I was amused by this on LinkedIn:
Humour is a justifiable way of addressing an issue where there are few certainties and much that we do not know, because it reveals truths that might otherwise be missed.
And the reality is that Trump is not just mad: he is profoundly bad, to the point of being both corrupt and tyrannical. We are not dealing with rights and wrongs here, then: we are dealing with evil and law-breaking, most especially from the Trump administration. Let's never forget it.
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I don’t think anyone forgets the nature of Trump’s administration. For those opposed to it, the question is how to best deal with the situation (or least badly deal with it) given the US’s financial and military resources. I think even the most adept political leaders (a sub-group from which Sir Keir is obviously excluded) will struggle with this one.
Most amusing. As per, Malik in the G’ tells it the way it is:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/05/donald-trump-coup-venezuela-break-rules-regret
I note that Trump’s lap-dog – Starmer – spouts predictable nonsense (i.e. nothing that could offend his controllers).
Might is once again right, international rules were always only a fig leaf, & it is time these realities were recognised by politicos both in the UK and EU.
Time to hit the USA and its companies where it hurts most – in their pockets. e.g. where ever possible all gov purchases need to be structured in a way such that UK & Euro companies get the work, not US. Those buying anything via Amazon? you are helping Trump.
Mike Parr: I haven’t knowingly used Amazon for nearly 20 years, but I shall need a new computer soon, to replace my ageing Dell, and I imagine it will be difficult to avoid US products.
Ageing Dell’s with functioning hardware, can be given a new lease of life by replacing broken Windoze with open source community-controlled well-maintained Linux. Computers that won’t run Windoze 11, will happily run fast, on Linux Mint xfce64 until their hardware literally burns out. Great support community – most queries I have get answered overnight. As the alternative is landfill or recycling to a beach in Bangladesh, deny the oligarchs the profit, AND help the planet. Plenty of Open Source Software to replace the MS giants. (Libre Office, Thunderbird, a choice of browsers). You can even run some essential Windows programs either in “Wine” inside Linux or in a virtual machine.
Refurbished computers with many non-Windoze years left in them can be picked up for under £500 in phone repair shops. If you don’t want to abandon MS, you can install Linux to dual boot.
Life is possible without oligarch big tech bros. It’s being extinguished with them.
I’m currently building a home server with a recycled tower case, a recycled desktop motherboard/CPU, a recycled hard disk drive and one brand new Solid State Drive, and some open source server software called OpenMediaVault. It’s a steep learning curve but no way would I pay rent and trust my PPI, my audio and video collections or my archives and backups, to the big tech bros. When I started, I knew nothing about Linux or about servers. I am not a tech geek.
Big tech organisations used to be “covertly” dodgy. Now they are like Trump – they don’t care who knows – they do their crimes in daylight and full view because they already own the governments and law enforcement.
An interesting question for the economists – where is the “value” in a digital copy of a piece of software, like Windows 11 when there are billions of copies around the world?
Who owns your purchased licence to run your own copy of MS Office?
Who has all the rights when you rent MS and other software?
Who “owns” your Spotify collection (when it gets deleted by the company)?
agreed – I avoid Amazon like the plague – with a bit of research, most ‘items’ are available elsewhere – I purchased a DVD yesterday (Britten’s ‘Endgame’ – inevitably about music – it sooths the soul) and Amazon was the most expensive @£23.88 – elsewhere @£12.99.
Not difficult at all.
Consider, Sony, Samsung, Panasonic and Asus, for starters. All well known non US products and reputable machines.
Just ask AI or do an old fashioned search…
No need to use Amazon to buy one, either…
if you search for ‘computers not made in USA’, AI does come up with some, but many have USA links – also Wiki (if it is accurate) has lists of various under ‘List of laptop brands and manufacturers’ – including some interesting names (eg Sony) who have either exited the market or sold their business on – again beware of USA links with these lists.
There are still local suppliers of excellent computers. For the past 15 years I have used one supplied by the company down the hill which specialises in high spec games computers but also does excellent bespoke home ones. I am pretty sure there must be more all over the country. Before I moved up here, I used a company in Hertfordshire: not as good but okay for my needs. (These are desk-tops, not laptops, which seem to be more limited in choice.)
I used to do that in my PC days
Thanks to RobertJ et al. for replies to my question about a computer replacement. I will show them to my computer consultants and see what they think best. Quite apart from the hardware, I do get fed up with the constant changes to key software such as Word and Outlook and I’d happily ditch them for alternatives that don’t try to do the things I used to do better myself before the big names foisted their “improvements” on me!
