Real comment, real news

And a Happy Easter Sunday to you all!
I’ll stick with the Sunday only as happiness never lasts very long in the family context, does it?
The tenseness will increase over the evening and you will all be relieved to get out to work tomorrow if only to get away from your various sources of family irritation.
Back to normal, in other words.

So, where to start… It’s a religious week and I would like to think that you did manage to participate to some extent. Having partially watched a lot of it during the week while working, I propose this:
Question of the week: Is the Santo Entierro procession a parody?

Meanwhile Notre Dame burned down. When they were building it 900 years ago, it was common for the rich to finance the enterprise in return for Indulgences and forgiveness for the way they amassed the very money they were partially donating. Ah, the feudal system and patronage… rich lords buying their way into Heaven by making huge donations to the Church to atone for their robbing, exploitation, killing etc.
No hypocrisy in sight, right?
Well, here we have French billionaire Bernard Arnault (and family, it says here) and fellow French Billionaire François Pinault (and his family too) each offering 100 million Euro, that’s 100000000!!!!, towards the rebuilding of the cathedral. The l’Orèal family (you wouldn’t expect less) also pledging several tens of millions.
What sins are they guilty of that they have to offer so much in donation to the Church? Please send me your suggested list of their sins on a very long postcard.

Being a professor of thermodynamics helps me resolve mysteries too. After the fire, pictures from the inside show the golden Cross at the front of the altar untouched by the devastation around it. The fundamentalist Christians have jumped on this as proof of God and His intervention.
I have bad news for them, or rather, good science. The chief combustible of the fire was the wooden seats. Wood burns at a temperature of between 600°C and 800°C (depending on its chemical composition). The melting point of gold is 1600°C.
Really, one doesn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes.

Being Sevilla and with a general election on the horizon, there would have to be a potent mix of both religion and politics somewhere along the way. Again, no hypocrisy in sight, right?
We have the «Sash» (or fajin rojo) and the Baratillo and prospective Vox votes. Who, in their right mind, would even consider using a bright red sash, worn by a dictator guilty of much bloodshed, and donated by the Franco Bahamonde family (family again,eh?) as a decoration on a symbol of peace? And this has been going on for years… on the Virgin del palio of a Holy Week procession.
This is a scandal. For all his sins, the dictator’s family only gave a sash. A miserable sash?!?!?! Why couldn’t they give a few million Euro like all the other bastards? (see above).

In another parody of hypocrisy (okay, but it is the only expression that fits), it is reported that Game Of Thrones has been banned in military schools in Turkey to protect young people from “sexual exploitation, pornography, exhibitionism, abuse, harassment and all negative behaviours”.
Seriously?
It’s a f***ing television program, with actors. Actors!
Yeah… now get out there and kill some innocent civilians for real!!!!!!
The military, eh?

There is a Peppa Pig film out at present: «Peppa Pig: Festival of Fun». They have special maninee showings in the UK, probably as an excuse for parents to bring along their children on Saturday morning, then make an excuse to leave after ten minutes to do what they like for a couple of hours (relaxed shopping, go home and have uninterupted sex, whatever), but things didn’t work out that way in Ipswich, UK.
Before the film, some trailers for forthcoming films are shown… except that the trailers chosen were for the films «Ma» featuring dead bodies, sexual violence and a man being hit by a car, and «Brightburn», which features a malevolent child with a horror mask as well as blood and violence.
Cue: kids in tears and screaming in terror.
Cue: lots of parents suddenly realising that their morning shopping or Saturday sex was a non-starter.
One parent, Mrs Jones, a BBC journalist, said her daughter Annie had been subdued since the experience. She said: «Normally I would expect her to be singing and dancing when watching something like [Peppa Pig] but she was just really subdued. I hope that they can show these horror film trailers every week. It hasn’t been as quiet in the house since Annie was born.»

Okay, I added a quote of my own in there.

