US to expand into Europe?

As Scotland prepares to vote on leaving the United Kingdom, long-range contingency planning is going on at high levels, both in London and in other capitals.  If the UK were to lose Scotland, it would reprsent a loss of both revenue and face for either a Labour or Tory government. Whither England? is then the question that is being asked in Parliament and, increasingly, in the US House and Senate.

"I have just two words for you," said US Secretary of State, John Kerry. "Fifty-first State. Whadaya think?"

Is it conceivable that 238 years after the beginning of the American Revolution, the Empire formally known as Great Britain could join the United States?  Consider the advantages:

Cost savings: by eliminating the British military establishment and turning the defense of the ex-realm over to the US Army and Navy, a huge and redundant expense would be eliminated. The added costs to the US would be minor; the Pentagon estimates that a brigade of infantry would be sufficient to secure the island's northern border, focusing primarily on ending Scots cattle raids. And one or two Coast Guard vessels would be able to adequately deter naval aggression from France and Ireland.

"The Scandinavians are another matter," said US Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. "If the Vikings start acting up again, we'll need another Littoral Combat Ship, at least."

Health Care: British citizens would be able to avoid the delays, deficiencies, and even deaths associated with Government-provided healthcare (with some exceptions among veterans, it's granted).  Doctors would be able to transition from the NHS to more efficiently-run private hospital systems, join a huge and powerful lobbying organization, and avoid (at least temporarily) the much-hated ICD-10 coding model.

Human Rights: Britain has a large population of poor and marginalized people, many of them from disadvantaged parts of the world. As citizens of the US, they would be able to come to North America, escaping marginalization, unemployment, and prejudice in England and experiencing those things here instead. Furthermore, the British people would finally enjoy constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms of speech, choice, privacy, and firearms ownership and be able to vote for elected officials who promise to uphold them.  Experts assure us that there really is a difference, although it's too complicated to go into right now.

Economic Freedom: A Britain that left the European Union would escape a vast, stultifying government bureaucracy, striving to turn Europe's unique and proud traditions into a single, bland set of life ways.  As US citizens, they would find that our government never undertakes any such ruthless concentration of thought and action, preferring to outsource it to large corporations. And from our perspective, an influx of poor and easily-exploitable people would be of substantial advantage to the fast food, convenience store, and landscaping industries.

There are, obviously, downsides.  For one, it would probably be best to give the new state a new name. "Old England" has been suggested by several commentators, primarily to distinguish it from Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. This has complications, since it would also involve regional and civic renaming, including Old Hampshire, Old York, and Old Jersey.

Another area of difficulty would arise when US traffic standards were applied. It has been suggested that residents of the new state be allowed to continue driving on the wrong side of the road but that it be illegal. The revenue from traffic citations could offset most of the costs related to unification.

Finally, there is the vexed question of language. Some legislators from Arizona and California have said that they will put forward bills to make "American" the standard language of business and education (including the requirement to call soccer "Old Football").  This shouldn't be insurmountable, since American is not and has never been a single language. From the great south ("How y'all?") to the frozen north ("How's it goin', eh?"), from the west ("Dude!") to the east coast ("Hey, greet this, woodja?"), Americans are used to colorful regionalisms. Experts agree that even a term as unusual and outlandish as "Hello" will be accepted.

Will this be the future of Britain? Or will it opt to struggle (or "muddle" as they say) along on its own, abashed at its loss and forced to bolster its failing manhood with new Aircraft carriers named after a Queen? Or will it approach yet another North American superpower, and become just the most far-flung province of the Maritimes, doomed to a cod-based economy, and with the Pound tied to the value of Prince Edward Island mussels? Only time will tell.

A taste of things to come

Joe McConnell gave us this excerpt from the next of his libelous rants novels about Mac MacArthur. He seems to think it's funny.



Burke could talk almost endlessly on any topic that interested him, although his narrative style was essentially a dump of a mind map. He leapt from point to point in a way that reflected his understanding of things but usually baffled his audience. And outside of work, his interests were almost exclusively related to online gaming. Recently, he'd managed to battle his way to the twelfth degree ranking of a character called "Snorq" in the game of Satanic Sychosis. This achievement had required him to destroy his way from a lovingly rendered post-apocalyptic version of Cincinnati, all the way to a demonic headquarters and stolen vehicle chop shop on a planet hidden behind Saturn. He was now trying to find the right weapon – Mac thought he said "Laser Sawzall" but he might have misheard it – which would let him hew his way through a Ferrochrome version of Hadrian's Wall and save civilization from an evil being.

"An evil being?" asked Mac, trying to be polite.

"Yeah, he rides this giant, two-wheel thing. He uses a hammer like Thor. His war name is Schnozniak."
 
"Are there any women in these things?"

