Falk Off, They're Ours

Aaaah Chavez, he's definitely on my list of top 10 favourite dictators of all time; not for any presence of being a hard man like Pol Pot, or, like Stalin, and in fact being able to deliver any kind of military backing for any of his words, EVER; but he just screams "look at me, look at me, please world, please think that I'm relevant." In this way he is the dictatorship equivalent of a non-alcoholic beer; looks the part, even tastes like the part, but doesn't make you go all wobbly at the knees after a 12 hour bender.

So, the year is 1982, I mean 2010 and The Falkland Islands, or "Islas Malvinas" are being claimed by the Argentinians, again. Britain is saying "No, no, no, they're ours" and the British oil company Desire has already popped a massive hole in the seabed searching for black gold 60 miles off the shore of the islands. The Argies are all pissed off and having a go at dicking around with shipping routes of their coast, the US is staying out of it, and the rest of Latin America is apparently behind Argentina grandstanding and banging their hands on tables somewhere in the middle of Mexico.

This is a load of bollocks.

I don't mind Argentina, they're alright, I love Carlos Tevez, their flag is one of the most original out there (yes that always scores points with me), and I even gave Madonna's portrayal of Nazi sympathiser Juan Peron's wife Evita a try - although all that singing on balconies was just a bit too much for me. But it is absolutely laughable that they should claim the Falkland Islands for their own, please allow me to regurgitate some facts that I believe are why the islands firmly belong to Britain...

• The islanders hold British citizenship
• The islanders have stated that they want to remain British (I'm a fan of self determination, so is the UN by the way)
  
• The population of the island is over 70% made up of British peoples, with the other 30% being a mixture of French, Dutch, and Chilean ancestry
• The islands were first spotted by the British in 1592, visited in 1690, and settled in 1765

The Argies however don't agree, and they believe that their ownership of the islands lies in the fact that the islands are off of their coast, and that they took over the dispute of the islands that was formerly between the UK and Spain when they won their independence from Spain back in 1816. And so now they're going around pontificating about the bad "colonial" and "imperialist" Britain in the hope that they get to kick out British peoples from the islands and colonise it themselves and get their hands of some of that love-er-ly oil moolah. The irony of the situation has reportedly made Alanis Morissette's head explode.

And don't even get me started on this recent "summit" in Cancun, actually I'm already started so let's point out a couple of things about that too. For humour's sake, I'm going to assume all of these leaders were shit faced and wearing novelty sized sombreros like all other visitors to Cancun...

Firstly, let's point put which countries would automatically lose their independence should sovereignty be tied to geographical proximity to a significantly bigger neighbour - Belize, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay.

Secondly, how many of the governments in these countries could use a nice press hit to boost ratings back home and serve as a much needed distraction from actually bettering their people? I'm going to list these in four categories - 1.Our economy is in the shitter because we produce only fake leather shoes and 3 metre lengths of string 2.Oh fuck I need to get re-elected soon 3.My country is run by gang-banging drug smugglers 4.The Joe Stalin Award for Awesome Oppression (JSAAO) goes to...

1. For the sake of time, I'm going to say all of them with the exception of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico who make up 3 of the G-20 countries. Although Chile and Columbia come in as also rans.

2. Thank you to the lovely people at commonborders.org for this...

Country	Date	Term
Costa Rica	Feb. 2010	4
Peru	Apr. 2010	5
Colombia	May 2010	4
Mexico	July 2012	6
Brazil	Oct. 2010*	4
Nicaragua	Nov. 2011	5
Guatemala	Nov. 2011	6
Bolivia	Dec. 2010	5
Argentina	Oct. 2011	4
* First round.

3. Special mentions must go out to the whole of central America, Mexico, Columbia, Bolivia, and Peru - but this map should help you visualise it a bit better...



4. Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras, and arguably a few more too.


Thirdly, well there really is no thirdly, but your honour, let the record show that the backing of Argentinia was hardly given by the most credible nations in the world.


So then, what of it? Not much really. In the aftermath of the Falklands war Britain upped the level of security on the islands, and as we speak a sub is on it's way to the region to protect British citizens should the Argies feel like trying anything on. The ironic thing is, they planted so many landmines around the island in the first war, any attempt at invasion similar to last time would surly lead to massive casualties. But I expect very little to come of this, this is merely posturing by countries and leaders that are following the rhetoric and stances of populism and distancing themselves from the richer northern hemisphere nations in an attempt to win back some public favour after what has been a disastrous couple of years for the global economy.


