One Minute Movie Review

Four Christmases

Reese Witherspoon & Vince Vaughan

Summary: Felt like eight Christmases
Recommended: If you enjoy seeing a baby vomit on Reese Witherspoon. Twice.

Saturday Fun

Your Saturday fun today comes courtesy of South Yorkshire police.

Do you drive? Have you noticed trucks recently? Specifically, have you noticed their tendency to

- Blunder into your path because the driver is preoccupied with eating a pan of spaghetti

- Delay your journey by crashing into low bridges. (The driver being unable to compare the height of his vehicle with the height painted in foot-high letters on the bridge)

- Mow down queueing traffic at toll booths

Although no doubt there are many fine upstanding truckers without whom this nation etc., etc., as a car driver I find it much safer to treat any truck in my path as though it is being driven by a knuckle dragging non-English speaking moron who paid a bribe to get his license, is drunk, eating a plate of spaghetti and has been awake for 48 hours. Because the chances are it is.

The policeman in this clip should have borne the above in mind. He's driving along normally in the outside lane of a virtually empty 3 lane motorway at 130MPH (!!!) with his headlamps flashing when up ahead he sees a truck in the inside (slow) lane. In the UK, trucks are banned from the outside lane of motorways with 3 or more lanes. What do you think happens?

Enjoy!

Beneath Contempt

In the UK An opposition politician, party spokesman on immigration issues, has been arrested by anti-terrorism police

His crime? Receiving documents from a government mole which showed that the government has completely lost the plot on immigration - which anybody with a pair of eyes and an IQ in double figures has known for 10 years.

Really and truly, the British government is beneath contempt.

Bush's Legacy

From One Basket Case to Another

President Jimmy Carter calls Zimbabwe a Basket Case. He'd sure be one to know!

Financial Meltdown Explained

"Long Beach Financial, wholly owned by Washington Mutual, was a great example. Long Beach Financial was moving money out the door as fast as it could, few questions asked, in loans built to self-destruct. It specialized in asking home­owners with bad credit and no proof of income to put no money down and defer interest payments for as long as possible. In Bakersfield, California, a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000 and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $720,000."

Read it all

Busted

In light of the fact that Illinois now insist State Troopers call and get permission before doing more than 20 over the speed limit... here is a somewhat grainy clip from the UK way back in 1991.

On a warm July evening a couple of officers doing 92 MPH (in itself 20 over the limit) in an unmarked Rover 827 - basically a British Honda Legend with a somewhat tuned 2.7 V6 engine - were undertaken by a guy in a Porsche 911 (passing on the left is an offence in the UK) who then proceeded to crank it up to no less than 145 MPH!

This guy isn't as unobservant you might think, because British unmarked cars don't stand out a mile like American ones do.

All the same, I bet he had a bit of a red face when they pulled him over and showed him this film!

Sarah Palin has a great sense of humor

Sarah Palin gives an interview while a man slaughters Turkeys in the background

The crisis spreads - is nobody safe?

The Supreme Leader Speaks

Well, Sir, your resignation and suicide would seem to be the obvious choice!

Good Intentions

Here's a Brit who went to France with good intentions

Some excellent high speed driving

Back in the mid 1990s, Manchester, England was the car crime capital of Europe with 800 cars being stolen every week. The response of the police was to start the small tactical vehicle crime unit or 'X-Squad' and equip them with what were, at the time, very high performance cars.

In this video, a couple of young officers in a Ford Sierra Cosworth are on patrol in one part of the City when they hear about a chase on the other side of town.

The police are so undermanned, that they are forced (damn!) to drive at high speed across town to intercept the punk, so they can get ahead of him and get a stinger (stop strip) under his tires. (In the US stolen cars get pursued by a dozen squad cars. During the night, there are probably no more than a couple of dozen officers covering the whole of Manchester)

At one point they get the Cossie up to 135 MPH on the motorway and you can hear the driver say f a driver up ahead "if he pulls out, we're dead!" which is an interesting take on the reality of high speed driving and something you'd never hear from the police now. The UK police now only let officers speak on camera if they are 'on message' and have had training from the media relations department. But with these two it's the real deal.

The Cosworth Sierra is just a 2 litre 4 cylinder car, but it's very highly tuned with a turbo and will deliver close to 150MPH flat out. You have to really know what you are doing to drive one at speed, because it predates all the electronic stability and traction control stuff they have now. I believe these guys are in the four wheel drive version. Sit back and listen to the awesome rasp it delivers under acceleration.

Finally: what a brilliant job for a couple of lads barely out of their teens! I'd pay them for a job like that!

Everyday story of British scum

Look at human history in its entirety. Man left Africa 100,000 years ago and spread across the globe. For the majority of that time, everybody needed to be occupied in the process of finding food. Then we figured out how to produce enough so that people could be freed up to pursue other things. But it's only in the last two generations we have had so much wealth that some people could literally do nothing their whole lives.

So what do people do, once they get on welfare? Well first, they tend to blow up to 300 pounds each like the couple in this story.... (note: in the UK they throw around the term 'disabled' like confetti - it no longer implies 'wheelchairs seizures and oxygen cylinders', it is PC code to keep people out of the unemployment numbers)

A virtual affair is ending a real-life marriage
in southwest England.

