Second biggest news, in bizarro world, is the news of Governor Scott Walker, who originally wanted to be a Texas Ranger, after his namesake, saying in pre-governor interviews that "He felt the Wild West calling" and that "Us Walkers are bred for it, you know?". He later rescinded these statements, saying "All my life I've wanted to take away the collective bargaining rights of Wisconsin's unions." immediately after his election. Curiously, the man is a confusing mix of enigmatic and disarmingly honest. At times, you feel his mind accidentally lets something really stupid slip, like, say, admitting to criminal acts in a prank phone call that was recorded. Or, perhaps, claiming this is about budget balancing whilst handing huge tax breaks to people. Then worse, saying, even if the union agreed to all of his budgetary demands, he wouldn't accept unless they rescinded the ability to collectively bargain, making it almost completely NOT about budgets. Still, typical American understatement came to the fore as always, comparing him to Hosni Mubarak and Gaddafi on the news. To us Brits, this is roughly the same as accusing Boris Johnson of being Stalin or Saddam Hussein because of his dictatorial ideas on congestion charge. First off, Wisconsin voted this man in, which is notably different to most dictatorships where either [a] there are no elections, [b] the elections are rigged, or [c] You are Mugabe, and you lose a rigged election (Graveyards in Zimbabwe are called Robert Mugabe Appreciation Centres, admittedly only by me, but it'll catch on) and just claim to have won, give the loser a nominal position and let him not be dead. Next up, notably, they aren't being shot and killed for political dissidence. Now this may seem a small thing, but being able to march against someone without being killed is fairly cool, so please don't pretend you are like people who risked their own life against oppression. Finally, these people were against DECADES of political control, your man Scott has been in for less than 2 months (Impressive level of hate generated in that brief a time period though). This sort of RIDICULOUS comparison detracts from the argument at hand, that is to say, the removal of union rights to try and get a better deal. It's stupid. I know it's stupid. But fight that, not the idiot in charge. This is a stupid policy, by a stupid man.
On a side-note, American Politics is almost appallingly confusing and terrifyingly bad. Several of your key men are barely coherent at public speaking (Far less political rhetoric). At least, I assume they're your key men, they could be the lowest of the low. I have no idea how that system works. Get yourselves a proper parliament. You could probably buy ours off us (Corruption joke! Booyah.) if the tabloid "exposes" are to be believed. But having watched footage of debates, I'm genuinely scared to admit that George Bush wasn't actually "bad" by the standards of your Houses, merely over-promoted.
Another news story now, the media plutocracy has taken a big hit with the news that Rupert Murdoch is selling off Sky News to allay fears he might control too much news by Ofcom. He already owns the Sun, the News of the World, the Times and the Sunday Times, but wants to buy Sky. Fortunately for him, they're looking likely to sell Sky to him. Coincidentally, Rupert Murdoch's son is a former CEO and current Chairman of BSkyB, having been given the job whilst his father's company owned 39% of the company. For some reason this prompted calls of nepotism. I don't want to be mean, but hey, they may have a point. Nepotism is all the rage, everyone's doing it, I mean, I'm not saying Jesus wasn't the best man for the role of Messiah, but all I'm saying is I put in a CV and never even heard back. Maybe Rupert Murdoch genuinely thinks he's God now. On the plus side, that means at some stage we all get to crucify James Murdoch. Anyways, they've ruled that a 100% ownership of Sky News is too much (As opposed to the reasonable and not at all output-affecting 39% they own just now. I think it's just coincidental they adopt a right-wing position similar to Murdoch's other media outlets) so Sky will split Sky News and sell everything else to Murdoch. Simple.
German news now, and a senior minister in Germany, having initially taken an extended leave of absence, has now resigned. The reason? He's had his doctorate stripped for plagiarism. There's a good moral lesson for anyone there, if you intend to cheat in a test, either do it so brilliantly you never get caught, or try to avoid becoming a high-ranking government official. What astonishes me most about this it that it's a doctorate, a pretty high-level qualification. Seems to me you must feel pretty bizarre about having to cheat your way through your own "field of expertise". If I were in that position, I'd think about picking a new field to be an expert in, perhaps one I wasn't so crap at. Also, Colonel Gaddafi's son is having HIS doctorate thesis questioned. You know, if we can't trust the son of a leader who took his nation in a coup, managed to collapse it and rebuild it and is now killing protesters, who CAN we trust? I'd suggest "Not Sky News" based on the previous story.
It's been a bad week for animals as a whole, with the news that, following an argument with his sister, 54-year-old Darrell Duffill (there's your first mistake: People with alliterative names should be completely fictional. Anyone who gives a real child alliteration in their name needs to rethink. Only exception is marrying into alliteration), from Cornwall, opted to shoot dead her pet donkey. I normally wouldn't mention this sort of thing other than to comment on the deplorable nature of this, but for the fact his solicitor claimed he was an "Animal lover". Now, solicitors, of course, have to bend the truth a little at times, perhaps boost a client's good points a tad, but claiming a man who shot an innocent donkey to death is an animal lover is a stretch too far. She actually represented Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic at the Hague, claiming both were "Huge fans of the Bosnians" before adding "They love the traditional Bosnian culture and way of life". (That's a joke for all you fans of International Crimes against Humanity).
No time for sports news! A shame! Possibly a Cricket World Cup special coming up later, if I can bother to come up with suitable similes and metaphors to describe the stellar event. I've already got something about Indian crowds roaring like the tigers, except they are both more numerous, and less frequently killed for the Chinese medicine market. Flipside of this, British imperialists killed them in roughly equal numbers so, you know, third umpire rules that the metaphor stands, just got back to his crease in time, close one though, good dive by the metaphor, can he take this lifeline and notch up a big innings for the Literary Constructs? They rely very heavily on him and Simile at the top of the order, good all rounders those two, same with Pathetic Fallacy coming in at number 3 and Allegorical Tales coming in at 4. He's a big hitter. Expect all this and more. I may list the entire Literary Constructs XI, coached by any aspiring writer.
That's the news. We're done here.
That's the news. We're done here.
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