The fact that the singer is British is probably lost on you.
The fact that the UK is having its own problems with Muslim immigrants is also probably lost on you as well.

It isn't lost on Trump. Or me. Eighty percent of Americans want a safe and secure country.

What is also probably lost on you is that you are in the other 20 percent.

May I politely suggest, Charlie, that you butt out of pontificating on a subject on which you are clearly ill-informed. Your comment about Muslim immigrants in Britain is just nonsense - and worse, it is the kind of incendiary airing of ignorance which stokes bad community feelings. I suggest you leave that to your Mr. Trump, who does it often enough already.

As to the song, I did not know the band or the singer but they seem to have a fairly plangent catalogue. The qualifiers in the lyrics could have been more varied and gained in caustic force by being so - but, of course, I enjoyed it. Thanks, Andrew - and I took a real shine to their track Home.

Hey Nigel. My listening is usually not so poppy but I just like that guy. It felt a bit like Guthrie is places despite the honey.

There is a weird echo in here. I feel like I am haunted by the love child of Foghorn Leghorn and Eva Braun. Yeah, Rosenberg is a Brit. Prolly also a Yid as well. Someone should run along over to the ministry and give his name to Dolores Umbridge. He should not be saying such things.

It is not lost on me that there are beautiful humans across all cultures and nations, that our common problems defy borders as well as the categories of stupid schmucks, who, sadly, also can be found on all sides and in every culture.

And yet, Nigel, more than fifty percent voted for Brexit. Among their top reasons, Muslim extremism and immigration. Oh Wait, that was their top reason.

The next question is: Will Le Pen take France. Looks pretty good to this old rooster. Ahh Say, son...

You display your ignorance of these islands every time you post on this subject, Charlie.

Immigration was the top issue among Leave voters in England - not Wales - and saying this disguises, of course, the degree of that concern, i.e. it rated just over 33% NOT over 50% as your post implies. Also, the 'concern' was NOT about Muslim immigration - whatever that is, since no statistics are kept here, anymore than they are - or is it used to be - in the US on the religion of migrants. The pricipal 'concern' was about immigration from the EU, mainly (again the same statistical warning as above) focussing on migrants from the old East European countries, with an especial (same statistical 'health warning' again) and, given our history, shameful singling out of the Poles. As you may be aware, they are disproportionately Roman Catholic.

Muslim extremism was not an issue in the EU referendum - even for Leave voters in England.

So your cocky piece of misinformation is a very close correlative of your President's disgraceful abuse of the facts; you clearly recognise the company you choose to keep.

The facts are, of course, as any dispassionate measure shows, that all of this was non-sense on stilts as the very economically disadvantaged people who voted Leave for these 'reasons' are precisely the people who will/would be especially disadvantaged by cutting off such migrants - who are huge net contributors to our economy and to our social services, from which not they, but not immigrant communities, disproportionally benefit.

I am proud and glad to say that Scotland did not so vote and that we and our government are pro-immigration not only on economic grounds but also on cultural, social and humane ones.
You should try it some time. Oh... come to think of it, I thought that was what the US used to be proud of doing too.

Nice tune and well performed. Pity about the lyrics.

Scots are pro-immigration because they do not have any immigrants. The ones who came didn't like it and buggered off sharpish to England. What is the percentage of muslims in Scotland's population, Nigel? Do you know? Or care?

Everyone's usually pro-immigration, except if they come from certain countries, John. The disaster of Syria, other places, is beyond belief. They are running for their lives and know more about terrorism than any of us. Enough is enough. It's allowed brexit and a moron to become president of the US. It has exposed us.

Some of this discussion reminds me of the Aussie Eric Bogle's wonderful song, "I Hate Wogs."

Your comment is as un-mannerly as it is ignorant, John.

You are well aware that the statistics on religious allegiance in the UK, are quite separate from place of birth and the percentage of the one, tell you zero about the other. My home area of Glasgow stretches from huge Victorian villas to streets of capacious Victorian tennements, and the range of inhabitants - as I seem to recall having had to inform you before - run from some of the wealthiest families to multi-occupancy flats, many inhabited by immigrant, or immigrant descended, families from the Indian sub-continent. Among the villa dwellers were sections of immigration, from '30s Germany and Austria, from Greek Cyprus and the significant Glasgow Italian and Polish communities. At one end of the road in which my parents villa stood (we were relatively impecunious interlopers, actors and educators) was what was then (1960s-70s) known locally as 'Holy Corner' - a Greek Thompson style church (Church of Scotland), a well-supported Orthodox synagogue and a Sikh temple.

In any case, we are natural accepters of immigration being a nation founded by precisely that. Our 'Scots' ancestors, you may recall, were Irish as well as Angle settlers (English) especially in the eastern lowlands and native Celts of various kinds whose Gaelic speaking peoples (plural please note) were spread unevenly from the Pictish north to even the, now residually Tory, south-west, while many of our islands were mostly Norwegian/Danish settlements.

