About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Showing posts with label Rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rant. Show all posts

Sunday, February 15, 2026

A is for Another Collection? Mini Power-Tools

It's terrible isn't it, how this stuff builds up, while the planet burns? And we are, one way or another, all, equally guilty. There's no point thinking you're innocent, because of your fanatical, and diligent recycling, if you drive a bloody-great 4x4-SUV-Crossover 'people carrier', which had less cargo space than a Nissan Micra with the seats down, and never carries more than two people or the weekly shop . . . becasue 'Status, init?"!
 
We all have too much stuff.
 
Case in point (no pun intended, but it's there);
 

I inherited this from Mum, in the great sort-out of the Estate. When I was a kid, back in the heady days of the 1960's-early 1970's, tools like this were very expensive, quite rare and the sort of thing only professionals possessed, for specific tasks, or which were commonly only found in specific industries.
 
This is probably a 240v (actually 220 volt) export model, and with the odd tool change, and the additional stuff lying in the tray, is probably remarkably well-preserved, albeit, commoner in the US? The Handee portable power-tool, a solid piece of kit, existing many years before Black & Decker's mini-tools would be a thing!
 
I found this online, and it's a fascinating exercise in 1950/60's marketing/adspeak, well worth a read. I love the bullet points;
  • Shock-proof Bakelite construction
  • &
  • Patented protective sleeve, protects all parts
both mean . . . it's got a plastic case!
 
The last line 'Trouble-free radial type seven bar commutator' (a word spellcheck doesn't like), is pure technobabble, designed to convince the uninitiated that what they are thinking of buying, might help put a man on the moon! NASA being exactly the sort of people who would have had a few of these in their workshops!
 
The paragraph to the left is also interesting - "Accurately made from seasoned grey-iron casting" - what? Seasoned? Did they lay them out in the sun for a year, running out with little umbrellas every time it looked like rain, so they didn't rust? Or did they cook them in sausage-fat until they were blacked down! It's literally nonsense!
 
You'll spot a few others if you read it all, but faintly amusing, especially if you followed Mad Men (which I didn't), are familiar with Death of a Salesman (which I am), or saw Tin Men, which I loved. However a price of $19.50 in say, 1955, is the equivalent of $235/240 dollars today, a lot of money, a point we'll return to in a minute!
 
With the drill came a bunch of equally vintage (near 'antique') tools, among which, interestingly, wrapped in the rubber-band (well petrified, but set-in-place), included a quantity of dentists quick-release drill bits. I believe the drill came from 'Old Mr. Benning', after his death, he was a silversmith in Sleaford, near Bordon, but the dentist bits probably came from Mr. Benney, who first practised in Hartley Wintney and then moved to a new-build practice in Hook.
 
The brass case of grinding and fettling burrs, before cleaning, and after sorting by size/burr-head type; they just don't make stuff with this quality any more, each bit has its own compartment, 40, altogether, about 3mm square.
 
There was, also in my Mother's stuff, an actual dentist's drill, probably also from the practice in Hook, and with the quick-release head, a simple push button frees whatever tool is in the mechanism, and you can pull it out and replace it with another. If you find mini-drill bits with a chink taken out of them near the base of the shaft, it's for one of these drills.
 
And again, for many years, many decades, this was a technology, or application, only really made available to dentists, or very specialised workshops/research labs/facilities!
 
Now, of course, every mini-drill sold, comes with a flexible drive-extension.
 
A comparison between the old drive connector and the new, they will both work with the new chucks. The technology was with us, though, in strimmers/brush-cutters, although their shafts are sometimes a bundle of twisted cables and/or wrapped in a loose spring, to compensate for the vibration down the long handle/arm.
 
The other half of the case of my 'go-to' machine, it's an Aldi (or, probably, actually Lidl) bought machine, and returning to prices - was about 40-quid, twenty years ago, now they are £22/25 each, with both discount supermarkets (and the larger stores of most supermarkets), almost permanently carrying one version or another - mains, rechargeable-battery, or pocket types.
 
Lidl now brand everything Parkside, and it probably comes from China, but this one was made in Germany by Ferm, and is a bloody-good, medium-range machine, I liked it so much, on first try, I went back the next day and bought several more, as Christmas presents that year (1990's/early 2000's) for other people. The two wobbly lines (top right of the case) are where the little tools were kept.
 
