wouldn’t accept as a member of Reform. OK, he might draw the line at Liz Truss on the grounds she is deranged and Boris Johnson might be a problem but those two aside, it seems that anyone is welcome from the Party that was unceremoniously booted out in record numbers 18 months ago.
Today, making it a round 20 sloppy seconds is Nadhim Zahawi who has made the step across from right wing Conservative to even further right wing Reform and as he was unveiled at the Reform Conference and immediately journalists gave a  run through some of his career highlights so far.
A successful businessman turned Tory politician who thought it was just fine to claim the heating for his stables on parliamentary expenses and then being appointed chancellor by Boris after the resignation of Rishi Sunak, only to stab him in the back and call on him to step down less than 48 hours later, a loud backer of both the economic disaster that was Truss and then the Covid Partying Boris and then the infamous sacked as chair of the Tory party for having forgotten to mention he was being investigated over a £5m unpaid tax bill when he was in charge of the Treasury, a fact he and failed to mention this to any of the three prime ministers he worked for!.
As Reform becomes a convalescent home for former Conservatives whose political careers had reached a dead end, mention was made of previous comments that Zahawi had made about Farage, mainly that he only offered division and that he could never live in a country run by Farage as well as the observation that under Reform’s immigration proposals, Zahawi’s family would have been deported on arrival into the country.
Nadhim only shook his head sadly, Nige said all was forgiven and the notoriously thin-skinned Nadhim began to get a bit tetchy and obviously wondering why did these damn journalists people keep bringing up the past?
Reform voters must be wondering if by the time of the next election, the whole party will consist of the previous Government which they grunted about so angrily.

Iran Next For Regime Change?

It is being reported that over 2,000 protesters have been killed in Iran as the demonstrations which started out as Economic protests ave evolved into political ones, reaches its 15th day and the Iranian Government crackdown on any dissent.
Now that Donald Trump has a taste of regime change in oil rich nations, he is threatening to send his military to Tehran and posted last night that 'Help is on the way' and told the protesters to keep going and we may have seen a sign of what to expect with troops begin evacuated from key US military bases in the region.
When the Pentagon launched strikes against Iran’s nuclear site last June, it hastily removed troops from it's bases which did receive retaliatory strikes by Iran and Tehran are saying they will again target US military bases in the region in retaliation for any strikes from Washington.
The last thing we want to see is another war in the Middle East, the last one America started in neighbouring Iraq only ended recently after decades but  if America do attack, and if Iran respond and if Israel take time out from their ongoing Genocide in Palestine to join in, then all bets are off as the potential for escalation grows.
Defence experts are not expecting a rerun of Venezuela with an American patsy put in charge, the Iranian Government is not expected to fall easily and cleanly, but a limited strike to encourage the protesters and threaten the Regime that there may be worse to come although if even a limited strike is responded to, then off we go into the unknown again.
Unfortunately, it does seem that by moving their military out of harms way, things may be happening soon. 

Turning Off The Internet?

More and more I am hearing older people say with all the problems the Internet is causing, especially Social Media, why don’t we just turn the whole thing off and go back to a previous world of landlines, letters, engaging with the real world and face to-face-contact which was fine before it all came along.
As a famous Supercomputer once said (which admittedly did go mad and try and kill everyone but let's gloss over that): 'I can’t let you do that Dave' because the problem isn’t the internet, it’s the people.
I imagine questions about television, radio, newspapers, the printing press off and books were raised after their inventions also.
Today I have read a newspaper from around the world, looked up within seconds what a Fungible token is, emailed people on a whole other continent, looked up the Lyrics to 'Ant Rap', booked an MOT  and i will later do some grocery shopping online and  without Google Maps I would probably still be driving in circles in the middle of Cardiff although in some regards, it was  thanks to Google maps that I was driving around in circles in the middle of Cardiff in the first place.
It is hard to argue that the internet has done a lot of harm with Social Media and allowing dingbats with a keyboard to post misinformation and nonsense conspiracy theories but it is a magnificent technological achievement which allows access to knowledge, connected people and transformed learning so rather than ban the internet, we should civilise it by just banning the social media companies that spread hatred on it.
The internet is a communication medium, it is not the communication itself. Blaming “the internet” is like blaming the post office if you get a nasty letter and anyway, it’s far too late to put the genie back in the lamp so should make social media responsible for the accuracy of what they publish, in the same way that the media (in the UK anyway) is responsible because yes  it can be a bit of  a cesspool at times but we can't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Not Defending Your Right To Free Speech

Every now and then the idea of protecting Free Speech crops up and I admit that I have never really understood the freedom of speech thing or the demands to defend to the death the right for someone to say it because to me, if you are about to say something ridiculous, insulting or just plain ignorant i would prefer it that you kept your big fat gobs shut and said nothing at all.
Speaking to other people (freely), it seems that I am not the only one confused on what it actually is as everyone claims to support it, yet few agree on what it actually allows what you can and can't say and where and when can you say it.
Legal experts point to Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that: 'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers' which seems to be saying you can say what you want where you want but hang on, the UK's Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998, guaranteeing free expression but has restrictions for public safety, preventing crime like hate speech, incitement, harassment, defamation, or national security, with recent laws like the Online Safety Act 2023 and rules for universities balancing expression with preventing harm and ensuring campus safety.
So we can't say what we want because there are limitations unless you are in a University which are protected by a specific act, the  Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023) so a good rule of thumb is if you are about to say something ridiculous, insulting or ignorant make sure you are in a University first although us British do have our own way of dealing with it, say something absurd and we won't defend the right for you to say it, we will take the piss out of you mercilessly, which also seems to work.