Amy Taylor filed for divorce when she discovered 
her husband cheating in Second Life - an online 
community where players adopt personas called avatars, 
mingle with others and teleport themselves 
into a series of artificial worlds.

"I caught him cuddling a woman on 
a sofa in the game," Taylor told the 
South West News Service press agency.

"It looked really affectionate. He confessed 
he'd been talking to this woman player 
in America for one or two weeks, and 
said our marriage was over and he didn't 
love me any more."



Taylor, 28, moved in with her husband 
Dave Pollard, 40, in Newquay, about 
280 miles (about 450 kilometers) west of 
London, after the pair met in a chat room 
in 2003, according to the press agency's 
account. Both are disabled, Taylor said.

Both of them created personalities 
in Second Life, the three-dimensional 
virtual world with millions of users.

Taylor - represented in the game by a 
slim, dark-haired young woman with
 a penchant for cowboy outfits - 
first wed her beloved in a virtual
 ceremony held in an exotic tropical setting.

She and Pollard - whose Second Life
 avatar was sharp-suited, long-haired
 muscleman - then married in real life
 at a registry office.

The svelte images of their avatars 
stand in contrast to their real 
wedding photo, which shows a plump couple
 - him balding with glasses and a 
red boutonniere; her in a flower
 patterned shirt instead of a dress.

Their marriage started to fall 
apart after Taylor allegedly caught
 her husband's avatar having cyber 
sex with a virtual prostitute in 2007.

She said she had fallen asleep and
 when she woke up and spotted the
 pair cavorting on the computer screen.

She gave him a second chance but then 
discovered he allegedly strayed again 
in April. It was unclear how she 
learned of the couch encounter.

Here's the best take on this I can find

Shock news: old bat may have spied for Communist intelligence services

The only thing which kept many left wing British out of the KGB was that they couldn't pass the intelligence test. Look at the old trout above. She worked for a British MP in the 1980s and also, it turns out, moonlighted for the Czech STB intelligence service.

You'd never have guessed would you? Unless you noticed her husband was the spitting image of Karl Marx.

So anyway it's now all come out

God, I miss the Cold War.

Good Job Boys!

The Royal Navy has engaged a boatload of Somali pirates and to cut a long story short blasted the shit out of them

Three cheers for the Royal Navy!

Sunday Humour

Some hilarity from Sanjeev Bhaskar and Kulvinder Ghir

Cheering for Chrysler

As I have mentioned before I am very sad at the state Chrysler is in.

My 300C is the best value car I have ever driven, period.

When I got it used from Bill Kay about 6 months ago it turned out the CD player didn't work as there was already a gangsta rap CD jammed in there somehow.

I finally got round to taking it in to have it repaired. From the time I called Bill Kay to them calling me to tell me the replacement radio had arrived to be fitted was a couple of days.

They changed the radio for free in a couple of hours. And now a week later, they've just phoned me to say that they've finally managed to extract that rap CD from the old unit and did I want it back!

For a company on the ropes financially, I think that is unbeatable service.

Clueless American Drivers

The speed limits are low over here for two reasons.

1. To save money on road maintenance. Rather than fix holes, it's cheaper to just lower the speed limit

2. American drivers are mostly completely clueless.

Only two days ago at a junction on a virtually empty road in dry, clear conditions I watched two minivans literally drive into each other head on as one turned left in front of the other. How the hell can you fail to see a van 10 feet from you?

There are frequent train delays caused by people driving their cars on the track and getting hit by trains. I mean, how do you get to be an adult without associating trains with a bit of danger?

There was a woman killed on Lake Shore Drive the other day because her car broke down. Instead of getting the hell out of there on foot, she proceeded to lift the hood up and stand peering at the engine - not noticing she was in the middle of 4 lanes of fast moving traffic.

But I think the prize for the dumbest motorists of the year must go to this Chicago couple who overtook President Elect Obama's motorcade with its lights, sirens and heavily armed secret service escort

Socialist Justice

It's a great thing, Socialism, once you get a job with the 'employer of last resort' - the state.

You sit there with your inflation proof pay, nice pension and short hours.

As long as you don't have any self-respect, don't care that you are regarded as a joke, and don't rock the boat, you can live out your days and retire comfortably.

Sit back and have a chuckle at how the chuckleheads in the "Youth Offending Team" in the UK city of Sheffield are dealing with gang violence.

First a little background to set the scene:

Jonathan Matondo was in the playground, eating Hula Hoops, when the shooting started. His friends shouted at him to run but Matondo, a teenage gang member who rejoiced in the nickname Venomous, refused. “I'm not running for no one,” he said, full of the invincible bravado of youth. “No one is tryin' to bust shots at us.” They were his last words. At that moment, a bullet hit Matondo in the back of the neck, penetrated his skull and lodged in his brain. He fell backwards over a low wall, on to a grass bank and died. He was only 16 when boyhood and manhood collided - when the child with his hand in a bag of crisps was cut down by a bullet fired by a street gangster of the kind he aspired to be.

