The problem with Change!!!!

There lies the problem with Change, you see... it keeps changing!

You don't believe me? Well, ask President Obama, he just found that out this week.

Two years ago he won the US election because he was the one about Change and, fair enough, he was really the Change and he got the job. But now, he ain't the Change anymore, he is the Establishment and so he has lost the mid-term election, because people want Change, they always do, it keeps them busy. I, for example, would love to change my hairstyle if I had any hair left but because I don't have any, I am probably going to wear a wig.

The crucial problem with Obama is that he should have explained the meaning of Change in a more formulated manner, not as Change and that's it, but as Change to Elect Me and Then Let It at That! But then it was going to be a rather long-winded slogan and he so he kept it short: Change!

It worked magnificently, nobody at the time dared to say that they were not convinced by Obamania, but then is then and now is now, and in two years time another US Presidential election will come around and we are not completely sure that Obama is going to keep his job... It will all depend on whether the Americans want to change again or if the Change has been Change enough, but mainly it depends on how the Republican nominee is going to look like and how changeable he or she will look like and which silly slogan he or she will come up with.

Will see. Who cares. My wig is going to be a curly one, I think.

The most popular name for boys in the UK, or maybe not

Now, you tell me, what was the most popular boy’s name in England in 2009?


Well, that depends on the newspaper you read.


In fact, according to the Guardian, Oliver was the most popular name for boys in 2009 but according to the Daily Mail it is instead, believe it or not, Mohammed.


Now, how can that be? Are the two newspapers reporting two different statistics? Or is one of them lying? And if so, which one? The truth is that both newspapers are technically right but they are highlighting the facts in a different way and here I can demonstrate it to you.


Let’s look at the figures, shall we? “Facts are sacred”, says the Guardian.


Then, if we look at the official list, we can see that in 2009 there have been 7,364 babies under the name of Oliver, 300 or so babies ahead of the second most popular name, Jack.


We can clearly see that Oliver is indeed, as reported in the Guardian, the most popular name for boys in 2009, no doubt about it. Mohammed is merely 16th, with only 3,300 babies bearing its name… so the Daily Mail is wrong, you may think, bloody Daily Mail always banging on about the Muslims Taking Over the Country.


But hold on a minute. Let’s look at the full list. Noticing something? Yes, Mohammed has indeed only 3,300 babies bearing its name, but Muhammad has 2,162, Mohammad 1,073, Muhammed 515 and so on… basically the total number of baby boys born in 2009 named after the prophet Mohammed with different spellings is 7,569 and therefore beating the number of boys called Oliver…


Now then, after the facts, who do you think is trying to deceive us? Who is telling the truth? Is the Guardian trying to cover the fact that the Muslim population is growing exponentially or is the Daily Mail always trying to talk about the Muslims with any possible excuse? Is the Guardian right in making us believe that Mohammad and Muhammad are two completely different names such as, shall we say, Jack and Oliver? Or is the Daily Mail right in pointing out that Mohammad and Muhammad are actually the same name and therefore it is rather stupid and deceiving to pretend they are not?


I leave the answer to you, and to Oliver and Mohammed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1324194/Mohammed-popular-baby-boys-ahead-Jack-Harry.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/oct/27/baby-names-children-oliver-olivia

Inter champion of Europe: obrigado and farewell, Jose Mourinho

When Jose Mourinho joined Inter two summers ago, I wrote a post in this blog on how happy I was that my team have signed him. One comment, I received at the time, said that it would be a disaster for Inter.

Two years later, the comment turned out to be ridiculously wrong and my hopes vindicated. My expectations, in fact, were not only met, but actually overly surpassed, elevated to the cube, actually.

Jose Mourihno, in fact, after winning the Italian championship and the Italian Supercup in his first year at Inter, has won in the second year in chronological order: Italian Cup, another Italian Championship and, Saturday night, after a wait of 45 years for us, “nerazzurri fans”, the most dreamt for prize of all: the Champions League.

Mourinho managed the “treble”, something no other Italian team had ever managed before. However, just winning the Champions League alone, believe me, would have been bloody good enough for us.

Now, the Champions League is important for any team, but especially so for Inter. The last time we won the cup was 1965 and, just to draw a comparison, the other team of Milan, AC Milan, have won the cup 5 bloody times in the last 20 years. For us, at Inter, winning the cup was becoming an obsession.

But obsession turned into a dream after the double victory against Chelsea, and then it became a possibility after the heroic night at the Camp Nou against the “best team in the world” aka Barcelona, and then, after two wonderful goals of Diego Milito in Saturday’s final, it was a reality: Capitan Javier Zanetti raising the Champions League trophy in the Madrid’s night.

