Soooo Funny

I saw something on Social Media this morning which had me laughing so much that if i was drinking milk at the time it would have been coming out of my nose.
Unfortunately, despite looking, i have been unable to find it again so i could post it here but it was a pretend negotiation between the Iranian Ayatollahs and the American President and went something like:

Trump: Do You Surrender?
Ayatollah: Not to you fat boy
Trump: DO NOT CALL ME THAT!!!
Ayatollah: Sorry Fatty Fat Fat
Trump: Surrender to me or I will bomb you back to the Stone Age!!!
Ayatollah: You won't Chubbs, you got bone spurs remember.
Trump: THE AMERICAN MILITARY IS THE GREATEST THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN!!!!
Ayatollah: So you keep saying Chubbster.
Trump: DO NOT CALL ME THAT, I WILL DECIMATE YOU EVEN MORE!!!!!
Ayatollah: You want our oil lardo?
Trump: Yes, give me all your oil.
Ayatollah: You want to rub it all over your obese body? Even we don't have that much oil Fatso.
Trump: WE WILL OBLITERATE YOU AGAIN IF YOU KEEP CALLING ME FAT!!!
Ayatollah: You prefer we made this about you wanting to hide you being a pedophile?
Trump: On second thoughts, you know, i probably could lose a few pounds....
Ayatolla: Ha Ha, Fatty Fat Chubby Blobby.

It was much longer than that and this was only the jist of it but wow it made me laugh and i don't know if it was a proper Iranian Government trolling or who it was but well done, brilliant. 

Will Ai End Capitalism?

A fellow blogger asked me if I use Ai to write my posts and when i said no i type out every word myself they were surprised, turns out that over the past few months they have been using it themselves (only sanity checking what the AI produced) to write their blog posts which while applauding their honesty, not only disappointed me but also got me wondering just how much we read is not by the hand and mind of the blogger.
My blog writing is thick with sarcasm and humour (aka piss taking) so i'm not even sure Ai could duplicate 'my style' but it is a scary thought that i didn't even notice and assumed it was their own work.
This does lead me to the point of this post which is the implications for Capitalism itself which is based on the premise that we work and then get paid for that work.
Ai is still in it's infancy and yet we are hearing of jobs being lost and replaced by Ai because a machine is doing it faster, cheaper and without complaint or the need for breaks or annual leave.
Back to the 19th Century Luddites, we have been warned that new inventions will replace us but each time the doomsayers have been proven wrong but the fast improving artificial intelligence is the first real technology that can do what we do, only better and faster and for the the price of a few kilowatts of electricity which looks so much better on profit spreadsheets for the business.
We have heard the warnings that that AI could eliminate half of all jobs within the next decade by writing newspaper pieces, diagnosing illness, bookkeeping, generating art and videos, teach, writing code, driving and performing most administration jobs  and this isn't far-fetched, it is already beginning to replace real work while the technology is still in its infancy.
This presents Capitalism with the paradox of delivering what Capitalism has always pursued in efficiency, lower costs and higher productivity while removing human wages which Capitalism depends on to keep itself going.
If enough jobs disappear and the income for those jobs go with them, who, then, buys the products to keep the wheels of the system turning?
Ai will pretty much replace everything including any new jobs that Ai create which will free humans to follow other things freed from 'working' but also freed from wages as billions find themselves economically redundant and that could spark a new Luddite movement against the machines or worse, the collapse of society itself.
At some point in the future we will have to debate how the gains from Ai productivity will be distributed which leads us directly to the idea of a Universal Basic Income but maybe someone has thought all this through and there are plans to be put in place but at some point in the not so far future, all of those people like me who has been urging an end to Capitalism, may well get it although we may not like what it is replaced with.

Absolute Best And Worst Of Us

Within a couple of hours last night we saw the absolute best and the absolute worst of us.
The best was the Artemis II Mission which saw a rocket lift off to spend the next 10 days in space circling the Moon and NASA and the Astronauts telling us that they were doing it for humanity and that is a concept which i wholeheartedly agree with because when it comes to the various Global Space Agencies, whether it is America's NASA, the European ESA, Chinese CNSA, Russian Roscosmos, India's ISRO or the Japanese JAXA, they are progressing human kind with every launch and every lesson learnt.
Then, hours later the absolute worst when Donald Trump, the man who chose to start a war while in the midst of negotiating to prevent it, said that he wanted to bomb a country: 'Back to the Stone Ages, where they belong'.
The War, conducted alongside a nation already complicit in War Crimes and a genocide against its neighbour, has so far seen 1,900 people killed in Iran, 1,320 in Lebanon, 30 in various Gulf States, 19 in Israel and 13 U.S. service members as well as the economic turmoil it has unleashed, rather than seek to try and end the war he started, spoke of causing further harm to 90 million people and is speaking of destroying the very infrastructure they need to live.
Those few hours summed up for me that us Human's are capable of creating things of immense beauty and making brilliant innovations and discovery's which drive us forward while at the same time also being capable of horrific, depraved and unbelievable cruelty to each other.

