A winter season festival approved right on family boardgame. From Cracked!
There have been calls to enforce a ban on keeping dogs in high-rise flats in the wake of a pet mauling five people in a Leith tower block. That’ll be this case, where the first cops on the scene cowered behind a dustbin (I’m only surprised Inspector Gadget didn’t leap on it as yet another reason why all front-line officers should be armed). And, of course, since the problem is…
My very best wishes for a happy Christmas to OoL readers, contributors and administrators. Christmas came early for me this year through an unexpected email several weeks ago from James Higham inviting me to contribute to OoL. My sincere thanks to him, Julia M and Longrider for their invitation. I hope to contribute more in the New Year and am grateful for readers’ comments which enable a different sort of…
Many countries have relied on a single main export for their income and economic stability. For the Americans, this export is war. The great depression that began in the USA with the Wall St crash of 1929 caused unprecedented levels of unemployment and destroyed heavy industry. Sweeping political changes followed with the landslide election of Roosevelt, the New Deal programs, the suspension of the gold standard, and the recession of…
It’s only a couple of days away from the time we will all (mostly) be sitting down to a huge Christmas feast with friends and family, indulging in a good few scoops and having a couple of days off work. I’ll be fully taking advantage of this time to relax and stop worrying about the world for a few days. It may be the last such opportunity for a while.…
Seems we’re not allowed to even send asylum seekers back to Greece because that country is now too poor! Mail. Britain has been stripped of its power to return asylum seekers to Greece – after a ruling by European judges. The decision by the Luxembourg court risks plunging the entire European asylum system into chaos – and leaving border controls in this country hamstrung. An immigration watchdog warned the ruling…
Whilst this might not interest UK readers, yet it’s a motif played out on both sides of the pond with monotonous regularity. There are two aspects to it: 1. As the writer says: “It’s as if Kathleen Sebelius, Goldman Sachs, GE, GM, Solyndra, Verizon, Toyota, National Association of Realtors and so many others knew all along there would be zero penalty for cooking the books.” That’s it – there is…
A Google search for “psychopaths and politicians” gives 143,000 hits. So comparisons between politicians and psychopaths are common enough on the web, but still not widely discussed in the mainstream media for obvious reasons. Yet the so-called core personality traits of psychopathy certainly sound familiar:- Glibness/superficial charm. Grandiose sense of self-worth. Pathological lying. Cunning/manipulative. Lack of remorse or guilt. Emotionally shallow. Callous/lack of empathy. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions.…
The man who, one imagines, slimed his way to head the Civil Service and take responsibility to preside over 44,000 civil servants as they devised devious tricks and absurd regulations to utterly destroy the decent underpinnings of Britain’s society, offers no apologies for his actions in a long article in the Daily Telegraph this morning. On the BBC Radio 4 news bulletin at seven am this morning his words were…
For those people I’ll be thinking of this weekend as I’m drinking white wine (or, as the case may be, grape juice) in the sun – no list necessary, they know who they are – my favourite Christmas song. The rather atheist-y content might not meet with universal approval with them but for my money it’s one of the most beautiful and moving songs there is, and if Christmas is…
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