Dead school children are a small price to pay for freedom...

President Obama may have been able to squeeze through watered down healthcare reform. After all, the idea that someone should live or die or live in very poor health without assistance because of their financial circumstances is grossly stupid. If people generally didn't believe in some kind of 'socialised' approached to health, then African famine charities would be a laughing stock. ('Socialised' is an American term. In the USA, anything which smells vaguely of community care or good use of tax revenues is hysterically branded socialism.) He has also had some success with the cause of Immigration Reform, allowing undocumented immigrants potential citizenship and is joining other Western nations by fiddling about with the deficit.

Take away credit cards, and this is what you get.

The Deficit Game is a great game! Basically, you pretend that the Western economic system is linked to real-term value. You ignore the fact that if our system wasn't run on millions of credit bubbles, we would all actually be living in thatched cottages - and not the desirable chocolate box ones in the Cotswolds. No, the ones with the rodent infestations and the outside latrines. But voters like the idea that the international economic system runs on exactly the same principle as their Post Office account. It helps them sleep at night. It's a simplistic, dinky toy, Barbie Dreamhouse world they can make sense of. The Conservative Party love The Deficit Game. It allows them to slowly do away with all those pesky things they are ideologically opposed to (the NHS, benefits for those out of work or unable to do so, social spending on the poor in general, contributions to the EU.) If anyone questions anything they do, all they need say is "Don't blame us, blaaaaaaame the deficit!" It's the most useful catchphrase ever. It's like saying "Come on mate! It's Christmas!" or "We were only following orders!" It's a splendid, jolly good wheeze, this government business.

This was least posey photo I could find. of someone with a gun.
These people have heard of self-awareness but aren't sure how it
applies to them.

If only Obama could think of some clever way to push through his hilariously limited gun control measures and then blame it on the deficit. "Gun ownership is increasing inflation", "Guns cause death...icits", "Communists LOVE guns." There has to be some way, some argument, some trick to ween Americans off their toys. Of course the idea that he can argue that gun ownership increases murders and high school shootings and gang-related activity and that it's just unbelievably irresponsible for Billy Skidmark to own an assault weapon is just plain naive. Gun owning Americans don't want to hear logic, or reason, or heartbreaking stories of children being mown down by nutcases who would find their slaughters rather limited if they only had access to kitchen knives. What they want is that lovely *BANG* noise as they fire off a few rounds over some beers. The heavy, cold, reassuring weight of a reloadable penis which makes them feel that, yes, they may live in a suburb and work in data entry and their man boobs are getting a bit out of hand, but they're basically still a cowboy. Now, if only someone would break into their house. Pleeeeease. *BANG* Take that commie! It's not guns that stop burglars breaking into houses. It's locks. Really good locks.

How about 'None of the above'?

Most Americans love the Bible. Most of it is self-contradictory, outdated nonsense of course but you can ignore those bits. It's old. It has words like 'ye' in it and transgressors get a good smiting. They also love the Constitution. It's all yellow and the corners are crumpled. It's old. That means it's true and will be true forever. Of course, owning guns isn't even in the constitution. It was one of the 'amendments' made in 1791 which was branded "The Bill of Rights." It says "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

In those days, grammar wasn't very popular. Neither were standing armies. They hoovered up resources, slapped the local populace about and had to be paid for in increased taxes. The colonists were particularly iffy about plans for a permanent base of 10,000 British troops to be stationed in Nova Scotia. Objectively, this was a sound move. The French had been beaten in North America during the 1760s, but the threat of them and other ambitious European powers was never far off. The British Empire had suddenly almost doubled in size. It needed defending. The colonists thought they could handle it, but reports from the British Army about the performance of the colonials against the French made Parliament think differently.

If you're going to be kept in tyranny, you could do a lot
worse than these spiffy looking fellows.

The colonists, meanwhile, preferred militias. You could raise them, use them to give the French or Injuns a good drubbing, and then send them back home. Even at the time of signing the Constitution, most were dead against having a standing army in peacetime. Hadn't armed militias done the job of wearing down the mighty British Empire? Why not stick with those? Fine. Keep your guns for when you need them. In a matter of years, the new USA realised that they would need a professional standing army after all, even in times of peace. Who would pay for this? The American taxpayer. Post-revolutionary governments always come to resemble the former oppressor. But then, the American Revolution was less a revolution, more a change of management.

The Americans of the late eighteenth century had plenty of good reasons to stay armed. The Brits to the North, the Natives (and even the Russians) to the West, the French and Spanish to the South. The USA was a minor chip in a high-stakes world power struggle. They had good reason to feel paranoid. That's what the amendment was about. It had nothing to do with building compounds in the desert in attempt to resist government drone strikes or shooting beautiful animals in the name of team bonding. It was just a good, workable idea at the time which has since become some religious doctrine. The world has changed. The USA has nothing much to fear for the time being. It's the same reason that Jews don't eat pork. God has nothing personal against pigs, it's just at the time the laws of the Old Testament were being laid down, eating pathogen-crammed under cooked pig was incredibly dicey. Better give it a miss. Why? Err...God said so? Now that pork is safe again, God would totally endorse it. Unfortunately, he's not said much of late. I sympathise. It's been ages since I updated my website.