Returning to the point at the top of the post, too much stuff, but it just, sort of collects! Each time one of these stores issues a set of tools, often in useful-looking little wooden boxes, you sort of convince yourself, there's one or two you don't have, and they are so cheap, it's worth the duplicates for the new ones, then you get few from a friend, grab a specific set of Dremel spares (collets and mandrels) in the January sale at B&Q, spot some bargain in an import-rich hardware store, inherit a bunch from a parent, and before you know it, you have a collection of mini-tool tools!
 
I've used some of them! I've even used a few to destruction, sanding drums and cutting wheels don't last long, and the smaller grinding stones quickly deform under use, but that only encourages further purchases - in case you're running short?!!
 
Top left are the diamond cutting wheels and milling-cutters, then clockwise in a spiral; the old bits, burrs and dental tools; the new bits, burrs and borers; nylon cleaning brushes; brass brushes for cleaning, polishing, and removing surface rust; sanding drums ready to go; large fibre-reinforced cutting wheels; round, shaped and small grinders; medium round-headed grinders; large ones; small drum grinders; medium and large drum grinders; shaped or reinforced disc grinders; saw-blades/cutters; small drum-sanders - ready and spares; flexible or paper sanding discs; standard-sized rigid cutting wheels; odd sized cutting wheels; and flat disc grinders.
 
Different companies use different colours, so I've never really known if there is a code, but I think as a rule of thumb, dark ones (black/grey) tend to coarse structure, for initial grinding/shaping, or removing heavy corrosion, buried nail-heads (which can't be cut at the shaft by finer tools), or similar tasks, orange is medium coarse, pink medium fine, and white ones are very fine, but so are some of the greenish ones, while a couple of reddish-pink ones, seem coarse. So, as far as I can see, there's no hard and fast rule.
 
I've literally just found this, here;
 
 
Which seems to half-support my hinted narrative, but with sharpness at one end of the spectrum and durability at the other, nor does it include/explain the orage ones?
 
A while back, Jan, over at the Site of Curiosities found an excellent video, which goes some way to explaining a lot of it!
 

Which leaves the polishers, polish and chuck/spindle tools & spares, in the lid of the other box, soft, floppy mop ones top left, the rest are felt-pads. The little stones are for cleaning/re-shaping the grinding wheels when they get deformed, or the surfaces get smoothed, with embeded soft metal, wood-pulp or something else, which prevents them grinding properly.
 
Because Mum was a silversmith, I have some proper rouge somewhere, in a big tub, while people who have larger workshops, use blocks of different grades, with which they can directly charge the polishing wheels, as they are revolving, mounted on larger lathes. At the hobby end of things, we tend to get two, the basic oxide-brown, equating to rouge, and the green which is a bit coarser I think? If you want a really coarse, 'first pass', use Brasso or automotive T-Cut!
 
And if you are polishing plastic, especially transparencies, like model aircraft canopies or watch-faces, use low speeds, light pressure and something fine like silver-polish, automotive window-cleaner (which fills micro-scratches with wax, when you wipe it off) or Windowlene, and move the tool around, so nothing heats up. 
 
There are intermediate heads, fabric pads, somewhere between sanders and polishers, I don't have any, but you can make them, or harsher ones, by cutting or punching discs out of scouring pads, sanding pads, or those surfaces scourers, fixing them to a mandrel, with a couple of washers, and then putting them in a clamp on full speed, and shaping them with a blade, the purple/brown sanding pads are good for getting surface rust off tools or garden implements, soft scourers will remove sanding lines in softer metal, prior to polishing/finishing.
 
Under the polishing heads, lays more amassed stuff, the yellow-one was some dirt-cheap discount store thing, where the accessories were worth more than the motor! My old Black & Decker (from the Minicraft rebranding), like the Handee, looking tired now, with a toothed key-chuck . . . it's so 20th Century, man!

Again some inherited (the duplicate Lidl/Ferm, being that Christmas present to Mum, many years ago), some acquired, on life's journey. The greenish-blue one is the Aldi version from a few years ago, which I thought I'd try, but which was a bit heavy at the back, pulling against the hand.
 
