It’s a good news/bad news day…
Shall we have the good news first? Pour yourself a cup of coffee and pull up a chair…
Settled? OK!
For the past 154 days of the year, you have been working hard to support the army of one legged Albanian criminals, profligate politicians, the clown prosecution service, Kid’s Company, NHS outreach and diversity officers, a police force that appears to be riddled with deluded liars…I shan’t go on, I promised you some good news.
As from today, Tax Freedom Day, the fruits of your labour are all your own. Every penny you earn from now until December 31st shall be yours to have and to hold until in death you do part.
Unfortunately, that might be sooner than you think. Just as you wiped the sweat off your brow from the exertion of keeping the government in the manner to which is has become accustomed, come news of a crashing error in the Mayan calendar. It seems they had correctly calculated that there are 365 days in the year, but failed to set their calculators to include decimal points – or would that have been a fraction back then? Did calculators ever do fractions? Anyway, there are 365.25 days in year.
Which means that all those people who carefully prepared for Apocalypse on the 21st December 2012, and ruined a perfectly good Christmas for themselves, were out by 4 years. Computers have been set the task of calculating the correct date and have come up with the answer –
Yesterday you were still busy working to pay for Corbyn and co. – today you die. (you might put it off ’til tomorrow in some parts of the world)
Cheerful little soul aren’t I? I’m going out for lunch to make the most of the day.
- Michael McFadden
June 3, 2016 at 11:50 am - Major Bonkers
June 3, 2016 at 12:42 pm -
And, in the event that we survive the Mayan apocalypse, and then are so foolish as to vote for Brexit, David Cameron has promised us a Third World War, a repeat of the great depression, a collapse of house prices, hordes of one-legged, two-legged, and three-legged Albanians arriving in the middle of the night at Dymchurch – watch the wall my darling while the gentlemen go by – not being friends with President Obama anymore, and so on.
Fortunately, though, this disaster, at least, is entirely avoidable by the simple expedient of voting to stay in the EU, and trusting to DC’s magnificent negotiations, which gained various vague half-promises from Mrs. Merkel. We are fortunate in this country to be governed by such crafty negotiators as David Cameron – who has completely stuffed the EU – and George Osbourne – who has got Google to pay its taxes.
- leady
June 3, 2016 at 1:24 pm -
Of course Mr Cameron fails to acknowledge that the great war that destroyed the UK came about as a consequence of interlocking treaties with European states
- Major Bonkers
June 3, 2016 at 2:14 pm -
The other historical precursors are the American Civil War, when the Southern states sought to succeed from the Union, and the Delian League, whereby a loose alliance of Greek city-states gradually found themselves subsidiary parts of the Athenian Empire.
The second example is pertinent: the voluntary levies paid to the League, as part of a common defense against the Persians, gradually became a tax levied by Athens on its clients. Pericles, having got hold of the League’s treasury – which had nominally belonged to all the League members – promptly spent it on building the Parthenon: a fine example of bureaucrats allocating resources to themselves.
- Mudplugger
June 3, 2016 at 4:04 pm -
Of course that other European expansion, the Roman Empire, spread widely, it appointed native collaborators to positions of power in its vassal states, plundered them for their natural assets, rewarded itself with monumental structures and wealth at home but was ultimately brought down by aggressive immigration along its borders which it proved powerless to resist.
As Mark Twain astutely observed, “History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes”.- windsock
June 3, 2016 at 5:33 pm -
Oh, you mean the British Empire/Commonwealth?
- Mudplugger
June 3, 2016 at 8:12 pm -
The British Empire certainly had some of those characteristics, which serves to emphasise the point, but its end came about more by geo-political shifts than parallelling the demise of its Roman predecessor. The ‘rhyme’ is that all such efforts to coalesce inherently incompatible cultures always end in failure: if we’re smart we recognise it early and get the hell out, if we’re not smart we go down with the sinking EU ship. Feeling lucky ?
- windsock
June 4, 2016 at 7:46 am -
Luckier than becoming an outlying tax haven at the end of the Silk Road or perhaps Airstrip One.
