Comments

  8. grandolddeity says

    Stateside flags are at half staff. In remembrance of 9/11. Ironically, I haven’t heard boo about QEII except on the telly.

    Condolences, UK. That is all.

  9. birgerjohansson says

    A shitload of brown people have died in a mega-flood in Pakistan but I assume this is not worthy of news coverage antmore. Because not a single one of the bajillion victims were a little old lady (sarcasm).
    You know, the Japanese one and Kissinger should have died simultanously, that would have been perfect.
    Kissinger; he got Laos and Cambidia involved in the Vietnam war, I wonder If the surviving Cambodiands are grateful?
    Also, Reagan gave diplomati and material support to Khmer Rouge when they fought the Vietnamese. I just wanted to inform the majority who are too young to recall the atrocities.

  10. pilgham says

    I think there will only be a handful of people mourning Kissinger if only because most won’t remember who he is. It will be noisy though. The mourners will all be shouting to make their numbers seem larger and the rest will be shouting to drown them out. P..K will be there too.

  12. Walter Solomon says

    birgerjohansson

    Also, Reagan gave diplomati and material support to Khmer Rouge when they fought the Vietnamese

    I imagine because the Soviets were supporting Vietnam and US neocons were still smarting over losing the Vietnam War.

    Vietnam would get into a war with China soon after and the Soviets would continue to support them while fighting their own war in Afghanistan.

  17. ajbjasus says

    @14 You might have noticed that people in the the UK and elsewhere might not be able to heat houses or s h cook there food soon.

  18. birgerjohansson says

    Ironically the Swedish election will be Sunday 11 September
    (The national populist /xenophobe party is expected to be the second largest party, bigger than the conservatives)

    I struggle to find something more personal related to grief.
    This might do, even if it should have been posted three days earlier
    “El 7 de Septiembre”
    https://youtu.be/c3eiDRocK7Q

  20. justanotherguy says

    I’m still amazed that in 2016, so many liberals thought there was no difference between the two major parties.

    They were thinking, “nothing much has changed in decades, so the two parties are the same.”

    When what was actually happening is that the two parties had just been blocking each other. For decades.

    If you want to know what a political party is like, you can’t just look at what laws they passed. You have to look at the laws they wanted to pass, but couldn’t, because the other political party stopped them.

  21. birgerjohansson says

    The Venice film festival just rewarded ‘All the Beauty and the Bloodshed’ -a documentary about the Sackler family that is behind the opioid chrisis- yet the family has bought respectability by donations. I can’t wait for the vultures to drop dead.

    More about corruption with big donors.
    “Professor battles termination after big donor Alan Dershowitz had her silenced
    https://youtu.be/FGV9AQNaODs

  22. birgerjohansson says

    Deaths.
    Peter Straub, author of horror novels (and onetime collaborator with Stephen King) has died.

  23. flange says

    From Charles Pierce:
    “Uju Anya: ‘If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star.’
    Anya’s father was a member of the Igbo people of eastern Nigeria. In 1966, the people of that region, angered by the corruption and brutality of the Nigerian central government, struck for their independence as the Republic of Biafra. A year later, a British-sponsored peace conference ended with a treaty that the Nigerian army, which was really running things, reneged upon. Great Britain did nothing. Instead, the British government criticized the Biafrans for their attempted secession.”
    A lot of people killed under her “reign.”
    Kissinger is a more vile and active murderer of millions—carpet bombing in Cambodia, coup in Chile. And generally a malevolent, lying sack of shit.
    I’d like to see him vilified, but I doubt it will happen.

  24. says

    I doubt there will be a lot of public mourning for Neville Kissinger. What would they say? “He gave us ‘peace with honor’ in Vietnam…his contribution to civilization will be sorely missed!” I don’t think so.

    The Republicans needed someone they could pretend was a “foreign policy genius” to counter the Democrats’ achievements after WW-II; and Kissinger just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

  25. birgerjohansson says

    Flange @ 23
    Yup. You cannot have an empire and clean hands. Not at the same time.

    Speaking of africa; the Mau-Mau “uprising” (more a black-on-black affair) triggered a horrible British backlash, worthy of German occupying forces. No one knows how many died in the camps* or were beaten to death during interrogations.

    *The British were big on concentration camps. Ask the South Africans.

  27. birgerjohansson says

    I just realised: During BoJo the Brit government has started to treat the British people with (almost) the same disdain it has always felt for its overseas subjects. Cyprus and Norhthern Ireland was a transitionary phase when they started to use torture on white people.