If it's a big job, requiring two tools in repetitive/alternate succession, I'll grab one of these and have two working at once. The Minicraft, or even the yellow one, are useful for very tight spaces, although I think the yellow-one is a single speed demented thing? Somewhere underneath is the whole shaft and motor from a broken one, which I had half a mind to convert into a static, mini bench-lathe, for shaping against, but I've yet to get round to it.
 
And that's the problem, we've all got this stuff, in sheds, drawers, attics, garages and cellars, waiting with hope for use, or plans of good intention, and really we need to be passing it on, or thinning it out, at some point there will be more stuff than people to use it!
 
Maybe then, we will escape capitalism, for something more community based, the kind of make-do-and-mend, each-to-his-own, wants-and-needs that the Native Americans have always espoused, that the Amazonians practice, that the Kalahari bush-people swear-by.
 
Not power-based 'Communism', not even socialism, but something more holistic, sharing and caring for the planet and each other. Or maybe we'll just "Drill-baby-drill", until there's nothing left, but there's nothing else out there, Musk won't save us, pissing-about on the Moon or Mars, if we can't save here, they'll be no use to nobody, and nobody is what they'll have.
 
At some point in the next ten or fifteen years, I will donate all this to some 'Men's Shed' community project, or workshop, so it gets the use I've not extracted from it, or which it still posesses!
 
Came in, in the last few months! I found the small kit lost/abandoned in a car park?
3-for-2 on the Parkside (Lidl), £1.98 for three packs - bargain!
 
That's two non-toy-solder posts in a row, whinging about the state of the world, or our part in it, but then, it's my Blog!

Friday, February 13, 2026

P is for Palantir

I've just signed this,


They - Palantir - are a huge threat to the NHS (Britain's free-at-the-point-of-delivery National Health Service), and Britain's defence industry, which should be divorcing itself from America's, not getting closer, and while technically a US outfit, they are the people behind the Israeli NSO Group's mobile [cellphone] spyware.
 
And, by Israeli, I mean Zionist Israeli, bombing neighbours incessantly and stealing land Israeli, shooting kids and pushing old people down stone stairs Israeli, spitting on Nuns Israeli, putting settlements on West Bank football pitches Israeli, so we don't want them in our society, least we wake up one morning, and find we need to get Insurance before we can see a GP.

 Please sign the petition.
(10.000 signatures in the last hour)
(11pm - nearly 50,000 signatures on the first day)
 
 
 
While Palantir Technologies and NSO Group are distinct entities, they are linked through a shared ecosystem of high-tech surveillance, shared government clientele (specifically in Israel), and connections within the private intelligence industry.
 
Our future, or that of our kids, is being stolen from us by a dozen, Right Wing, militaristic billionaires, it's up to us to do something, signing a petition is something, not a lot, but something.

Thursday, October 2, 2025

R is for Rhetoric, Rumination and Rant - The Rancid Rodent in the White House!

Sometimes, other people's words are much better than one's own, and no amount of creative writing classes will cure that uneven, uncomfortable fact! For getting a message across, or explaining something, especially if the subjects are outside one's own field - I'm not strong on economics, for instance - sometimes one's own witten imagination can be found lacking, or the self's vocabulary won't stretch to the task!

I'm OK at toys, seem to have a lot of success logically arguing Zionists into silence, and can have a good debate on the Environment, however, while I have had the odd stab at Politics in the past, and will do again, I'm sure; I started collecting these (below quotes) a while ago (soon after the inauguration), initially, in order to quote from them, but then decided that between them, they seem to say it all, better than I could!

All four pieces have 'gone viral', as the phrase is, these days, the first one twice, six years apart, and I think I reposted it on Faceplant, both times, as it succinctly sums-up the average Brit's incredulity, that Trump gets away with it, time and time again!

Not that he doesn't have his fans over here, but they are our 'rednecks', the fat, balding, tattooed, middle-aged, uneducated, benefit recipient lurches and dollops, the Morlocks and Yahoo's not only left behind by Capitalism, but too stupid to see it's the fault of people like Trump!

I love the second piece, because it's written by an American, and a religious, probably Republican American, and the very type you might have expected to vote for Trump, that he is so scathing, leads us all to hope America can still save itself - the brouhaha this week over the Federal lockdown has been amusing, as the Rep's did it every time a Democrat was in the Oval Office (which now looks like a Tart's Boudoir), and now they're having a hissy-fit!

