Temperatures are expected to fall to as low as -6C (21F) tonight after millions of people woke up to frost and icy conditions this morning – with snow falling as far south as Brighton and Devil’s Dyke in the South Downs of Sussex. The first flurries of snow hit high ground on hills in northern England, Wales and Scotland as November closes with an icy blast after the mercury dipped to below freezing overnight.
Sometimes I fear for us all. In an otherwise-interesting article on the world’s “vanishing countries” which talks about how China’s population growth is slowing, we also see examples of foolishness such as this:
China is relaxing its one-child policy — but it may be too late. In addition to lacking workers, a fifth of China’s homes are empty, reported Bloomberg news — more than 50 million apartments and houses have no inhabitants.
Fertile countries have a far brighter future. They are a good place to invest your money, said Hans Rosling, a Swedish professor and demographic “prophet” who died in February.
“You will find an emerging China in Africa,” he told the BBC in a final interview. “Go there to invest if you want to earn money, if you want to have nice pensions when you retire, place part of your capital there because there you will see fast growth.”
Clearly, Rosling never set foot on the African continent, where there’s never been a shortage of workers, only a shortage of honest government. Allow me to revise his statement for you:
“Go invest in African countries if you want to lose money, if you want to have no pensions when you retire, and place part of your capital there if you want to see fast growth in African politicians’ bank accounts and not in yours, and to see no tangible results from your investment.”
That’s the reality of investing in Africa.
It reminds me of that old, withering observation: “Your suggestion is so stupid, so devoid of commonsense and logic that it could only have been made by an academic or intellectual.” (Note that the latter two are not synonymous.)
And these are the people who are regarded as the intelligent ones, who advise governments and tell us how to run our lives.
Not that I need to belabor the point, but any “free” government health service is going to cost you. In almost every such case, it’s when Gummint decides that you’ve had enough. Here’s one from Britain’s NHS:
A hero RAF rear gunner who evaded capture by the Nazis in 1942 after being shot down over Belgium has been told to sell his house to pay medical bills as he has ‘survived too long’.
(I have to warn you that if you read that whole story, you ought to remove all throwable objects and guns out of reach — and even more so for the next one.)
Over in oh-so caring Europe comes this horrifying story:
Dutch authorities are prosecuting a doctor for euthanising an elderly woman with dementia in the first case of its kind since the practice was legalised in 2002.
The doctor, who was not named, has been charged with secretly drugging the woman’s coffee with Dormicum to make her drowsy and asking her family to hold her down as she was lethally injected in a care home in The Hague in 2016.
Whilst the 74-year-old patient was receiving the lethal injection she woke up and began fighting the doctor.
(I should also point out that the Dutch doctor was a woman, which somehow just makes it worse.)
I know, I know: “Oh, that could never happen over here in the U.S.” — until it does. When to comes to money, every government will eventually resort to violence; try to find someone who has ever dealt with the I.R.S. over an unpaid tax liability, and not felt threatened by the experience. You won’t.
Here’s a statement by hapless KrautPM Angela Merkel (no link, it’s CNN fuck ’em):
German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned a “worrying” resurgence of anti-Semitism in Germany, including a rise in violence attacks, and appealed for a defense of liberal democratic values and institutions.
…and here’s Insty’s QOTD:
“Weird how when you import a bunch of anti-Semites you get more antisemitism.”
I see that a bunch of Brit pantywaist MPs are shocked — shocked! — that celebrity rightwinger Tommy Robinson wants to come over to the U.S. and they’re doing something about it:
Robinson, a founder and former member of the far-Right group the English Defence League, has been invited to speak at an event in Washington later this month.
He is understood to be waiting for authorisation under the U.S.’s ESTA system before embarking on the trip, which opponents fear could open up new sources of funding for his campaigns.
A cross-party group of MPs has now written to the Trump’s administration’s Mike Pompeo, head of the U.S. State department, insisting Robinson should not be allowed to use the trip to ‘promote his violent and extremist agenda’.
Once again, stupid fucking Brit politicians demonstrate that they know nothing about our political system. You see [he explained patiently] we have this thing called the “First Amendment” to our Constitution which explains quite clearly that if someone wants to suggest that allowing hordes of radical Muslim assholes into a country is not A Good Thing, then he can go right ahead and say it.
In fact, if Pompeo accedes to their pathetic little complaint, I would suggest that he needs a kick in the balls and should be given some remedial study of said Constitution. (I can’t imagine that he would even listen to these morons let alone stop Robinson from coming in, but stranger things have happened.)
I can’t get up to D.C. to see Robinson in action, but I await the inevitable video of his speech with bated breath. (I bet it turns out to be quite innocuous, in American terms anyway.)
Fucking Brit politicians are all a bunch of timorous neo-totalitarians, regardless of party — and if Pompeo is going to ban anyone from coming over here, it should be these fifty MPs, for attempting to stifle freedom of speech. Now that I’d get behind.
Longtime Readers will know that I am often scornful of modern architecture on these here pages, but I have to admit that occasionally some light does shine through the gloom. Here’s one example from, of all places, Shanghai, where somebody decided to put a played-out quarry to good use. Before:
…and after:
…followed by a night-time shot:
We could use a few of those Over Here. Gawd knows we have enough quarries and de-topped mountains (e.g. in Kentucky, eastern Ohio, West Virginia and Montana, to name but a few) which would support a decent-sized chain called (say) Quarry Hotels, Inc.
And if we’re not going to use the quarries for any other purpose (e.g. to bury all the dead socialists after The Glorious Day)…