  28. StevoR says

    @9. & # 21 birgerjohansson : “You know, the Japanese one and Kissinger should have died simultanously, that would have been perfect.”

    Japanese one = who please?

    “Professor battles termination after big donor Alan Dershowitz had her silenced.

    So much for the reichwing being opposed to “cancel culture” eh? Not that we didn’t already know that but the sheer damn blatant hypocrisy of them yet again..

    A shitload of brown people have died in a mega-flood in Pakistan.

    One thousand, three hundred and ninety six induiidual human lives lost.

    Twelve thousand, seven hundred and twenty eight “non-fatal injuries” many of which no doubt life-changing.

    Thirty three million people affected with a third of the nation flooded in the “world’s deadliest flood since the 2017 South Asian floods and described as the worst in the country’s history.”

    Figures quite likely to rise further – source & italicised line above : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Pakistan_floods

    Barely any media coverage and attention because, hey, the single death of a 96 year who was the very uppermost of Upper, upper, upper upper upper upper class British people predictably finally died. I mean yes, she was the symbolic figurehead Head of many States mine included* but still. Sense of perspective and proportion and attention to another arguably much, much bigger news from our media? Sheesh. For fucks sake.

    .* For a long time, those wanting Australia to become a Republic were told to wait till the Queen died to discuss that issue. Bercoz NOT while Ole Lizzy still lives.. Well, she has died and now, nope, not seeing much esp in that media on that yet. Its all about how King Charles the tampon, sorry, third will rule and how the transition on coins etc .. will work. I spose they’ll now shift the delaying tactic to when Charles III dies then the next one and next and so on.. It’s time. It was time a long time ago.

  29. StevoR says

    @ 27.birgerjohansson : “Cyprus and Northern Ireland was a transitionary phase when they started to use torture on white people.”

    For certain value of “started” I spose. probly more like resumed if we look back through British history and look at what was done to the Boers as mentioned by you in #25 and then to Dickensian and Tudor times and before and after.. Seems the window when torture wasn’t used was a rather small section of history sadly. Can we return to that non-torturing era please?

  31. birgerjohansson says

    Re. Old people that are dead.

    I just voted in the Swedish election.
    Neither of the two blocs inspired enthusiasm.
    But I chose to vote against the bloc that depends on the populist nationalist xenophobe party.
    Also, I remember when the ordinary Swedish conservatives regarded Nelson Mandela as a terrorist.
    (And after the one time the conservatives had a leader I could respect [Reinfelt] his successor promptly condemned any criticism of Saudi Arabia. Fuck them)

  32. birgerjohansson says

    BTW voting was slower as voters could only approach the tables one at a time. COVID is not gone yet.

  33. birgerjohansson says

    Danish queen Margrethe (82) celebrates her 50th anniversary. She is now the only reigning queen in Europe.
    And she has never been chief of state for a government that has invaded something.

  36. birgerjohansson says

    Rob @ 34.
    I know. But the taliban ‘invaded’ the country first, with backing from Pakistan.
    The Iraq business is waay more problematic. Also, taking advice from Dubya and Rumsfeld? Not a proud chapter of history.

  38. birgerjohansson says

    Dead men and corruption…
    The background to the sinking of the Russian flagship Moskva (Moscow) is getting clearer.
    The maintenance report has been leaked and it is a horror story.
    Just about everything- including the three-tiered air defence system – was out of order. The ship should never have left port.

  40. unclefrogy says

    @15
    I am not making a comment on the linked story just about the idea of sports stars and other celebrities like TV and Movie actors being over paid for what they do. While it may seem that what they do is grossly over compensated what they are demanding is a fair share of the money that their employers get out of what they do. If it were not worth it the employers would not do it. I have never heard of one of them going into bankruptcy over what they pay their employees but they have had difficulty when the sport teams play poorly or when the TV show or movie tanks.
    at least their accountants can show them loosing money on paper anyway

  41. birgerjohansson says

    Fergl @ 39
    The ongoing Swedish election makes me go nuts. I hope to sink back into blissful indifference soon.
    BTW the xenophobe party just became the second largest party, because zod has a sick sense of humor. Next up; asteroid impacts!

  42. jenorafeuer says

    birgerjohansson@30:
    Shinzo Abe. A.k.a. the guy who set Chinese-Japanese relations (which haven’t been great in centuries) back by at least a generation via doing things like publicly visiting the graves of Japanese war criminals and his government trying to get history textbooks modified to more completely gloss over Japanese actions during WWII with regards to China.