I don't know who wrote the third piece, so I've credited the site's Admin', but they seem to 'get it', most Americans think we pay the tariffs on our stuff, no, they pay, it's a tax on them! The reason most countries haven't reciprocated, or have only reciprocated to a lesser percentage, or on targeted goods, is because we don't want to do the same damage to our economy, Trump's doing to his, but we do need to show we are willing to stand up to the turd of a man.

The fourth text, is a transcription of a recent speech, by someone who's better qualified, in more fields, than the entire Trump family, and points at a few possible futures, so is well worth a read. I don't think a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump is anywhere in that future, but war-crime trials for all sorts of people are being muted, just for the genocide in Gaza, before you get on to the Piracy on the High Seas, we're seeing again tonight - comes to something when the leaders of Columbia and Italy call out the Israelis!

And, to me, that's the real problem, Palestine and Ukraine are queering the pitch, for any group or individual nation trying to deal with Trumps fantastical nonsense, Russia and China hover in the background re-muddying any water before it can clear, and the planet is literally dying, while all these fuckers try to start World War three, in such a way as to blame each other! . . . Exactly what happened in 1914.

If I were to express one opinion, before the masters' speak, it's this - You know how Musk became de facto Prime Minister, without being elected, destroyed the Civil Service of the USA and left before Congress, or the House of Representatives, got their joint-acts' together? You know how he and Trump then fell out, big time, slagging each other off like two idiot schoolboys in the playground? You know how Trump then answered his base's calls for Musk to be deported to South Africa, with a hint at just that? And you know how it then all went very quiet, until they met and shook hands at that fascist's funeral the other day?

I think Musk has counter-threatened Trump - 'You send me back to SA, and I'll destroy the American economy'. And he can, not just because of his personal wealth, but because if he shut down Tesla, X, and SpaceX on the same day, sacked everybody and took the money, the Wall Street stock-markets would implode, like the World Trade Centre.

So, they're 'friends' again - TACO!

And, to those readers this side of The Pond who were surprised by B.Liar's involvement in the dodgy, genocidal 'peace treaty', which the Palestinians haven't even been consulted on, understand that Kier Starmer's wife is a pro-Israel Jew, and Richi Sunack's wife has shares in the same development companies, the dreadful (but brightest of that bunch) Gerard Kutchner has . . . thay ALL want a slice of the Palestinian offshore gas, they ALL want the Palestinian Land.

No doubt, the reason the BBC has given more coverage to one fascist march, than the scores of larger pro-Palestinian ones is because they are deep in it! Their section-chief in the Middle East is an ex-CIA friend of MossadLyse Doucet -who should be in the thick of it - was sent off to write a whimsical history of an Afghan hotel, so she couldn't be asked about Genocide or Piracy! And then it was serialised on the BBC, to help sales!

Orla Guerin, Jeremy Bowen and Lyse, have failed in their first duty as Journalists - to tell the truth. With what little we do get from them, so painfully 'neutral' as to be biased in favour of Tel Aviv! While IDF soldiers happily post their war-crimes on TikTok, despite their having being told twice, by their OWN generals, not to!

But . . . I must stop; in my anger, I'm changing the subject - they teach you not to do that on a creative writing course, I bet! Read and enjoy . . . or weep; Thoughtful comments welcome, anti-rants will be deleated, if you don't dissagree with what's going on globally at the moment, there's something wrong with your moral compass.

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G7 Meeting - 1st Term
Seven statesmen and a petulant child. 

Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?

"A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?’ If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”

- Nate White
(February 12, 2019, on Quora)
Advertising Creative 2006–present
BA 1st Class Hons in English (language), King's College London
 
 
Threatening Europe on Tech' Regulation, a week ago.
 
Who's the worst US President in history?

"There was this one guy who started a trade war that killed 300,000 American jobs in his first two years. Then he signed a tax bill that flatlined the stock market and forced the Fed to start lowering interest rates to try to prevent a recession. Then he said a global pandemic was a liberal hoax to kill the economy he spent three years destroying and he set records for the six worst point drops in the history of the Dow, most new unemployment claims in history, and the largest deficit in history.