Still in the «we’re not talking about Brexit» UK, this one also made me wonder about the general levels of education there.
A couple phoned the local newspaper in Doncaster to report finding a piranha in the local lake. Ah well, this now fitted in with recent dramatic reports of ducks being massacred and other wildlife being torn to shreds, now obviously by the «razor-toothed Amazon fish»….  in the freezing waters of Martinwells Lake.
Do you have proof, asked the reporter, busy checking the date… not the 1st of April. To his shock, photographs began to emerge of a couple of fish that looked just like the actual South American pirhana.
The Environment Agency confirmed that the dead fish were indeed pirhanas.
Obviously they were exotic pets that some owner released into the water when they became too big.
However, logic or intelligence were never a part of rural British life and the reactions were worth a laugh.
“It was quite a shock. We couldn’t believe that we’d found a piranha fish. It’s not the kind of thing you expect to find in Doncaster,”
No, nor in most of Brazil either, where the tropics are.
“When we realised what it was, it sent shivers down my spine. This is a popular spot among families, dog walkers and fishermen. It’s always busy here. There’s a play park nearby, with lots of young children.»
Playpark?
Do these things have legs now?
Keep an eye out for pirahanas among the columpios in Alfalfa, Felix.

Speaking of dicks…..
The male organ rears its ugly head again (puns completely intended).
Doctors in Papua New Guinea have warned of a “nationwide problem” of men injecting foreign substances, including coconut oil, baby oil, silicone and cooking oil (side effects are serious, sometimes irreversible) into their penises in an attempt to make them bigger.
Yaaheeeey!!!! The male ego, eh? Completely concentrated in the genetalia.
A doctor at the Port Moresby General Hospital said that over the last two years his «clinic has treated at least 500 men with penile disfigurement and dysfunction as a result of injections. The bulk of them have abnormal, lumpy masses growing over the penis and sometimes involving the scrotum” said Dr Danlop.
He continued “Predominantly the men, usually aged 18-40, regret what they have done,”
Read that again…. «predominantly»????
Some of them are okay with this??

We men do so many things to keep women happy.

Still speaking of horrors…An American man is suing his parents for throwing away his pornography collection, which he estimates is worth $29,000 (€25,600). The 40-year-old Indiana man filed his lawsuit last week in Michigan, where he had moved in with his parents in 2016 after his divorce. His twelve boxes of magazines were dumped by his father.
The man is now seeking financial damages of around $87,000 (€76,800).
The question remains… who buys porn magazines in the age of the internet?

«Now, why didn’t we think of that?» Part 154
After American Airlines announced that it was canceling 115 flights a day between now and the summer because of «problems» (problems? that’s putting it mildly) with the Boeing 737 Max, Donald Trump, a.k.a. the Orange Shit Gibbon, decided to show them the solution.
And the solution of genius?
Change the name and keep selling and flying. I am not sure that this particular piece of advise had occurred to anyone in Boeing, probably because they think that not even Americans are that stupid.
The tweet is yet another classic in a long line of shite:
“What do I know about branding? Maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name. No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?”
This is one that Homer Simpson wouldn’t try, but I can imagine the Orange Shit Gibbon standing on the wing with a big marker pen changing to MAX8 to «all new MAX9» badly and being convinced that no one would notice.
You can imagine it too, right?

For your information, the problem has no proper solution. The position of the reactors under the wings renders stability much more difficult to retain and control. This is the fuck-up of the century and is the equivalent of the White Star Line producing hundreds of Titanics. 

White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump (yes, that’s her real job title) said her father asked her if she was interested in taking the job of World Bank chief but she passed on it.
Please just think about that for a moment.
The president (i.e. the Orange Shit Gibbon) recently told The Atlantic newspaper: «I even thought of Ivanka for the World Bank. She would’ve been great at that because she’s very good with numbers.»
That’s some serious qualification right there. Good with numbers.
Christ!
Ivanka Trump worked on the selection process for the new head of the 189-nation World Bank, David Malpass. She said he will do an «incredible job».
Quite incredible, indeed!

Meanwhile, submissive friend of the Shit Gibbon, Kim Jong-Un has had his army test firing a new tactical weapon with a “powerful warhead”.
Someone is laughing anyway.

I will end with a quote from a very senior British diplomat concerning Brexit, but it fits in with everything..
«We’re fucked! Totally fucked! There is no other way to say it. Fucked»
He has a way with words.

Peace and blessings be upon you all,
f