Special Guest Blogger: Jean-Marie Le Pen

Buckle up, mes amis because this is going to be as spicy as a Marie-Antoinette profiterole.
If you ever find yourself scrolling through the labyrinth of French politics looking for a souvenir of the far right and perhaps, for those who love a good scandal, a dash of racist notoriety, then welcome!
Picture it, a young Jean-Marie, all fire and perm, storming the political arena like a French Bridget Jones who’s had one too many espressos and decided the EU is the real villain.
I was born in 1928 in a small town that smelled of coal and ambition. Even as a child I was fascinated by the idea of order, the kind you get when you line up your toys in perfect, militaristic rows.
When the French army called, I answered, more out of a sense of duty than any desire to become famous. My time in the army gave me a taste of hierarchy and the smell of freshly polished boots, which later proved useful in politics.
In 1972, after a series of jobs that included a brief stint as a civil servant (which I left because bureaucracy is for the weak), I co-founded the National Front. The moment I saw our first poster I felt the rush of a rock star’s debut. This was my first genuine far-right brand-building exercise, and I was proud of the fact that my name was now on every billboard from Marseille to Lille.
My early years in politics were marked by a series of très memorable gaffes. Did I compare Nazis to French resistance heroes? Oui. Did I blame immigrants for everything from unemployment to bad croissants? Yep.  I first earned the racist label in the 1980s after a televised interview in which I, perhaps too candidly, referred to people of non-European origin as a “danger to French identity.
Perhaps my most entertaining highlight was the avalanche of lawsuits that followed my incendiary remarks, in 1992, I was convicted for saying that the Nazi occupation of France was not particularly inhumane and i got a three-month suspended prison sentence and €10,000 (£8,283) fine.
In 2004, I took my show on the road to the European Parliament. My highlight here was an impromptu, flamboyant speech in which I compared the EU to a giant bureaucratic nightmare that eats French cheese and culture. I was subsequently banned from certain parliamentary sessions, a move I consider a badge of honor.
I made five attempts to become president of France and failed five times also but  sacre bleu, I am the ghost of French politics past.
My daughter Marine inherited the family business, and let me tell you, she’s so much prettier, and it was fun watching her try to re-brand the National Front into a more respectable party although that did include expelling me from my own party for anti-Semitic remarks and denying the Holocaust whilst praising Nazi war collaborators.
I pioneering the art of saying whatever’s most offensive in the room,  Controversy sells and a good scandal keeps you in the news. I made political incorrectness a brand, a lifestyle, a fashion statement. And let’s not forget the trials! Getting hauled before judges for defending the indefensible? It was like The Mask of Zorro, but with more lawyers and less ziplining. Moi, j’adooore a good courtroom drama. Especially when the prosecution’s arguments are as flimsy as a Frenchman’s excuse for not doing the dishes.
A quiet Sunday in Provence, the kind where the sun lingers  and I’m sipping a glass of Château Whatever, surrounded by my family (well, the ones who still speak to me), when my brain and my heart ganged up on me but neither the stroke or the heart attack killed me outright, they played a much longer game and  i died from them a year later.

A Problem For Future Space Travellers

I am away this week for my Birthday so I am pre-posting this a few days before the proposed plan to send Artemis 2 on its 4 day trip to the Moon where it will circle it for 2 days and then make the 4 day trip back today.
The delayed mission which will send four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the moon and back is pencilled in for countdown between April 1 and April 6 but NASA have yet to confirm the date as the weather on the day could scupper any plans but NASA have said that today is the preferred date with liftoff scheduled between 22:24 and 00:24
Artemis 2 is a test run for Artemis 3 which will see humans return to the moon and establish a long-term presence there and further afield but that's where it gets messy, and i mean literally messy because at some point building a sustainable human presence in space or other Planets such as Mars will require not just solving engineering problems, but also understanding how reduced gravity will affect sex and reproduction.
As yet, no one has had sex in space (as far as I am aware) but it will have to be considered the actual logistics of performing this docking maneuver in microgravity where weightless objects that come into contact repel one another so i can forsee weights or very strong Velcro but that's for the future scientists and astronauts to worry about.
Hopefully today we will see the first steps to rekindling our Space Exploration story, weather and me being able to find a TV and being sober enough to turn it on at 22:24 tonight permitting.