But although the players are actually the ones kicking the ball on the pitch, it was not going to be possible, this dream, without Jose Mourinho. The Special One, in just two years, has changed the team’s mentality and, like a true leader of the pack, has made the team believe that, yes, it was capable of winning the Champions League and the secret of that was to believe in him, in his tactics, in his leadership. Inter did that and Inter won.

And when the final whistle blew, Mourinho cried because he knew he had just achieved the greatest (so far) achievement of this career, winning the Champions League for Inter and in doing so, giving to Inter President Moratti the greatest prize of all.

The image of two of them, crying and hugging like excited kids, will be forever with Inter supporters. President Massimo Moratti had spent tons of money for fifteen years in order to bring Inter back to the top, replicating what his father Angelo did in the sixties. Mourinho understood what the cup meant for Moratti and he was happy to have made the dream a reality.

But Mourinho’s tears were not only of happiness, they were of sorrow too. Next season, very likely, he will not be at Inter. Like a true Mary Poppins of our times, he has done his job and he has to leave. He has taught Inter how to win the Champions League again, and Inter can carry on alone now. There is Real Madrid that needs to be taught on how to win it again.

So, after the greatest season I have experienced as an Inter fan, it is farewell and obrigado Jose Mourinho: Inter will manage also without you.

Life is like that, sometimes, and there is nothing nobody can do about it.

How to resolve the hung parliament issue and get rid of Gordon Brown

I am sorry to say this, chaps, but Scotland has to go.

The thing is, if we are really going to resolve the hung parliament issue (and get rid of Gordon Brown once and for all), we have no other choice but to give full independence to Scotland.

It is because of Scotland that the electoral system in the UK is screwed up, you see, and it is all in the numbers and, just because you ask, here they are, the numbers:

In Scotland, out of 59 available seats in Westminster, Labour got 41 of them and the Conservatives only 1.

In England, out of 532 available seats, Labour got 191 and the Conservatives 297.

Without Scotland, the Conservatives would have an overall majority, having more than 50% of the seats available, and therefore no hung parliament and no need for Cameron to ask that loser of Nick Clegg to cut a deal.

Wales and Northern Ireland are small fishes, so they can still be part of the UK, but Scotland has to go! Westminster Parliament is basically currently run by 1,035,528 Scots who think the UK should by run by that moron of Gordon Brown!

Actually, just because we are at numbers and considering that in Scotland 412,855 decent Scots voted Conservative, the whole of the UK is run by 622,673 Labour Scottish voters. I can only guess the Scots are seeking revenge after hundreds of years of abuses from the English, but there is a limit even to evil deeds and here they have crossed the line!

Now, considering that, in the whole of the UK, the Conservatives got more than 2,000,000 votes more than Labour, I find rather frightening that 622,673 Scottish Labour voters can keep Brown into power (and the rest of us in misery).

But also, on a brighter side, think about the side effects of Scottish independence: Mel Gibson will be vindicated, Andy Murray can stop pretending to support England during the World Cup and, best of all, Gordon Brown can go back to his own native land and become the Leader Maximus of Socialist Scotland!

Bet you, he will succeed in two things: making Scotland join the Euro, and then, after managing the country to go bust, ask for money from the Germans!

UK General Election: what's good about it and how it could be much better

The UK general election is upon us, and many of us can’t wait for it to be over. I know, politicians trying to get your vote is the main disease of modern democracies… but I instead enjoy elections so much that I think we should do them more often.

Yes, because I love to see politicians pretending to care about us. We know they don’t care, and they know that we know, but still, I like to see them sweating their way to number 10 by trying as hard as they possibly can to be nice to us. Think if they had to do that all the time? Think if they were going to be nice to you, scared that you could remove them from power with the stroke of a pencil? Yes, give me that power anytime!

Anyway, what I like even more than politicians pretending to care about us, is to see politicians getting caught off guard and saying things they really mean but don’t want anybody to hear, just like Gordon Brown in Rochdale, when he called that poor Duffy lady a “bigoted woman”.

Brown really thought that Mrs Duffy was a bigot because she had the audacity of asking him a question about immigration, and also because, although a life-long Labour supporter, she was questioning (how dare she!) the Labour government!

Saying that, what I really like to see (more than politicians pretending to care about us or politicians getting caught off guard by saying things they really mean but don’t want anybody to hear) is politicians undeservedly apologising for what they have inadvertently said and pretending that they did speak “in the heat of the moment” or their words had been taken “out of context”. But don’t they look so pathetic and harmless, like a puppy left out in the rain?

However, instead of apologising, I would have preferred if Mr Brown had explained why he thought Mrs Duffy was a “bigot”, instead of claiming to have (somehow) misunderstood her.

In fact, let’s take it a step forward, and instead of a debate like the ones we had in the last couple of weeks, let’s make Cameron, Clegg and Brown completely drunk, so at least we will finally get the truth from them, and instead of lots of nice words such as “fairness”, “change” and all of this rubbish, we can really understand what their real ideas, motivations and values really are and maybe, who knows, even agree with them, after all.

