Ah, the United Kingdom, sounds about as united as the United States right now.
I imagine us waving forlornly from our respective sinking ships.
While I've been away from my post here news of Britian, in particular, has been stalking me bloody fluffin' everywhere! Even rural America is talking about the apparent demise of England! Just wait until they start taxing the tea!
The American Hillbilly dispatch, aka overheard in a small-town pizzeria, states that Britian has become an authoritative state complete with people being thrown in jail for Facebook posts that the government doesn't like! You need guns? I think these Good ol' boys are ready to ship you some guns for the next revolution.
Houses plummeting into the ocean, check. Inflation is terrible, check. The medical system is failing, check. I also learned a new word "Fly-tipping." Apparently, it means illegal dumping and is nothing like the American idiom "Cow-tipping," which is what drunk high school and college age jocks like to do to sleeping cows, knock them over.
Rude!
Today I read about the illegal dumping in Hoads Woods, a bluebell woodland in Kent. Four acres (1.6 hectares) , "tens of feet deep." I don't know what the BBC means by that. It's not a valid unit of measurement here nor there. The waste could be as high as 10 feet or 99 feet, but not 100 feet? And it smells, ew!
(Hoads Wood: The Bluebell woodland turned 'desolate wasteland' (bbc.com))
This could have been stopped if England had more guns!
All you needed was one really angry British grandma with a gun and those dump trucks would have tucked tail and kept their load.
"Sorry Ma'am, we took a wrong turn, we won't mess with your bluebells."
I bet the Queen knew how to give a proper handshake.
RIP Lizzy. It was only a matter of time before you left the board completely.
Would you say you trust the British government? What terrible things have they inflicted upon the citizenry? Spill the tea!
Here's a short list of why Americans don't trust their government:
- Project MK-Ultra 1953-1964 The CIA gave LSD and other psychosomatic drugs to volunteers and random people in an effort to make a mind-control drug. One person died.
- Biological Weapons Testing on populations in multiple U.S. cities 1949-1974 this included bacterial tracers and nerve agents (think LX and Agent Orange)
Also, radioactive leaks and dispersal coverups. Where I grew up is downwind of the Handford Nuclear Reservation, we're called "Downwinders" and there was one successful class action lawsuit before they got better at destroying documents and evidence. Same timeframe as above. Many people have thyroid disease and nearly everyone dies of some kind of cancer. There is also a higher-than-average rate of MS and Parkinson's disease. Both of my parents have Parkinsons disease.
See also, Manhattan project, killing some poor Australian boy and giving radioactive cocktails to pregnant women in the name of Science!
-Tuskegee Study on Black Airmen who were purposely given syphilis and not treated for it so Scientists could study the disease progression. 1943
-Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study - Giving inmates Malaria and if you participate and you don't die, we'll shave some time off of your prison sentence. 1949
-Willowbrook State School 1956-1971 Giving children with intellectual disabilities hepatitis in their chocolate milk to distinguish between the different strains and develop vaccines.
For more details see this Buzzfeed Article: Shady Things The Government Has Confessed To Doing (buzzfeed.com)
You'll note that these are all from the late 1940s to mid 1970s, but that doesn't mean the government has stopped doing shady studies. Instead, they mostly farm it out to universities and private corporations to make their hands look clean. You would be surprised what kind of projects get funded with government grants.
Insert appropriate classic music video here--->
Look! Look at how young Billy Joel looks!
Take care, Ya'll!
If the only source of "news" about the UK (which is more than just "England", by the way) is screaming tabloid headlines, then I suppose cumulatively it does all sound like a country "gone to shit". Believe me, the very last thing we need is guns - all we ever hear about 'Merca (apart from the evil machinations of "Prisoner #1" Trump), is mass shootings, mass protests, mass MAGA madmen, mass fraud and corruption, mass AI manipulation, mass "woke" versus "anti-woke" posturing, and mass millionaires ruling the shit-show...
ReplyDeleteWe will have a general election some time this year, so the screaming is just going to get louder and louder. Me, I listen to showtunes, do the garden and look forward to our next holiday. Jx
Good Morning, Jon! (Or at least, it's morning where I'm at.)