That stopped Burke in his tracks. "Wow. I don't know. I mean, there are girls playing, but ..."

"Yeah, but are there any female characters, anybody who you'd recognize as female, good or evil?"

"No. Some people complained about that, I think. But the programmers said it was too hard."

History at its most depressing

People are not all the same. Some are naturally drawn to athletics, some folks get music theory from an early age. Me, I speed read. Always have, from the point at which I learned to read at all. This is sometimes a useful skill, and if there ever was a need for it, this book is it. Meredith has been writing on this topic for decades, and this is, in fact, the third revision.  760 pages of what adds up to despair.

Those few of you who bothered to parse out the underlying themes of my general worldview will recall that I have said several times "Africa is screwed." This book is, as noted, 760-some pages of how and why that analysis is correct.

To simplify, decolonialization was a morally necessary thing, but it was bungled so badly that instead of giving millions of people their freedom, uhuru paved the way for dictatorships and ethnic / religious conflict. Then, when those things began to have an impact on economies elsewhere, a process of re-meddling on the part of the colonial powers (Britain, France, Belgium, and Portugal) and new meddling by us, the Russians, and most recently the Chinese made things infinitely worse. Meanwhile, the population is expanding and the amount of arable land is contracting. People are moving en masse to ghettos around the cities. Meredith concludes:

"After decades of mismanagement and corruption, most African states have been hollowed out. They are no longer instruments capable of serving the public good. Indeed, far from being able to provide aid and protection to their citizens, African governments and the vampire-like politicians who run them are regarded by the populations they rule as yet another burden they have to bear in the struggle for survival."

And the kicker? The revision was done three years ago. Boko Harum and the ebola outbreak in west Africa aren't even on Meredith's radar.

We did this, "we" being western Europe initially and later, the Cold War Kids and whatever kind of war we're in now. And even worse: no one can demonstrate that aid programs have done anything to help. In fact, many efforts to provide aid have been accidently or deliberately diverted to local elites and even back to non-African corporations, making the situation worse. Even the people who are in the business of providing aid are beginning to suffer from "donor fatique."

Sorry, Bill and Melinda. Nice try. But Africa is screwed.

---

The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith.

Could you be a bit more specific?

From the front page of Webroot's user dashboard:

"Cybercriminals continue to efficiently populate their botnets, through the systematic and persistent spamvertising of tens of thousands of fake emails, for the purpose of socially engineering gullible end users into executing the malicious attachments found in the rogue emails."

Okay. I think I've got it.

World cup coverage

Game over. I'll post the live tweets here shortly. If you can't wait, they're at @jfmcluggage. Summary: breathtakingly boring. Two hours of my life I want back.

Oh, Lord. Now it's golf. Off, off, where's the power button? Here are the live tweets:

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Wood Charles' live world coverage! Live from an undisclosed couch in Ann Arbor.
So far, idiots talking over video of people in uniforms.

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"Players leading children onto the field. Sacrifices?

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Somebody's Natl anthem playing. One player's head bobbling, sort of."

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"Croatians singing. "" We are proud to come here And kick balls around.
For your pleasure. And money."""

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Coin toss. Unclear (to me) who won. Now a release of doves. Doves fleeing.

---

Someone kicked the ball out of bounds. It's back in play. Nose ball bounces off someone's
head. Out of bounds again. Breathtaking.

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Two players fell over each other. Crowd loves it. Some kind of free kick now.
Spectator in green suit catches it.

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Player fails to score. Another player kicks ball. Ball out of bounds.
Referee now scolding someone.

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" one thing you can say about Croatians, they're a dangerous team ..."
Oh, somebody scored. On their own goal apparently.

---

Ball being kicked around. Commentators talking.

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The guy in the green suit is actually a player, I guess.

---

" some of the lights have gone out "

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Long shot at the goal. Misses by only 20 feet or so.

---

Green suit spoils score again. And again. Ball now being kicked around again.
Green guy quite busy.

---

Player down. Up again. Ball kicked into stands. Long high kick down field.
Hits player squarely on head. Apparently not a foul.

---

Penalty if some kind. Ball kicked out of bounds.

---

Ok, this time Brazil gets ball in correct goal. Crowd seems pleased.

---

Commentator says "I hope your architect is wetted" or something like that.

---

Croatian player kicks ball. Hits Brazilian. Kicks again, hits Brazilian in head.
More people kicking ball. Out of bounds.

---

Out of bounds. Back in. Out again.

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One player tries to surrender. Referee reminds him he's not playing for France.
Tense situation. Out of bounds.

---

"He's doing silly things in silly positions." People kicking ball around.

---

Brazilian player looks a lot like Oliver North. Probably isn't. Half time. Suits talking.
Score seems to be 1 to 1.