Most of my writing starts on an incredibly basic word processor – iA Writer.
Why? Because I focus solely on the writing. The formatting comes later.
https://ia.net/writer
It’s cheap
Yet Trump continues to draw support from those who see him as a proxy for their own desires for dominance and ‘slapping down’ people they don’t like. The Fascist Friendly voters.
The Mail headline “PM faces revolt by Labour’s Maduro Apologists”
The lack of criticism from some other Conservative organs suggests to me he has a Fifth Column of sympathisers at high levels. E. G. Telegraph ‘Trump sets sights on Greenland’.
The counter suggestion ‘surly he wouldn’t go that far?’ looks increasingly weak.
Trump’s crimes, corruption, and incompetence have been known since before he stood in the primaries all those years ago.
Normally, politicians start off reasonably straight, even if they have dodgy political ideas, but once in power, they gradually get corrupted by spending too long in office. In the UK that generally kicks in after their second full term.
With Trump, we knew all we needed to know BEFORE he stood for office. The “Manchurian candidate” whose dark side was public knowledge, right from the word go.
So many willing accomplices, so many culpable cronies, an entire Republican Party inexplicably devoted to a fraudulent sexual predator, a malignant media smoothing his path to victory, a guillible public cheering on his deranged but horribly deliberate deception, and a gaggle of craven cowardly world leaders who ignored their moral responsibilities to stand against oppression, corruption and tyranny.
Here in the UK, we had a similar experience with Starmer – all his dishonesty, lack of vision, ruthless authoritarianism, and craven servitude to his controllers was visible by early 2020, yet he sailed into his leadership role with the support of Labour members, and then after 4 more years of demonstrating his vacuous authoritarianism as Party leader, in thrall to his masters, we knowingly gave this corrupt political disaster zone, the keys to Downing Street, praising him for his “forensic” ability.
We’ve spent so long inside this political hall of mirrors, in the UK and the US, that we think normal, honest, courageous people are a strange shape, and we knock them down as soon as possible, calling them extremists, antisemites, or fantasists.
In 2026 we have a chance to get back out into the fresh air, and begin to see things as they really are. To recognise the stench of corruption and decay, to call out incompetence, but also, to recognise compassion, kindness, and constructive commitment to caring when we see it.
Can we make goodness fashionable again?
The motivation for this rant can be found in the first 9 chapters of the Book of Proverbs, especially Chapter 8.
Wisdom and Folly await us. It’s our choice
Much to agree with.
This LinkedIn post demonstrates the value of humour in the face of desperation. The equivocation by the Labour government over whether or not Trump’s actions were legal in terms of public international law (the pathetic response on the radio this morning by the pathetic minister Mike Tapp is just one example) just adds to this sense of desperation. However, there are some who believe that Trump is acting in this way now is because he fears losing control come the November mid-term elections. But my question is: why do you believe that the mid-term elections will take place? With a de facto absent but utterly compliant Congress and Supreme Court that rubber stamps Trump’s actions, what chances are there that Trump will “cancel” the elections on the spurious basis of “war”. The evidence so far is that very few, if any, people within the US Government are prepared to stand up to Trump.
I have long thought that cancellation likely.
There will be an emergency declared, preventing then happening.
What will the emergency be? That Trump might lose will be enough.
This may raise a smile –
THIS CANCEROUS LUMP
There is an old geezer called Trump
Who most people think is a chump
People must now open their eyes
To see he spreads nothing but lies
Wears silly long red ties
And has morels that belong in the sump.
He wants to make America great
By spreading nothing but hate
And he acts like he wants to be King!
But abuse of women’s his thing
It’s time this nutty old gump
Was finally consigned to the dump
America has seen the evils of Fascism
And it has been a traumatic baptism
They have been sold the oil of a snake
It’s time for them to re-awake
And be rid of this cancerous lump
This potty dangerous geezer called Trump.
An old scene from To Be or Not to Be movie is funny but not funny in that uneasy, ironic way and uncomfortably reminiscent of the little-fingered dictator currently occupying the White House https://youtu.be/-VM6E4UAJ30?si=0Nj3Qx6LETTiWRVA
On the humorous side, Today’s Guardian cartoon is quite apt given the surprise, shock, horror displayed there
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/jan/05/ben-jennings-trump-venezuela-cartoon