Special Guest Blogger: Dred Scott

Bit of an odd one, this, writing a blog post. One moment you’re succumbing to a nasty bout of tuberculosis in 1858, and the next, you’re in a sort of celestial waiting room with surprisingly good Wi-Fi and an eternity to catch up on things. They tell me my name is rather a big deal down there. Dred Scott. Apparently, I’m in the history books.
But since i'm here I thought I’d clear a few things up. Mostly, that my life wasn’t the grand, sombre march of martyrdom they make it out to be. It was, for the most part, a long, frustrating, and occasionally farcical inconvenience with racism and whips.
I was born into this whole being a slave business. No one asked my opinion on the matter, which I thought was rather poor form from the outset. My first 'owner,' the Peter Blow family, were, by all accounts, decent enough chaps. For people who thought they owned me, of course.
Then came Dr. John Emerson. A blighter in the army. He was my assigned ‘manager,’ if you will. And he was promoted. A lot. This is where the whole kerfuffle kicked off. He dragged me from the slave-holding state of Missouri to Illinois. Now, Illinois, as I’m sure you know, had rather progressive views on the whole ‘people owning people’ front. Namely, they were against it. I thought, Splendid! Fresh start!
But no. Dr. Emerson simply ignored the local laws. Then he hauled me up to the Wisconsin Territory, where the same rules applied. Legally, I should have been free. Instead, I was just a very confused and very illegal slave in a free territory. It was all a bit of a muddle.
After a decade of this continental goose-chase, Dr. Emerson popped his clogs, and his widow inherited me. And here, I had a thought. A rather bold one, I’ll admit. I thought, You know what, I’ve had quite enough of this. I’d served my time. I’d lived in free states. It felt like I’d served my sentence. So, I did what any reasonable person would do. I offered to buy my freedom. A perfectly reasonable transaction, no?
She refused.
So, I did what any slightly-less-reasonable, now-rather-annoyed person would do. I sued her but i wasn’t what you’d call a legal eagle. My grand contribution to my case was mostly just standing there, looking a bit miffed, while my lawyers did the heavy lifting.
The case bounced around the courts for years. It was the ultimate bureaucratic nightmare and then, the big one. The Supreme Court. The head honchos. The final boss level. I imagined them as wise, thoughtful chaps who’d see the glaringly obvious injustice of it all. Silly me. Chief Justice Roger Taney, a man whose face looks permanently sour as if he’d just discovered his tea was cold, wrote the majority opinion.
He declared that no person of African ancestry, whether slave or free, could be a citizen of the United States. And if you’re not a citizen, you can’t sue in federal court. Case dismissed. My entire case, my entire life, was wiped away with a single, condescending sentence. The whole thing, he declared, was an issue for the states to decide, which was a bit like telling the chickens to have a quiet word with the fox.
The verdict, as you might imagine, caused a bit of a stir. It did not, it’s fair to say, calm things down. In fact, it rather poured petrol on the fire. And here I am, a footnote in my own disaster. The man who lost the most consequential court case in American history.  I wasn’t trying to start a civil war, you know. I was just trying to stop being someone else’s property.
So what happened in the end? After all that, after nine judges in Washington told me I was so much chattel, the original Blow family, the very people who owned me as a boy, they bought me and my wife. And then they set us free. So, after a decade of legal battling, it all came down to a spot of old-fashioned charity. You couldn't write it. It's all a bit of a shambles, really.
As for my death? I’m afraid it was terribly pedestrian. Tuberculosis. Not a dramatic last stand. Just a slow, fading cough, and then, pop. It  turns out that the only way for a black man to fully escape the American legal system in the 1850s was, well, to die. A bit drastic, but effective.