For the record awesomely original flags include the countries of Wales, Nepal, Qatar, and Sri Lanka - who doesn't love a fucking lion wielding a sword?

On Borrowed Time

So the debt ceiling just got raised to almost $15,000,000,000,000 - an almost incomprehensible sum, a ludicrous sum, an amount so high that I'm getting spasms just thinking about it. Whose idea was this? "Well boys and girls we're in a lot of debt, and the economy is in the shitter, what shall we do? I've a great idea, let's borrow some more fucking money until we've borrowed so much that all of the toner at the fed and the treasury run out of ink."

Good plan eh? But seriously, who actually believes that you can borrow your way out of debt and economic downturn? I know everyone loves the Keynes bandwagon, but there has to be some kind of threshold as to where his philosophies just come short. I can't possibly believe that if this country continues to try and borrow it's way out of the problem while the citizens continue to be frugal then the shortfall between what the government is spending and what the government is bringing in just has to be too large of a gap to fill with anything shorter than taxing the living shit out of people.

The latest figures on each American's portion of the debt is estimated at around $45k, that doesn't sound too good does it? But this also is a skewed figure, the formula they used to make that projection is debt/population, or roughly 15t/300m. What really should have been the formula to get a good rough estimate is debt/population that actually pay taxes - and by that I mean people who ACTUALLY have to pay taxes, so no kids on there, no illegal immigrants on there, no one below the threshold of when you have to pay taxes (aka poverty line folks etc...) - when you re-do the math, and this is important for those who actually do pay taxes, it works out to roughly $100k per tax payer. Add on top of that interest that is going to compound over time, or add the leniency for separate tax bracket groups and this gets a lot worse for certain people on the social spectrum. THAT IS ABSURD.

I can't really offer any more on this post, I normally like to be snarkier than this too, but so egregious the nature of this problem is I don't think I can bring myself to do it. That's a jaw-droppingly large figure, and stands as proof for me that this government needs serious reform; we need to cut the fat, get back to the basics, and stop trying to provide everything to everyone. Being everyone's provider isn't the most selfless thing to be, the most selfless thing to be is taking care of yourself so that no one else has to.


Cash for Wankers

...Also, did anyone hear about the new cash for appliances program? Same theme as cash for clunkers except now you can help your neighbour get a brand-spanking-new dishwasher. Are you fucking serious? I already shit the bed after watching cash for clunkers give the market an unnatural spike in car sales for about a month and a half because people waited for the legislation to pass before buying their new toy - on a side note thank you ever-so-fucking-much for disqualifying my shitty 1997 VW Jetta (I love you Jetta Jameson, don't break down because of my harsh words) from the program because apparently it is better off on the road (technically usually on the side of the road) whereas a 2009 Hummer wasn't - illogical!

Anyway, I'm being discursive. The point is that yet again my money is going towards improving other peoples' homes and lives through the buying of dishwashers, dryers, and fuck only knows what else. On top of this it really pisses me off that when stuff like this is done it's done for the massive voting block called the middle class. The upper classes don't give a rats ass about this because they can afford to buy shit on a whim. The middle class eat this shit up because they have enough put by to take advantage of stuff like this. Us little poor folk who have no savings because we live pay cheque to pay cheque get nothing out of programs like this, in fact in the cash for clunkers deal we didn't even get the possibility of a lot of second hand cars for cheap because they were all scrapped. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for a hand out, I enjoy being self-sustainable and budgeting for myself, it's called being responsible, I just hate that when you preach inclusiveness and the merits of an equal society and a fair society and whatever other bullshit rhetoric that is the buzzword of the week to the masses, and then you turnaround and roll out programs like these that go against everything you've just said. Don't you assholes see the hypocrisy?!

I'd now like to address "the man" - "Excuse me, Mr. Man, please stop fucking me. I can barely afford to get by myself, but it is quite disheartening to know that the money I give you, in trust that you will use it to keep me safe from rapers, terrorists, and to educate little fuck-bag kids that aren't mine, is actually going to be used to subsidise Mr. and Mrs. Jones over at number 43 while they remodel their kitchen. Again, I feel the need to reiterate, please please please, stop fucking me. Sincerely yours, The Little Guy."


Pink Floyd -Welcome To The Machine - The best bloopers are here