---

Suits saying incomprehensible things. Commercials.  Mostly incomprehensible, too.
Ooh, there's the green guy.

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We're back. Out of bounds. "Crowd seems pensive ..." Oooo! Out of bounds!

---

Ball kicked into the stands. Player rolling around in pain or angst. Ball off knee,
off another player's face. Now being kicked around.

---

Announcer keeps calling one player "Racket-itch." Long kick, hits player on head.
Pattern emerging.

---

Elbow to face. This does seem to be frowned on. Lots of hands being held up in appeal of something. Noiw a player has fallen down.

---

Out of bounds, kicked in clear across field, out of bounds. Long kick down field,
FAILS to hit player on head! Penalty!

---

Free kick, only 15 feet high.  Aaaand ... Out of bounds. Crowd cheering something.
Another penalty! Free kick. Score. Crowd happy.

---

Ball bouncing off various heads. Commentators saying fatuous things. Ball kickage ...
Down to 10 minutes, thank God.

---

Another goal, but no good, for some reason. Croatians unhappy. out of bounds.
Player down. Ball being kicked . Another goal. Players happy.

---

Seems to be over. Brazil appears to have won.  Suits are back. I'm out of here.
LeMans is on Sunday.

---

Online sports coverage from Wood Charles

Pickup Basketball

Over the course of many years, Wood Charles writers have been encouraged liable to mock and denigrate professional sports. A recent investigation by unnamed government agencies has alleged any number of nefarious influences and reasons, chief among them:

• Receipt of suspicious sums from NPR in order to drive audiences away from stock car racing and toward Wait Wait Don't Tell me.
• A quid pro quo agreement to mock International Badminton competitions in return for not pressuring the University of Michigan to host a World Wrestling Foundation event in Michigan Stadium.
• Collusion with a national intelligence agency in scuppering North Korea's bid to host the 2015 Pickup Basketball Championships.

Wood Charles management vehemently denies these misstatements. In a press release yesterday, Chairman J. Francis McLuggage quoted Dr. Johnson: "Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance."  He explained that most contributors had never watched any mass, popular sporting events for more than the amount of time it takes to change the channel, instead preferring to watch such educational and uplifting programming as COPS. Consequently, the writers were easily swayed by a culture of fear and intimidation, and were only too willing to make jokes about Golf, Hockey, Monster Truck Debates, and so on.

In a deal with authorities, WCA has agreed to watch one randomly selected World Cup Soccer match until completion or sleep brings an end to it. In an effort to remain awake, the WCA team will live-tweet commentary during the course of the game.

"If this goes well," said McLuggage,  "we may expand the program to football and the NBA." Asked if they would consider including Major League Baseball, McLuggage said no. "We have some standards."

Barring difficulties, WCA will watch and tweet the game between, ah, let's see here, Brazil and Croatia, 4:00 PM June 12th. Follow @jfmcluggage to participate.

---

It has been pointed out that the driver of the pickup truck in the above illustration has a hand the size of his head and only four digits on it. This was not an omission, but a specific tribute to the work of the late, great Walt Kelly: "Keerful of your fingers." "Yup. I 'members ol' one-thumb Brophy."

The plantation 01

Agribusiness ramps (get it?) up locally. Archer-Daniels-Midland "concerned"

Arugula Up the Wazoo

The Back Forty

Hobbes and Black-Style Herb Pyramid

The menu: 01

Catching up on a year's worth of food pictures.

Antipasti

Duck risotto with golden trumpet mushrooms and asparagus.

Vegetable saute', all local, some extremely local.

Huevos rancheros, Joseph Street Style

The table

It's a good day ...

... for headlines, tweets, and so on that trigger the old imagination.

For example, @irarchaeology tells us: "In 1007 AD the Book of Kells was stolen. Two months later it was found beneath a sod ..." Whether or not the sod was charged with anything, we don't know.

An Ancient Rude Monument

@VoxHiberionacum says: "On the Recent Desecration of an Ancient Rude Monument at Tara ..."


And Vladimir Putin (who is either drunk most of the time or is being very badly translated) said, of Hillary Clinton, "When people push boundaries too far, it’s not because they are strong but because they are weak. But maybe weakness is not the worst quality for a woman." Now, let's see, the last world leader who was pushing boundaries was ... oh, hell, who was that now? It'll come to me.

You'll never believe this!

Incredibly, against all odds, the Pakistan Taliban splits into factions. "This is unprecedented," said an expert in religio-political terror groups. "Never, in all the last twenty minutes, have I heard of anything like this happening!" He spoke on condition of anonymity, for reasons so obvious that they don't bear repeating.

"Wow," said US Vice President Joseph Biden, "I didn't see that coming."  His comment, which was intended to be off the record, was picked up by thirty-six live microphones, most of them positioned near his mouth.