God Speaks On US, Israel And Iran Holy War

America’s secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, sports an array of tattoos with Christian messaging, including one which reads 'Deus Vult', which is associated with the medieval crusades and has been reaching for biblical language to describe the war against Iran. He called on God to 'break the teeth and kill the wicked enemies who deserve no mercy' and should be 'delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them'. In other words, for Hegseth this is a holy war in which he calls on god to 'grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence'.
We recently saw Trump being anointed by Fundamentalist Christians and praying for 'continued blessing' and asked God: 'For your grace and protection over him…and over our troops'.
Troops are also complaining that they are being told that this war was all part of God’s divine plan referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.
The Israeli prime minister, whilst announcing the start of the war, invoked the Jewish holiday of Purim by comparing present day Iran to ancient Persian who 'rose against us with the
exact same goal of completely destroying our people and today the end of the evil regime will also come' while Netanyahu has also compared Iran to the biblical Amalekites and who the Old Testament God ordered to be completely destroyed including there: 'Men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys'.
Meanwhile in Iran, senior Shia clerics declared the dead Ayatollah as a martyr and as the 'Hidden 12th Imam, who is meant to return on the day of judgement and declared the defence of the homeland as a sacred duty and that it is their duty of all Muslims to support Iran.
God only knows what he thinks of yet another war in his name, so i asked him and he is not a happy chappie as he explained to me.
'I was sitting in my kitchen, scrolling through the War Tracker App' he said 'when I realized the world’s latest scoreboard looked suspiciously like a scoreboard from a medieval tournament. The contenders? America, Israel, and Iran. Their rallying cry? 'God is on our side!'
'Do you any back of the participants?' i asked and he sighed and replied that 'My plan was create galaxies, invent love and get in the decaffeinated Coffee for the Angels' he explained, 'Holy wars, on the other hand, are a bit… extra and I have been on to the celestial HR department to add the clause: 'God will not participate in wars against humans' but they say it's covered under the 'God Moves in Mysterious ways' sub clause. 
I even contacted the USA’s, Israels and Irans representative direct and said that i didn't want them killing each other to show how peaceful they were but all three said that they were just trying to keep the world safe, so how can you argue with mad logic like that?'
'Israel even claimed they had an ancient right of being the chosen people and assumed it was practically a celestial permission slip because: 'We have the holy land so God must be on our side, right?' and i replied that I gave them the land to live in, not a license to launch missiles at anyone who refuses to accept them launching missiles at them and anyway the 'chosen people’ thing was metaphorical. I meant 'chosen one to love' and not the chosen one to fight their neighbours.
I suggested that maybe he didn't make that clear enough in the Do Not Kill Commandment but by now he was in full rant mode.
'As for Iran' he continued, 'They have taken the phrase 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) to mean 'Allahu obeys whatever is our leaders foreign policy is and their rep even bought a Powerpoint presentation which shows 'Divine Approval Rating: 100%' and the America guy was trying to persuade me that they were  'Just doing God’s job' and 'The Scriptures say…blah, blah, blah' and dismissed my argument that I didn’t create a War‑Instruction‑Manual.
I made love and let there be light and all that so don't not use my name as a shield for violence because i still have the Cosmic pause button and the Angels are demanding i use it else they are threatening to go on strike and stop checking on humans and guarding or protecting them.
So i asked him if he had a message for the warring side and he replied: 'Guys, stop fighting over who gets the right to claim me. I’m busy creating sunsets and rainbows, and I could use a break from all this crap'
There you go then, when it comes to Holy Wars, God thinks you are all dicks.

Correct Move By IOC

I have long said that Transgender women athletes should be banned from female events due to the unfair advantage they have and finally the International Olympoic Committee and caught up and said that they face exclusion from future Olympics to protect 'fairness and safety'.
Kirsty Coventry, the president of the IOC, said the decision had been taken because: 'It would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category' and then made the pointed assertion that the decision was made by the the first female Head of the IOC.
Coventry, a seven-time Olympic swimming medalist, explained that now  all athletes wanting to compete in the female category at the Olympics will have to undergo a one-off SRY (sex determining region Y gene) screening to detect their biological sex  
As the IOC have longed tried toi halt illegal use of drugs wto gain even a small advantage, it is shameful that it has taken this long when the science shows that there is a 12% male performance advantage in most running and swimming events, a 20+ per cent male performance advantage in most throwing and jumping events and 100% in events that involve explosive power such as lifting and punching sports.
There have been some who are disappointed with the charity Dsdfamilies saying that while they understand fairness in competition is important, they are concerned that: 'Proposed processes do not always demonstrate the level of understanding, dignity and respect that this issue requires' which i am not certain what their point is but it is a victory for women who now can be assured that they competing on a level playing field.
The best argument i have heard against athletes transitioning and competing in the sport of their new gender is that this is only a problem with males to females, you don't hear of females transitioning to males and competing and that speaks volumes.