Artemis 2

Artemis 1 sent an uncrewed capsule to and from lunar orbit, Artemis 2 will send a manned crew around the Moon and pave the way for Artemis 3 which will see humanity back on the Moon for the first time since 1972 and most excitedly, pave the way for a permanent base on the Moon.
The second Artemis Mission is penciled in from anytime between February 6th and April 6th pending any problems after they start testing the rocket on January 17th which is when they wheel it out to the launch pad and rigorously put it through it's paces before they allow four humans to sit atop 733,000 gallons of fuel, ignite it and send it upwards at 24,500 mph.  
Even if it does pass all it's pre-launch checks, there is still the weather to worry about which is why NASA have given 15 different dates between February and April so it ultimately could be down to Mother Nature if a leaky fuel pipe doesn't mess it all up as it did with Artemis 1 which pushed back the whole program as Artemis 2 was penciled in to launch September 2025.   
Though it won't land on or even enter orbit around Earth's nearest neighbor, Artemis 2 is a test that all of the spacecraft’s systems operate as designed with crew aboard in the actual environment of deep space and if that goes well, will see humans bouncing around on the Lunar surface again although NASA will only give the date for that as no earlier than 2027 and the reason for the vagueness is that Space X, who were tasked with designing the upper stage to carry the astronauts to the surface, are having issues with their design.
If NASA doesn't make it then the Chinese are seemingly full steam ahead for planting the flag of the People's Republic of China in the Moon dust in 2030 and their own moon base when their own human landing mission lands which is penciled in on President Xi's Calendar for 2030.
I have always thought it was absurd that we just stopped after 1972 and didn't build on what we knew then and start building moon bases and using the Moon as a launch pad for further exploration but after waiting over 50 years to go back, hopefully we are back into the Space Age again although i'm still hoping that someone can get the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) going again which would see us grab an asteroid, tow it along and place it in orbit about the moon, because our own pet Asteroid would be really cool.

Iran Under Fire

Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if Iranian authorities kill protesters although the Ayatollah Khamene hasn't yet threatened to intervene in American over Trump's  Blackshirts shooting protesters in the face at point blank range but that may be on its way.
Obviously being a ruthless theocracy, we should all be hoping the rulers in Iran are overthrown as all theocracies should be and they have already shut down the internet and reportedly killed 45 protesters as what started as economic protests, spread across the country and what the supreme leader said was instigated by America who all but admitted it by Trump who said that: 'The US is ready to help protesters in Iran'.
In the background is the exiled son of the former shah of Iran who called for protesters to take to the streets and seize control of their towns so we could be on the cusp of regime change in Iran but then we thought that after nationwide demonstrations in 2022 when the last mass protests erupted and they ended with 551 dead, tens of thousands arrested and the Government still in charge.
As of today, the 14th day of the latest protest, 217 protesters have been confirmed killed and hospitals across Iran are reportedly being overwhelmed by injured protesters, many with gunshot wounds but if Trump is saying he will come guns blazing on the side of the protesters and change the leadership of yet another oil rich nation, that death toll will be eclipsed on the very first day.

Bye Bye X

The UK Government has asked the media regulator OFCOM to consider 'all options' related to X including banning access to the site over its AI, Grok, generating sexual images of women and young girls.
Under the Online Safety Act, OFCOM can block the social media platform or fine them tens of millions and are deciding what to do about X's artificial intelligence chatbot digitally undressing people without their consent and they were less than impressed when asked to stop it, X just limited the use of the image function to those who pay a monthly fee with a message that: 'Image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers and users can subscribe to unlock these features' which Downing Street called 'insulting' and urged OFCOM to reach there decision in days, not weeks.
Elon Musk, being a complete tool, responded by saying that the UK Government were 'looking for any excuse for censorship' and 'They just want to suppress free speech' and including an AI generated picture of Prime Minister in a bikini which is sure to help his case.
The EU are currently investigating X for breaches of their Digital Services Act and Australia, who recently banned the use of social media for under-16s, are waiting to see the outcome and may impose their own ban but Indonesia banned the AI on Saturday but how easy would it be for the UK to ban X?
A tech expert said that it would be pretty straightforward to do as ISP's would just be ordered to block traffic to X's domains and apps but since America and Musk went full fascist, the problem may be political.
X has approximately 17 million users in the UK and that is a good swathe of users to lose if as hoped, OFCOM does pull the switch but if the EU do the same, that would be a further 102 million users lost so fingers crossed X will become a thing of the past and then we can look at the other Social Media firms who may well have their minds focused by the action.