How do you stop guns? MORE GUNS!!!!

The idea that some wheezing old man sitting in a deckchair nursing a shot gun on a porch in Tennessee is the only thing keeping freedom alive is the stuff of farce. Most Western nations largely disarmed long ago and yet somehow they haven't got round to installing totalitarian dictatorships. Odd that. Could it be that 99.9% of people in democracy want democracy? Could it be that a majority of people still go into government because they rather like the principles of democracy?

We may take our liberties and democracy for granted, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Our rights to say and do largely what we want have become second nature. Try taking them away from us now, and see what would happen. We simply wouldn't stand for it. The new self-appointed dictator would find their situation untenable. Work would stop, taxes would go unpaid, civil disobedience would be rife. It doesn't take an M16 assault rifle to achieve that. At least, Gandhi didn't think so.

Dictators can't just exterminate everyone. Who would there be left to rule? But that's not what this is about. It's not the realities or practicalities of abstract concepts of 'freedom' or 'democracy' - terms which have been put to good use to invade foreign nations, kill innocents and seize resources. No. None of that really matters. Having a gun is cool. It's like owning an iPhone. If Apple had any sense (particularly with the serious danger of the ever-encroaching Samsung) they would have themselves written into The Constitution.

AMENDMENT XXVII
"The right of the people to keep and bear iPhones, shall not be infringed."

"But pa, I want the new Samsung Galaxy."
"What's wrong with you, boy? It's in the constitution. Why do you hate freedom?"

i-Phone have a dream.

Gun control in the USA will lead directly to a Mongolian invasion, everybody agrees.

Controversial new proposals to ensure that Americans don't arbitrarily fire rocket launchers into the air "for fun" may appear sensible from the outside but like a toffee apple or Jordan's breasts, something far more rotten and sinister lies beneath.

President Obama with his 'right hand man', 
Tsakhia Elbegdorj of Mongolia 

Barack Obama flew to Mongolia last Friday to begin clandestine talks with Tsakhia Elbegdorj, the Mongolian spelling mistake. Although the purpose of the exchange wasn't clear, furtive whispers were heard from the President's "Secrecy Yurt. No Girls Allowed" which included the words "zombie king", "stirrups" and "and."

So what can all this mean? Eminent Bullshitter at The Institute of Guesswork, Professor Spec O'Lation believes he has the answer, just now over dinner. "Everybody knows that China is soon to become the world's greatest power ending in 'A' but do you know else what ends in A? Mongolia? And is it just coincidence that Mongolians look a bit like Chinese people if you squint your eyes? And they certainly both do that" said the possibly racist academic. And that's not all. Once we'd bought him a milkshake, O'Lation split the beans. After we'd wiped his shirt clean, he told us more.

Professor Spec O'Lation's interests
include pork.

"The King's Speech was one of the biggest box office draws in 2010. It's like we were being prepared to accept a new King George. That was King George the sixth. Simple mathematics shows us that it would be half as easy to like King George the third." The pieces started to fall into place. Once the professor had finished the puzzle we'd bought him, he returned to the subject in hand.

"As everyone knows, the second amendment to the constitution was created specifically to guard against a resurgent King George. Well, now we have one. On Wikipedia it said that cloning technologies may well be close to resurrecting dead European kings (citation needed) so what if the Mongolians plan to invade the USA and re-install zombie king George III on the throne?" I had to ask: "And stirrups?" "Yes please. But only on the side of my pancakes."

Professor O'Lation's case is a compelling, and he's not alone in believing it to be the case. Over 9 out of 10 Americans surveyed refused to talk to us. So why the secrecy? Why are they so hoarse?

A Mongolian Horse Archer showing off.

The answer could lie in Mongolian Horse (sounds the same) Archers. According to a recently repeated documentary on The History Channel that we fell asleep in front of in our hotel room, The Mongolian Horse Archer was the unstoppable war machine of its day. In less than two generations, the Mongols controlled an empire that stretched from the Chinese pacific almost up to the then European Atlantic (based in Turkey). In the end, the dominance of the Horse Archer was ultimately stopped by firearms. And later, by....guns.

So could the gun controls actually be a devious plan to remove the last obstacle between the crushing of American freedoms under the hooves of a zombie King George led Mongolian invasion. When we asked robot Professor Stephen Hawking about something else, his answer was astounding. He simply said: "Yes." 

But can these seemingly unconnected pieces of misinformation sellotaped together really be enough to form a Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece? The answer, dear reader, is yours to decide...

...but yes. Obviously.

A Royal Weddink...

The media seems to be astonished that the fiancée of the heir to the heir to the throne should have been plucked from the 'umble middle classes. Afterall, Catherine nee Kate Middleton is from a humble village in Buckinghamshire and attended the local comp, AKA Malborough College public school.

What mighty social barriers have been broken! To think that some posh person might marry a much, much posher person. What barriers come tumbling down in the name of love...First black president my arse. Change the record, Obama.

Kate Middleton has described both William and herself as "very down to earth". It's just that the piece of earth they are down to happens have palaces built on it.

Old Etonian David Cameron responded to the news in a manner befitting Her Majesty's Chief Toff:
"When the news was announced during the cabinet meeting, a great cheer went up and there was a great thumping on the table...then some oik threw a bread roll at me."