And, no, John I do not 'care' about the percentage of Muslims/flat-earthers/Hindus/Jews/Presbyterians/Roman Catholics/Baptists/Episcopalians/Bhuddists etc. in Scotland. Their desire for religious affiliation is, quite properly, none of my business - just as it is none of yours. What I do know is that among our best SNP Ministers (political, not religious) and MPs, all supporters of immigration, we have representatives of several of these faiths - and several of them are indeed, it just so happens, Muslim.
Oh - and I have heard that another Muslim is the Mayor of England's capital too. So, well done there.

Ah well, Nigel. Ignorance is doubtless the best defence. You don't know. You don't care. Scots are natural accepters of immigrants. They seemed, and doubtless seem, to have a problem with Irish immigrants, never mind anyone farther afield. Or was that the distant past? Not quite as distant as baloney about the Picts though.

As for independence inside the EU, the best of luck with that one.

Is anyone going to a "March for Science" on April 22nd? There is information about it at the website for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Also about the "People's Climate March" in Washington on the 29th.

I'm hoping to go to one on the 22nd. They're happening all over the world that day, spurred on by Trump, Pruitt, and other climate-change-denying white-collar criminals.

Andrew,

I've been planning for awhile to participate, at the event in Little Rock. It'll be the first mass demonstration I've been part of since the '80s (anti-nuke, when I was living in Colorado).

Back to Trump, I think I've found someone who can explain the problem in terms that even John will appreciate. Here.

Thanks, Roger, that's my favorite Trump spoof so far.

Great parody of a president who is a mockery stuffed inside a caricature. (with apologies to Sir Winston)

He sings nice, Roger. What he says really doesn't matter.

So when does this go boom? (And can we wager? I'd like to make up for a bet on the election.)

James, you might have already seen this but an Irish bookie is taking bets on all things Trump.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is placing another kind of bet.

Never mind.

(Thanks, Andrew. No, I haven't seen that. A friend made a fairly substantial bet that he wouldn't make it through his first term. At least if he loses, he won't have to pay up for a while...)

Andrew - how could you? The landmark 500th post on this thread, and the best you could leave us with is an Irish bookie? Well, the 1000th will be coming up shortly, and I'll be looking for something more intense. By then we might be discussing impeachment (choose your reason), and the awful fact that Pence is a more decent human being, but even more conservative.

Pence is a more decent human being? I haven't seen evidence of that. But he is probably a saner human being. And I suppose it's somewhat more wholesome when he wants to screw Ivanka than when Donald does. But he was just as gung-ho about denying 24 million people their healthcare, and probably even more so, since Donald might not have understood or thought much about the fact that that was what he was trying to do.

The dogs finally caught the bus, and the best they could do was piss on it.

Michael, are not most Americans conservative, if conservative means not liking change.

I, of course am not conservative, but you surely are.

John, you're clueless. Stick to poetry.

When change means advancing American society - going to the universal health care system that every other developed country has, for example - I'm all for it.

When "change" means going backwards - destroying the health care we now have, promoting legislation that restricts voting, getting religion involved with government - I'm against it.

It's not that simple. As many have told you - stick to poetry. Or maybe you could focus on cricket. But not politics. Particularly American politics. You know nothing, and you insist on demonstrating it loudly and frequently.

nevermind.

Well, Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician by far, and a majority of Americans favor a single-payer health care system, and a majority under forty favor "socialism" (whatever they mean by that) over "capitalism" (which they know all too well). So no, not really. That you wouldn't know any of this from the overwhelming majority of elected officials says more about systemic problems in American "democracy" than anything else.

Nice to know.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slate...s_lawyers.html

Ivanka the Terrible?
 

Yes, I'm glad to know it.

Sneak attacks by Russia: should it include Ivan ka?

This article is long-winded and digressive, but there’s some thought-worthy nuggets in it, such as this:

Oligarchy Trump Style

Oligarchy, the rule of the few, is the problem we are facing – not fascism. Trump is no fascist, not even a “friendly fascist,” as Ronald Reagan was sometimes said to be.

For one thing, he has no coherent political vision, fascist or otherwise; for another, he lacks the stature of a true fascist leader. Calling the Donald a fascist actually demeans fascism. This might seem like a good thing to do. But the description is anachronistic, and things are what they are. It would be foolish to trade off clarity for a dubious rhetorical advantage.

It is true, though, that Trump is a magnet for the kinds of people who, in the right circumstances, become fascists; social psychologists call them “authoritarian personalities.”

The description applies, however, only to a subset of Trump voters. Most of them were not so much voting for Trump as against Clinton and, insofar as they understood what she represented, against Clintonism – against the neoliberal turn, against liberal (“humanitarian”) imperialism, and against America’s perpetual war machine.

***

Trump’s escalation of violence in the Middle East -- likely to be epically counterproductive, as usual – and his budget proposals might cause a little buyer’s remorse for anyone thinking he'd rein in America’s perpetual war party.

I have been stunned by the total silence on this thread.

Trump has impetuously and clearly illegally launched missle strikes on a sovereign state - and one which is currently being actively supported by its Russian ally's armed forces. The evasion of a direct clash relied upon the kind of margin on which the security of a civilised world should not have to depend. The attacked state's heinous wrong-doing is strenuously alleged but so far unproven and there has been no legal cover given to Trump's actions by the UN.