ReplyDeleteI'm probably one of the few Americans that know the United Kingdom is England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. I read A LOT of news, I know, I probably shouldn't. There was a one-off article about trouble in Wales, but I don't remember what it was about. Otherwise, Ireland is the runner-up for making the news, but they never distinguish Ireland as a two-state system unless they're fighting each other. You just have to know by the location mentioned in the first sentence, i.e. "In Belfast today...."
My great grandfather was proudly "Ulster Irish" he always said it like that, never just "Irish." He was a Free Mason and had lots of those whatchama call its? Where the monarchy says "Yes, yes, you're a good boy" here's a distinguished sword, your decoder ring to Hogwarts, and commemorative pins. At his family-only graveside funeral a bunch men showed up, performed a ritual, opened the casket and took the ring off his hand (!?!?!) and left without so much as a "How do you do?" to any of us family members! Truly one of the weirdest experiences I've ever had, which says a lot.
At any rate, I agree that neither England, nor the UK at large needs more guns! I feel like I've been in an alternate universe lately. It was strange that rural America would be worried about anything going on anywhere that isn't within 'Murica and it was their terrible advice that what you needed there was more guns. I think I eyerolled so hard I briefly met Jesus and when asked if I was all right, I just said, "migraine." I need to remember how expressive my face can be sometimes.
On one level the news distorts how bad things are, but on an individual level I also see so much pain around me. Things happening that shouldn't be happening and suffering that doesn't make the news. I have a terrible habit of trying to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I currently have written on my home office whiteboard, "Find a cure for greed and an antidote for apathy."
I think I'll hide outside in yard until November is over. Showtunes aren't really my thing unless we're talking "Once More with Feeling" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Take care!
Hurrah for geography!
DeleteThe Freemasons are a sinister lot. Mind you, Ireland's full of sinister cults both sides of the border: the Catholic Church, the Ulster Orangemen, the IRA... Only the latter had guns. Look where that got us! Jx
Media hysteria isn't helped by the kind of (teenage? might as well have been) twits in Tory Party HQ who thought it would be a wizard wheeze to promote their candidate for Mayor of London by campaigning on crime, using some footage of some sort of mass evacuation from.... the New York subway.
ReplyDeleteIt didn't work, of course. She lost by a good 12% of the vote.
Hello! Oh, that sounds like when Fox news showed Black Lives Matters protesters setting all of Seattle on fire when it was actually a single image of an old riot fire from a midwestern state back in the 1990s. They even had a fake map showing multiple fires and none of them existed! I'm glad that Tory deception didn't work either!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment!
Things are always falling off the cliffs around here - more often than not these days it's a house or houses. But that's what happens when houses do find themselves too close to the ever encroaching edge.
ReplyDeleteThe simple answer, of course, is don't buy a bloody house near to where the cliff keeps getting washed away, but people love getting a bargain or get suckered in by the "charming coastal lifestyle" and cross their fingers that the house will not spread itself across the beach while they're still in it. (There's more to it than this, of course.)
I suppose they could always buy a gun from America and shoot the sea? That would teach it!
What I find so interesting it how much what is happening in Norfolk/England reflects what is also happening here in Grays Harbor/Washington State. All those things I "Checked" we have happening here too. In fact, one of my favorite places on the ocean has to be moved back from the new edge of the sea if they want to save it. It's called Kalaloch. Hopefully you can see this short video without getting Region blocked. I love my wild WA coast! https://youtu.be/LhRm-4DBvdo?si=m-fBK90eDqnG4di8
DeleteI don't know that the UK is going to shit any moreso than the sensationalist press would lead people to believe. I'm pissed about the bluebell wood, though. That was a beautiful place!
ReplyDeleteYes, agreed, to all of what you said!
Delete... and how was the pizza ?
ReplyDeleteIt was okay. I like cheese as much as any other red-blooded American but a whole pound of it on such a small slice! I had to take most of it off, such a waste. These old innards are a fragile ecosystem now, especially since they've taken out my gallbladder.
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