Current Events

[rain_gryphon]

It was pointed out to me that between them, Elizabeth II and Victoria have reigned for 125 of the last 176 years. That's really a remarkable perspective to me, to think of those two in tandem like that, defining an age.

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I've now seen the video of that Spanish train disaster. That is one deeply impressive crash. He was going a good hundred miles an hour into that turn. It looked as though the train were just plain going too fast to make the curve.

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So, life without parole plus a thousand years. With good behaviour, he'll be released for burial 667 years after he dies.

They're tearing down his house because "We do not want it to be a symbol of Cleveland." Prolly a bit late there.

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Two years ago I was able to remark with assurance that Weiner was 'toast'. I'm actually kind of glad that I was wrong. Being a lecher really shouldn't disqualify a man from holding public office. Being stupid enough to get caught repeatedly is perhaps more of a problem, though.

Comments

[whitetail.livejournal.com]

Although that's an interesting statistic, I'd hardly say that Victoria and Elizabeth II define an age. Quite the contrary - the two reigns couldn't be more starkly different. Victoria's Britain was an imperial world power - THE sole superpower on the planet. Under E II R, Britain has lost all vestiges of empire, and is so impotent and weak now that even Scotland is poised to break away. The world leader in practically everything in the 19th century, the nation today, in general, is almost completely irrelevant on the international stage. Even English culture is in active decline. The UK actually now touts itself as "the most multicultural country in the world", and I don't think anyone can dispute that. When simply flying the flag of St George in its own country is frowned upon as insulting to other nationalities, it seems to me that England has completely lost all sense of itself.

All this, of course, is not Elizabeth's personal doing, but she's clearly shown herself to be in favour of all of these negative changes, and not speaking up for traditional English values in the least. Victoria stood for national and cultural strength; Elizabeth II, weakness. As monarchs, they are polar opposites in almost every way.

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

even Scotland is poised to break away.

This I doubt, actually: polls north of the border consistently show support for independence somewhere in the 30s percent. (Here's a poll from May. (http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3172/Support-for-Scotland-remaining-part-of-the-UK-increases.aspx)) It certainly could happen, but if it does I think it will be more because of the weakness of the Unionist campaign than any actual overwhelming desire for independence. It's like the one on electoral reform a few years back: there is actually a reasonable appetite for that, but the pro-change camp ran just about the most useless political campaign I've ever seen and were deservedly thrashed.

When simply flying the flag of St George in its own country is frowned upon as insulting to other nationalities

Except that it isn't. Far and away the most unpopular flying of that flag is when the English Defence League do it, and that's just the same as when the BNP wave the Union Jack about. The church in town here, being Church of England, often flies a St George's Cross. Number of complaints, to my knowledge? Zero.

[whitetail.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear that support for independence is so low. Our news over here doesn't cover issues like that, and my visits to the Beeb site are few and far between, so I was unaware of any polls on the subject.

I think what I should have said was something like, "Even Scotland is being permitted to vote on severing ties with the United Kingdom - a move which in itself would never have been tolerated to be discussed in Victoria's time, let alone be granted the sanction of the Crown. The very fact that Scotland has its own government now is something that no one would have believed credible even in the early years of the present monarch's reign."

Concerning my claim that flying the flag of St. George is regarded as offensive to some, I'm afraid I read that in one of your countryman's LJs some years ago. I'm also glad to hear that this was not true.

[whitetail.livejournal.com]

I found this on Tumblr last night and thought it to be of interest.

[arcturax.livejournal.com]

My take on the Weiner thing and other politicans who get caught out in this kind of thing is if his own wife can't trust him, how can the voters?

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

It turns out the idiot train driver was yakking on his phone at the time of the crash.