He was investigated and found to have welcomed and encouraged election interference by a foreign government and to have obstructed justice to cover his crimes. He got impeached once for abusing his office to try to coerce a foreign leader into helping him smear a political rival. Then he got impeached again for inciting an insurrection to try to stay in power after easily and predictably losing his re-election bid. Then he got indicted for almost 100 felonies after leaving office.

I forget his name. Draft dodger. Admitted sex offender. Painted himself orange and wore a dead rodent on his head. Wore elevator shoes. Misspelled three letter words on a smartphone. Kept filing bankruptcy. Called himself a winner. Dump? Rump? Plump? Chump? Something like that.

[Edit: I’ve never done this before, but this post was like catnip for morons and the most brainwashed fascists I’ve seen all flocked to the comment section to bleat their alt-right propaganda. So I’m disabling comments on this. I’ve also deleted some of the worst garbage that was posted. Wow. These people really need therapy.]"
 
- Will
(August 2024, Quora) 
"A life-long southerner, devout Christian, and a true conservative, I have worked in publishing, talk radio, and served as a staff pastor in a local church. I am currently writing my first book."

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Loosing it, 2018.
 
On Trump's Tarrifs

"It’s becoming harder by the day to pretend this isn’t a controlled demolition of the U.S. economy, except the person holding the plunger is also shouting “Help! The building’s falling!” That’s the tragicomic heart of the moment. Trump, the self-proclaimed dealmaker and economic genius, is now openly afraid of a 1929-style collapse, even as he isolates the United States from every major trading partner, fires or bullies institutional stewards, and surrounds himself with sycophants who think “Ron Vara” is a legitimate source of macroeconomic insight.
 
Meanwhile, outside our increasingly paranoid borders, the grown-ups are still at the table. Canada, led by a calm and resolute Mark Carney, is executing what can only be described as precision economic diplomacy. Their retaliatory tariffs aren’t broad-stroke chaos, they’re surgical. Instead of going after random U.S. goods, they’ve targeted symbolic, regionally sensitive exports: peanut butter from Georgia, coffee from Florida, orange juice from Florida, motorcycles from Wisconsin, and bourbon from Kentucky, each selected not only for economic impact, but for political resonance in Republican strongholds.
 
At the same time, they’ve spared critical sectors like auto manufacturing, shielding Canadian jobs while preserving the long-integrated North American supply chain. Provinces have joined in with layered actions of their own. Ontario canceled a $100 million Starlink contract, Quebec ordered American liquor off state shelves, and Nova Scotia doubled tolls on U.S. commercial vehicles.
 
Retailers across the country are now labeling American goods with a “T” for “tariff,” inviting consumers to make patriotic purchasing decisions. The result? A population that understands the stakes and a government actually coordinating its moves with strategy in mind, not cosplay, not chaos, but competence.
 
Japan, for its part, has begun quietly rebalancing its trade and defense postures, no longer convinced that the U.S. under Trump is a reliable ally or market. As Shinji Aguma recently said in a speech that's now ricocheting across global capitals, Trump behaves less like a statesman and more like an extortionist. Japan is responding accordingly, hedging its economic bets while bolstering ties with the EU and ASEAN nations.
 
China, for its part, is playing a masterclass in strategic patience. While Trump rattles sabers and brags about tariff victories that don’t exist, Beijing is quietly tightening its grip on global supply chains, shifting rare earth exports to preferred partners, and expanding its 'Belt and Road' economic influence without firing a shot.
 
Instead of engaging in tit-for-tat chaos, they’ve taken a colder approach: reducing purchases of long-term U.S. Treasuries, redirecting trade to Latin America and Africa, and quietly expanding yuan-denominated trade agreements—including a notable spike in oil deals settled outside the dollar. Internally, they're cushioning the impact of U.S. tariffs through state subsidies and domestic stimulus, while externally, they’re simply allowing U.S. dysfunction to speak for itself.
 
When asked if they plan to retaliate with a major U.S. bond selloff, they don’t say yes—they just don’t have to. The global market now expects instability from Washington, and China knows that expectation is power. Trump wants a fight; Xi Jinping is playing a waiting game. And every day Trump wages war against courts, investors, and allies, he’s doing Beijing’s work for them.
 