The shooting, around 7.30pm on October 17 last year, had been the second attempt on Matondo's life that day. In the afternoon, hooded gunmen had chased him, firing several shots. Three of the guns fired at him, including the one that killed him, were Baikal pistols. The use of that gun - made in Russia to fire teargas, converted by Lithuanian gangs to shoot live ammunition, smuggled into Britain and sold to criminals for up to £2,500 - links the sporadic violence of street thugs such as Matondo with serious organised crime. Over the past three years, 16 Baikals have been recovered by police in Sheffield.

Matondo's murder was the culmination of a two-year feud between gangs in the Pitsmoor and Burngreave districts. The gangs identified themselves by their postcodes: Matondo was in the S3 gang from Pitsmoor, while the suspects were the S4s from Burngreave. Negus Nelson, 19, an alleged member of S4, was acquitted of Matondo's murder at Sheffield Crown Court last week.

Between December 2005, when there was a dispute over a drugs deal, and Matondo's death police recorded 45 occasions on which the gangs opened fire on each other. There were probably more incidents but no one, victim or witness, was prepared to talk.

Matondo was a key player in this fight. According to police intelligence and court records, he was a feared gunman and dealer, and someone who struck fear into other teenagers.

Right, so you've got a real hard case here. What do you do if your job is protecting the public from him (remember you're unelected and the public can't remove you)

Sheffield's Youth Offending Service had him on its highest level of supervision, trying to get him off the streets and into a job, but to little avail. On the night he was shot, a youth worker was sitting with Matondo's mother in his home hoping that, just for once, he might keep his appointment.

Wow! Careful with the rough stuff! (Any members of Sheffield's Youth Offending team reading this: my suspicion is you are a useless cunt. If you disagree, I'd love to hear your reasons!)

OK, now I don't have advanced police training, but it sounds like you've got a bit of a problem here. What do you do about it?

But in the aftermath of his murder, Sheffield ignored these hard realities and, by doing so, lost the chance to clamp down on gang violence. Instead, the police, churches and council slapped a glossy pretence on the teenager's death. Whether for political reasons or out of deference to his mother's grief, Matondo was presented as a church-going boy, whose family had brought him to England from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo when he was 6 and who wanted to become a priest.

Of course - we're unelected Socialists! We do nothing, but spin it like he was an innocent victim rather than a scumbag. Anybody disagree, or point out he had no business in the UK in the first place - just call them a racist! Simple!

At the murder scene, a senior police officer told reporters there was no gang culture in the city. “We have heard rumours regarding gangs operating in the area,” he said. “However, gangs are not prevalent in Sheffield.” Privately, South Yorkshire Police officers admit that the statement lost them credibility. If people had been frightened to speak to the police before, they just laughed now. The police, it seemed, could not see what was going on, so why should people risk their lives to help them?

OK there's somebody who doesn't need to care what the people think - his pension will be safe as long as he obeys his political masters. The truth is whatever the police minister says it is.

Sheffield promotes itself as “the safest city” in England and does not want that image tarnished. Both its universities use the catchline in their efforts to attract the sons and daughters of respectable families. Strenuous efforts have been made to attract new investors and businesses to the city - including firms such as Boeing and Rolls-Royce.

OK, right. Sheffield's a tip. It always was, and always will be, a tip. Now they've imported a bunch of people from places where life is very cheap who can see that they can make big money from criminality and that there the only sanction available to authority is to send somebody round to talk to your mum and hope you drop in for a cup of tea between muggings.

And that's really socialism in a nutshell.

You don't allow people a vote so they can't remove you

You create your own reality - you're now a member of the elite!

And get the non-voting public to fund you

Obama Wins!

It's amazing that the American people seem to have been less than impressed with the Republican party's record over the past eight years.

How, I wonder, could they have a problem with

- The executive authorizing torture and getting justice department officials to dissemble about it
- Illegal wiretaps on all Americans
- Economic catastrophe claiming hundred year old banks
- Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans dead in a war for nothing
- Detention without trial in a remote gulag

Way to go, George! Check out this spookily prescient piece from the Onion back in 2001. Bush: Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over


I'm no big fan of Marxist wealth redistibutors whether they are handing my money to bank executives and weapons manufacturers, like Bush or to government equality enforcers or single "4x4" mothers (four kids by four men) like Obama probably will.

But, if nothing else, Americans now have a great put-down for any sneering Europeans: just ask them what's the chance of somebody like Obama becoming German chancellor? Or French president? Yeah, right. "Only in America"

It's amazing that only four years ago, Obama went to Illinois State Senator Emil Jones and said to him "I understand you have the power to make a US Senator!"

And now here we are.

Despite the time of year, Obama even gets to enjoy mild weather down in Grant Park. And given his resounding victory, there is now every chance that Chicago will still be standing tomorrow morning.

This blog disagrees with your policies, Barack, but raises a glass to salute the achievement of somebody with no advantages or anybody pulling strings who made it to the top of Harvard Law and has now made it to become leader of the greatest nation on Earth. Well done!

"Which one is your wife then?"

Ah, the foxy chicks of England....