I now see reports of his sending a carrier and missle squadron, described even by the BBC as a "naval strike group", towards the North Korean peninsula - and nobody - nobody here is commenting! I remember very vividly the atmosphere as the Cuban missile crisis moved towards it last two days and I never wanted to feel such apprehension again - but that would seem to be the potential of what Trump is now building.

Having said the which, it behoves people on this side of the pond to remember that this spiralling anarchy of armed big powers and their surrogates is the world that Blair, from Kosovo onwards, did so much to create. Should any of you wonder about the link between this post and my enthusiasm for Scotland's independence, just examine the proximity of the nuclear base at Faslane and its immediate missile-storing hinterland to Glasgow and the other major centres of population in my country (and I don't mean the UK). The removal of all such weapons from Scotland's territory was always, and remains, one of the principal objectives of the SNP and of the wider independence movement.

Nigel,

Maybe I’m just tired after two days of travel, and I have a horrible cold, but I feel almost out of words.

Plus ça change… We’ve been bombing foreign countries pretty much my entire life. The Washington DC elite is pleased. The Saudis and Israelis are pleased. CNN has a hot story. Trump looks ‘presidential’. What’s the point of spending $750 billion a year on planes and ships and bombs and sh*t, if you’re not going to use them? Raytheon and McDonnell Douglas are hungry and must be fed.

Then we can’t fathom why North Korea thinks it needs nukes.

I should go back to bed.

It is hard to know what to say, Nigel. This is a circle of pigs. Still reading and following the trails.

I did get see this public note from a Kurdish woman who I respect today:

"Who is responsible for Idlib? Assad? Russia? Iran? The "rebels? Pointing fingers just so the right culprit is found in the futile hope that perhaps some international institution would punish the criminals responsible is the wrong response.
Because the real culprit is us.
So long as we live carelessly, and so long as we expect defunct institutions like UN or EU or US or "West" or really any of our governments to act ethically we continue to accept and allow a world where what happened in Idlib happens and continues to happen. We need to live deliberately, consciously and responsibly; where to live in a world where children don't die of chemical weapons means that we create the world that we want; where we need to remember that we are responsible for the policies of our governments; where we are so active, so informed, so politicised by our fierce love for each other that we demand and force, rather than passively making resigned condemnations of those collectively responsible, to stop creating the wars, and the chemicals and dropping bombs on the innocent. Where we remember that amongst this very war and terror the people of Rojava are doing everything they can to live couragesly and do everything they can under embargo and multiple threats and still challenge the established norms and reality of millions. This is an important lesson and alternative amongst this ongoing horror and tragedy: being reminded that we can do the impossible.
We create the world that we live in. We need to stop expecting governments to spontaneously act ethically, and do whatever it takes politically, socially, economically, physically, emotionally to ensure that we live in a different world."

From Hawzhin Azeez

Moving words. Andrew - but I can't take knocking the UN or the EU. They may be poor frail things but they are - especially the UN - the best that we've got and we - all of us - need to support them and what is left still of the international web of rule and law based systems that we've developed since 1945. Their failings may be obvious but the screaming chaos with which we would have been 'living' had they not existed is a horror their detractors should sit down and contemplate. Trump is about as conducive to their continued effectiveness as Kim is to family harmony.

This man is no Jack Kennedy - nor his brother, who was such a major source of wisdom and restraint over the Cuban missile crisis. Some people may now mock that as a standard by which to judge - but they did call it right then. We know because we are still here now.

Sympathy for your cold, Michael but as all those years ago, I fear - and that is the word I mean - that intelligent cynicism may not be enough to survive what Trump may yet concoct.

Hey Nigel. I hear you to some extent. But I don't think those institutions are a future hope from the perspective of folks who have been downstream for the last decades. She is questioning the death of imagination that would keep us in the ring of stones, stirring dying coals, and saying this is the only fire we have. I think experience of other institutions in Rojava is not at the mercy of our arguments. But having spent the morning listening to interviews with individuals from the rural cadres of killers under Pol Pot in Cambodia I am not feeling particularly stoked on humanity in general.

My dad worked at Raytheon in 2016, having spent almost his entire career at NASA, where he engineered satellites that measure rainfall and climate change (he is a solid environmentalist). He is back at NASA now, but I have no doubt he helped create the missiles that were just used against Syria. Before the election, Raytheon had its employees watch several videos about how detrimental Clinton would be to the company... which was odd given her war record. Since it now seems that Trump has stock in Raytheon, it has become too clear, if it weren't obvious already, that Raytheon wanted this to happen before he was ever president.

Geez, Walter. Thanks for sharing that craziness.

Never mind. Not quite what I was looking for.

MOAB. Tosspot. This clown will kill us all.

I got to wondering how many of these hugely expensive (and hitherto untested) toys are stockpiled in the armoury.

I heard The Donald crowing "Do you feel lucky, punk?" and then another, quavering, reedy sound I could not at first identify.

It took a while to realise that it was me, laughing.

Laughing!

It's been a long time since Cuba. I must be getting old.