The European Union, too, is playing the long game. Rather than matching chaos with chaos, they've responded to Trump’s tariff barrage with targeted countermeasures, hitting Harley-Davidsons, bourbon, and cranberries in 2020, and now reviving pressure on key industrial imports like American-made electrical components and processed foods. But more importantly, they’re channeling their energy into building out multilateral alternatives: accelerating trade agreements with Mercosur and Australia, strengthening ties with Japan under the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, and actively pursuing deeper integration with African and ASEAN markets.
 
They’re also welcoming disillusioned U.S. investors. European equity funds have seen net inflows of over $11 billion this month alone, even as U.S. stock funds bled nearly $11 billion. Germany, France, and the Netherlands have seen especially strong investment surges, with capital moving into euro-denominated bonds and infrastructure projects offering both stability and return. And they’re doing all of this while watching the United States melt into a self-inflicted credibility crisis over its own debt, its currency, and its basic ability to govern. In short, while Washington yells into its own echo chamber, Brussels is quietly rerouting the future.
 
At home, the contrast is staggering. Trump continues to wage war against his own institutions. He has vilified the Federal Reserve, cast doubt on the integrity of courts, and inflated the powers of unqualified loyalists like Peter Navarro, a man who literally invented a fake economist to back his theories. Cooler heads, seasoned experts, and non-fabricated humans have been pushed aside in favor of true believers whose economic strategies might as well be based on Reddit threads and revenge fantasies.
 
The result is a spiral: as international partners recalibrate and global capital exits, Trump grows more erratic. He screams about depression, lashes out at Jerome Powell, threatens allies, and blames everyone but the mirror. But this isn’t just the tantrum of a man losing control. It’s the very real danger of a once-stable empire hollowed out by ego, paranoia, and a dangerous belief that reality itself can be managed like a brand.
 
There is still time to pull back from the brink, but it would require Trump to abandon the fantasy that he alone can fix what he alone is breaking. And that, as history has shown again and again, may be the most dangerous illusion of all."
 
- Oregon's Bay Area
(About six months ago, Facebook group, admin-post)
 
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On hearing about the invitaion for a state visit to the UK, January 2017

Sparked by the treatment of Zelenskyy in late February 2025, and the transformation of Ukraine from a sovereign country to an object for barter.
 
"Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is crumbling, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened. Washington has become the court of Nero, a fiery emperor, submissive courtiers and a ketamine-fueled jester in charge of purging the civil service.
 
This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, he will impose more customs and duties on you than on his enemies and will threaten to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.
 
The king of the deal is showing what the art of the deal is all about. He thinks he will intimidate China by lying down before Putin, but Xi Jinping, faced with such a shipwreck, is probably accelerating preparations for the invasion of Taiwan.
 
Never in history has a President of the United States capitulated to the enemy. Never has anyone supported an aggressor against an ally. Never has anyone trampled on the American Constitution, issued so many illegal decrees, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military general staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media.
 
This is not an illiberal drift, it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution. I have faith in the strength of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in four years of his last presidency.
 
We were at war with a dictator, now we are fighting a dictator backed by a traitor. Eight days ago, at the very moment that Trump was rubbing Macron’s back in the White House, the United States voted at the UN with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops.
 
Two days later, in the Oval Office, the military service shirker was giving war hero Zelensky lessons in morality and strategy before dismissing him like a groom, ordering him to submit or resign. Tonight, he took another step into infamy by stopping the delivery of weapons that had been promised.
 
What to do in the face of this betrayal? The answer is simple: face it. And first of all, let’s not be mistaken. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to Yalta, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin.
 
The countries of the South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe or whether they are now free to trample on it. What Putin wants is the end of the order put in place by the United States and its allies 80 years ago, with its first principle being the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.
 
This idea is at the very source of the UN, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the attacked, because the Trumpian vision coincides with that of Putin: a return to spheres of influence, the great powers dictating the fate of small countries.
 
Mine is Greenland, Panama and Canada, you are Ukraine, the Baltics and Eastern Europe, he is Taiwan and the China Sea. At the parties of the oligarchs of the Gulf of Mar-a-Lago, this is called “diplomatic realism.” So we are alone. But the talk that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Russia is in bad shape. In three years, the so-called second largest army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country three times less populated.
 
Interest rates at 25%, the collapse of foreign exchange and gold reserves, the demographic collapse show that it is on the brink of the abyss. The American helping hand to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made in a war.
 