Special Guest Blogger: Marianne Faithfull

If you’re expecting a sobriquet like The Divine Marianne, Queen of Cool, Architect of Bohemian Bliss, you’ll be sorely disappointed. I’m just a lass from East London who wandered into the rock ‘n’ roll circus, tripped over the ringmaster’s ego, and somehow ended up in the tightrope act. Without a net.
I grew up in a world where posh meant a hatbox and trouble meant the randy milkman. My father, a dashing war hero with the constitution of a wet noodle, once told me, Marianne, you’ll go far, but not too far, love. And preferably in a straight line. Ha! If only he’d known.
By the time I was 19, I’d traded my Oxfam-approved upbringing for a flat in Chelsea, a disdain for authority, and a nascent obsession with the Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger once said I had a voice like a chain saw that’s forgotten how to sing. He didn’t say it nicely. But here’s the thing about Mick: he’s a terrible poet, a dubious philosopher, and a man who once paid me in cocaine and compliments. Which, as currency goes, is about as reliable as a bus in Manchester.
To be honest I was rubbish at being a rock star. I mean, look at me. I didn’t fit the mold of the waifish siren or the leather-clad Amazon. I was… a woman. With opinions. And a habit.
And, let’s be honest, a talent for self-sabotage that would make a cactus blush.
My 70s album Broken English? A masterpiece, obviously. But back then, critics called it 'the sound of a woman who’s had one cigarette too many.' Darling, I was one cigarette too many.
And yet! That record became a goddamn feminist anthem. Because nothing says female empowerment like coughing up a lung while singing about being the dog’s bollocks at love.
I also spent a decade battling heroin addiction. But hey, that’s just my way of keeping up with the times. If today’s Gen Z is battling screen addiction, I was battling the same thing but with a needle. Classic.
By the 90s, I’d kicked the habit (mainly because my veins looked like a map of the Amazon and I needed them for blood tests). My voice, once dubbed the raspy whisper of a thousand smoke-filled salons, had evolved into something… gnarlier.
I then spent two decades performing at places like the Glastonbury Festival, where I’d stagger onstage in a dress made of curtains and belt out “Sister Morphine” and  the kids loved it.
But here’s the thing about dying: it’s dull. All the drama, the tears, the existential crises—it’s just one long, drawn-out anticlimax. I tried to spice it up by contracting Breast Cancer, Hepatitis C, Emphysema, Pneumonia and Covid so take your pick which one finally got me but I outlived Bowie, Jackson, Prince and George MIchael and my last tax return.
I’ve been a muse, a menace and a magnate of melodrama but never, ever boring.

Genocide In Gaza Still Happening

With all eyes on Iran, the Israeli genocide in Gaza has slipped out of the headlines but it hasn't slipped from Benjamin Netanyahu's mind because he has carried on doing what he has always done, killing Palestinians.
Since the Ian War began 28 days ago, dozens of Palestinians have been killed including killing 12 at a displacement Camp which Israeli planes bombed but then almost 700 Palestinians have been killed since the announcement of the ceasefire in October 2025 and at least 75,000 since October 2023.
Oxfam has said that despite the pledge that on the Peace Deal conclusion there would be an immediate resumption of full aid to Gaza, Israel is still refusing to allow essential aid to be delivered and 'progress towards recovery is limited and almost not there. This is basic survival in Gaza'.
Wanted War Criminal Netanyahu, who also faces charges of corruption and bribary in his own country as well as being on the list of the United Nations for War Crimes, seems to be looking for a war to keep him in power and after the UN  Security Council this week laid out a detailed plan for Palestinian armed groups to decommission their weapons, Netanyahu is demanding that Hamas disarm or Israel will disarm them 'the hard way'.
One Palestinian woman told the BBC that: 'We pray to God that peace will be imposed, and that the national committee will come and control Gaza' but the National Committee for Gaza Administration, which reports to Trump's absurd Board of Peace, said: 'There is no date yet for a return to Gaza'.
The whole Middle East is literally on fire and there is one common denominator in all which is happening there at the moment, Israel who have been committing a genocide for over 80 years in Palestine and America who have supplied the weapons and funding and now joined in another illegal war alongside the murderers in Tel Aviv.