- windsock
- Mudplugger
- windsock
- Mudplugger
- Major Bonkers
- leady
- Fat Steve
June 3, 2016 at 1:28 pm -
one legged Albanian criminals
If true as I suspect it is, at least in part , one would have to have a fetid imagination to make this one up ……or Kid’s Co ……or rescuing the banks ……or…..or …or much that seems to go on outside of my personal redoubt. Still out Elders and Betters must know how to spend the money we earn more wisely than we do otherwise they wouldn’t be in charge would they? - Roderick
June 3, 2016 at 3:48 pm -
Is it just me or is this whole Referendum thing descending into little more than a choice beween two groups of similarly uninspiring people?
Not exactly Hobson’s choice but not much better. - Fredbear
June 3, 2016 at 3:55 pm -
I give not a single flatulent toss about the approaching apocalypse, (I never trusted those bloodthirsty Mayans anyway). Having been diagnosed with inoperable cancer and given 6 months to live and then told 3 months later that is was there had been an ‘error’ in the reading of scans and I was, in fact, a very healthy, although rather stressed, 76 year old, I am of the firm opinion that the sun is still shining despite the occasional stray cloud and that the Great Pumpkin is still ruling in the heavens.
- Ted Treen
June 3, 2016 at 4:08 pm -
Having been dumb enough to watch PMQT recently, I was convinced that I had died and that our current politicos were in fact my eternal punishment. Could I really have been that evil?
- Don Cox
June 3, 2016 at 6:39 pm -
Why is a collapse in house prices a bad thing ? Isn’t southern England full of well paid professionals who are angry because they can’t afford to buy a house ? Isn’t a “collapse” just another way of saying the housing shortage will end ?
As for the immigrants, one sure way to stop immigration will be to elect Corbyn as Prime Minister. In a couple of years he will reduce the British economy to a socialist shambles as in Venezuela, and everyone will leave. They didn’t come here to spend hours queueing for bread.
- Dioclese
June 3, 2016 at 7:29 pm -
Not me, Anna. I retired when Gordon the Gorgon decided to screw self employed people by upping our income taxes.
Ironically, they chased me for the next 10 years to work on the new HMRC computer system (subsequently scrapped because they couldn’t get any contractors to work on it. Wonder why?).
Irony makes the world go round. You must have noticed..?…
- Ed P
June 4, 2016 at 12:32 am -
The Incredible String Band had a song about Maya, but I’m not sure if it was about the S. Americam loonies.
It’s the fully-legged Albanian crims I worry about, plus Cameron’s lies, imminent Turkish immigrants, Chinese product quality, ‘mer-can elections, etc…
- Michael McFadden
June 4, 2016 at 3:12 am -
“Why is a collapse in house prices a bad thing ? Isn’t southern England full of well paid professionals who are angry because they can’t afford to buy a house ? Isn’t a “collapse” just another way of saying the housing shortage will end ?”
It’s a bad thing for the current homeowners who may have taken out a 250K loan to buy a house that’s suddenly only worth 100K. They’re screwed if they try to sell it, and they’re even in trouble if they try to take out a loan for something else based on on their ownership.
And it’s good for anyone who’s NOT a homeowner because, if they’ve got a good job or some money saved up maybe they can actually buy a house! Even if they just continue to rent someplace, it’s possible that their rent might go down or they can find an equivalent place at lower rent.
While I haven’t the knowledge or skills to really know much about the econ effects of Brexit, it seems VERY clear to me that the Remainers are just running up ECON COLLAPSE! as a scare tactic.
btw… how reliable is the vote counting likely to be? In an ordinary race over here in the States you’ll usually have “Poll Watchers” from the major parties involved at watching and double checking things at all the polling locations to make sure the other side doesn’t pull any funny stuff. Yeah, there are still problems, but generally I think our results come within a couple of percent of reality (That last percent or so is vital unfortunately: we almost NEVER have something like a presidential race nowadays where they’re more than a few percentage points apart. No matter what their ideologies might dictate, the major parties stay major because they watch the polls and try to stay “on message” on any of the major topics.)
– MJM
– MJM - Bill Sticker
June 4, 2016 at 2:38 pm -
Today we’re all going to die? Is there time for my usual morning mug of coffee?
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