The shock is violent, but it has a virtue. Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in one day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands and that they have three imperatives.
 
Accelerate military aid to Ukraine to compensate for the American abandonment, so that it holds, and of course to impose its presence and that of Europe in any negotiation. This will be expensive. It will be necessary to end the taboo of the use of frozen Russian assets. It will be necessary to circumvent Moscow’s accomplices within Europe itself by a coalition of only the willing countries, with of course the United Kingdom.
 
Second, demand that any agreement be accompanied by the return of kidnapped children, and prisoners, and absolute security guarantees. After Budapest, Georgia and Minsk, we know what agreements with Putin are worth. These guarantees require sufficient military force to prevent a new invasion.
 
Finally, and this is the most urgent, because it is what will take the most time, we must build the neglected European defense, to the benefit of the American umbrella since 1945 and scuttled since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is a Herculean task, but it is on its success or failure that the leaders of today’s democratic Europe will be judged in the history books.
 
Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is to recognize that France has been right for decades in arguing for strategic autonomy. It remains to be built. It will be necessary to invest massively, to strengthen the European Defense Fund outside the Maastricht debt criteria, to harmonize weapons and munitions systems, to accelerate the entry into the Union of Ukraine, which is today the leading European army, to rethink the place and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, to relaunch the anti-missile shield and satellite programs.
 
The plan announced yesterday by Ursula von der Leyen is a very good starting point. And much more will be needed. Europe will only become a military power again by becoming an industrial power again. In a word, the Draghi report will have to be implemented. For good.
 
But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament. We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and especially in the face of Putin’s cronies, the extreme right and the extreme left. They argued again yesterday in the National Assembly, Mr. Prime Minister, before you, against European unity, against European defense. They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump say is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of de Gaulle Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain at the beck and call of Putin. Peace for the collaborators who have refused any aid to the Ukrainians for three years.
 
Is this the end of the Atlantic Alliance? The risk is great. But in the last few days, the public humiliation of Zelensky and all the crazy decisions taken in the last month have finally made the Americans react. Polls are falling. Republican lawmakers are being greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical.
 
The Trumpists are no longer in their majesty. They control the executive, the Congress, the Supreme Court and social networks. But in American history, the freedom fighters have always prevailed. They are beginning to raise their heads.
 
The fate of Ukraine is being played out in the trenches, but it also depends on those in the United States who want to defend democracy, and here on our ability to unite Europeans, to find the means for their common defense, and to make Europe the power that it once was in history and that it hesitates to become again.
 
Our parents defeated fascism and communism at great cost. The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century. Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.
 
 Video for the above text.
- Claude Malhuret
(Tuesday 4th March 2025)
French physician, lawyer and politician, former head of MSF, who has served as a member of the French Senate since 2014, representing the department of Allier. A member of Horizons, a center-right party that was created to attract support for Emmanuel Marcron in the 2022 French presidential election, he has presided over the The Independents – Republic and Territories (LIRT) parliamentary group in the Senate since 2017.
 
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Complaining that someone else got the Nobel peace Prize in January 2020.
 
Finally, this was written by the Coucil on Foureign Relations, on 11th January 2021, full text here;
 
 
"Trump inherited a set of relationships, alliances, and institutions that, however imperfect, had for 75 years created a context in which great-power conflict had been avoided, democracy expanded, and wealth and living standards increased. Embracing a blend of “America first” nationalism, unilateralism, and isolationism, Trump did what he could to disrupt many of these relationships and arrangements without putting anything better in their place.

It will be difficult – if not impossible – to repair this damage anytime soon. Trump will no longer be president, but he will remain influential in the Republican party and the country. While the world was already in growing disarray, and while US influence was already declining, Trump dramatically accelerated both trends. The bottom line is that he is handing off a country and a world in far worse condition than he inherited. That is his distressing legacy."

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He is a self-obsessed narcissist, a misogynist, fascist, sex-pest, self-publicist, braggart, show-off, serial-bankrupt and cunt. A traitor to Democracy, the International 'Rule of Law', the post-war 'Order' and probably in the pocket's of Tel Aviv and Moscow. He has no serious economic acumen, little ability to read the room, or read individuals and surrounds himself with sycophantic "yes" people, he's robbing America blind, losing America all it's accumulated gravitas on the world stage, all its trust with friends and allies, and all its bargaining power with the rest of the world.
 
And calling every senior military General back, to some a-hole barracks in CONUS, from all over the world, at vast expense, to use words like 'that shit' in front of them, is no way to run a Superpower. No beards? Seriously? They've got nothing better to worry about than the hirsuteness of their servicemen? Israel is totally out of control, and they're worrying about fucking beards! Is Vance going to get rid of his? Girlyman!
 
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And now, he's President again! God help us. 

Monday, September 29, 2025

M is for Mighty Morphin's!

A new Toy Shop opened in Basingrad, while I wasn't paying attention, Toytown, in the big precinct, I think I have mentioned it before, but I bought these there, and kept going back to see if head office had sent some more down, although it was clear they were a discounted end-of-line thing.
 
As I clearly needed the Blue Ranger! Even thought they were clearly old stock, I thought maybe if the parent was supporting the new store with discounted stuff, to get the punter's in, maybe they'd have a couple more strips of these, but after over a year, they hadn't tuned up, and I'd blogged whatever else it was that caused me to mention them before, while the above shot languished in Picasa!
 
However, while visiting Peter Evans back in May, attending the Toy Project charity shop, and filling a few bags with bits, I managed to find these two, and thought "Hum, oversized Power Rangers, which ones do I need?", but, not remembering, I bought both as I was pretty sure I needed one, and indeed it was the Blue Ranger, while Yellow confirms they are the same set, without me needing to remove the others from their cards, or dig them out of the storage pile!
 
A bit big, at around 70-mil, but solids, and quite reasonable sculpts compared to some of the fatties we saw last time;
 
 
And, might go quite well with the based ones, we saw a couple of (red & black) in Rack Toy Month from Brian B. Interestingly, despite an ocean between them, the artwork on these baseless-figures' cards, is similar to the black-based ones sent to the Blog in August, so maybe the same prigin/factory?

Monday, June 17, 2024

T is for Toys in the Media, Part the . . . God Knows!

A trio of Hestair Kiddybrick related adverts from the archive tonight, call it a Lazy Post with a bit of a tangential rant, and realise things will get better here again, shortly!

Advert for Intel, now rapidly being eclipsed by nvidia, they were the market leader for a couple of decades! And an actual Lego tie-in, so presumably the Evil Empire paid some of the marketing campaign fees?
 
One of the few Building Societies to survive the Capitalists' demutualisation frenzy which ruined not just British, but global banking back in the 1990's (made a small number, of mostly white men, very rich!), the YBS are still going, their blocks are artistic renders, I think?
 
A&L demutualised in '97 and finally packed their bags in 2011 (about the same time mine, Halifax, began is slow decline to now, a mere brand of Lloyds!), this might be a GCI image, the bloke and ball probably are artworks, of some kind, but while the blocks are based on Duplo, or Megabloks 'biggies', if it is a photograph (this trio is from the 2000's), they are probably cheap own-brand generics from Toy R Us or Mothercare? Both of whom have also disappeared!
 
It's funny, since around 1979/80, it's been one, long, fire-sale, an absolute bonanza for a few public-school educated money-men and asset strippers, which has left a Chinese car dealership on the old A30 into Hook, which I noticed tonight, a couple of miles from the huge billboard for Ranil Jayawardena (local Tory candidate, who has decided the corporate colours for the Tories round here will be green and purple!), why do we even let this state-subsidised shit into the country?
 
I mean, I like to think I'm a liberal, but I also have a sense of justice and fair play, which some might claim is overdeveloped, I blame the Asperger's, but it leaves me quite intolerant of our Government's tolerance, which boarders on incompetent complacency. And how can fair play or justice be 'overdeveloped', it either is, or it isn't?

Yet these despots; China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, &etc; they just don't play fair, even when they can't stand each-other, they will side together, get a few African kleptocrats and a couple of Central American nutters on-board and cause no end of trouble for the whole world, with a power-bloc that blocks any attempt to make the world a better place.

But the cars will be perfectly reliable, reasonably outfitted, with all the mod-cons and gizmos, and cheap, why would you pay three-times as much for a Volvo in a 'cost-of-living' crisis, created by those same landlord/landowning/speculative hedge-fund bwankers, who will now be importing these cars, using the money they don't seem to pay much tax on!