Barcelona-Inter, the revenge of Mourinho and the "remuntada" that never took place

... and at the end there was no "remuntada".

All the angry talking of Barcelona players (Pique, poor boy, must be feeling a bit down today, I guess), and all the big fuss about Barcelona being the greatest team in the world and Messi being the new Maradona (not yet, Leo, not yet), and all the water sprinkled on the Nou Camp before the match to make the game easier for the Barcelona stars, and all the 100,000 or so Barcelona supporters being the 12th man on the pitch and... well, it counted nothing, because at the end of the night it was Jose Mourinho and Inter Milan celebrating, walking away from the Nou Camp with the qualification to the Champions League final.

It was a victory for Inter, reaching the final of the Champions League after 38 years, but also for Mourinho, who was nicknamed the "translator" back in his Barcelona days, when he was an assistant to the late Bobby Robson, manager of Barcelona in the '96-'97 season. Barcelona never considered Mourinho a possible future manager for the club, but tonight Mourinho showed them how wrong they were and revenge is always good.

Mourinho tactics, unlike Guardiola, were spot on. Inter played a defensive match but that is what they had to do, considering that it was Barcelona that was beaten in Milan and had to perform a "remuntada" and considering also that Inter played with 10 men for three-quarters of the game. Inter showed Barcelona and the world the meaning of defending, and how Messi can be neutralised. All Inter players were amazing, Samuel, Zanetti, Maicon, Lucio, Cambiasso and so on, a wall that frustrated Barcelona until the end, especially Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the striker who left Inter in the summer because he wanted to win the Champions League and instead he showed the world that Inter is instead a better team without him.

Barcelona cannot complain with the referee either, Motta sending off was a Godsend, Barcelona’s first goal was very likely on off-side, and a handball is a handball, and therefore the second goal was rightly disallowed.

As the final whistle blew, Jose Mourinho celebrated his joy in style, by rushing towards the Inter fans, raising his arms and pointing his fingers to the sky, while Barcelona-keeper-sore-loser-Vitor-Valdes clumsily and pathetically tried to stop him, obviously not liking the fact to be out of the Champions League and probably still thinking about a "remuntada" that never took place.

In defence of the Pope (and yes, Richard Dawkins is a fool)

Some, (too) clever minds in England, are trying to legally prosecute a man coming to our shores in September.

They want to arrest him. They want to strip away his immunity because they think he needs one (!), they want to ask him tough questions (whatever that means) and, above all, prosecute him for crimes against humanity.

Big stuff, isn’t it?

Now, who do you think they are talking about? Three options for you:

a) Osama Bin Laden
b) Fidel Castro
c) Pope Benedict the XVI

Difficult choice, yes, between a and b, but actually the “right” answer is c!

Oh yes, because according to Richard Dawkins, the world famous scientist and author of the God Delusion, the Pope is the man to stop, to silence, to arrest, to prosecute because of “crimes against humanity”.

The reason for this, he claims, is that the Pope is covering up the child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. The God-hater Dawkins, who in the past called the Pope a Nazi and a leering villain in a frock, also claims that Pope Benedict the XVI is the man responsible for people dying of AIDS in Africa…

Dawkins’ claims are easily brushed aside. The Pope has not covered up the child abuse scandal but has dealt with the situation in its own way, and if that way is not the one Dawkins likes it is not his business. Secondly, people are dying in Africa because of AIDS because over there they f#@k around rather too much, and it is not the word of a Pope that can make much of a difference.

It is easy to grasp that the real issue instead is that Richard Dawkins is a fundamentalist atheist that has decided to focus his energy in trying to undermine religion whenever he can. That is his brand, his credo and probably his purpose in life.

I don’t agree with him on almost anything but I could at least respect him if he had the guts to be tough on any religion, when in fact he is just against Christianity. Has he ever publicly said anything about… Islam?

Let me think for a minute, did Dawkins ever say anything about Abu Hamza preaching hatred and murder in the Finsbury Park mosque? Or did he or his followers had anything to say when Islamic extremist Yusuf Al-Qaradawi preached to kill the Jews while in London, invited, by the way, by then mayor of London Ken Livingstone?

No, he did bloody not say a bloody word. Dawkins is against religion but if you are an Islamic preacher willing to kill Jews that is fine and why is that? Is Dawkins either not aware of Islam being a religion or is he shitting in his pants at the thought of a fatwa?

Instead, Dawkins talks rubbish about the Pope because he knows the “old villain in a frock” will not do any harm to him, and the lawyers of this country are always ready to take a fight for pointless causes.

Anyway, the Pope will be coming to the United Kingdom in September whether Dawkins likes it or not and if you agree with what I wrote and you do welcome the Pope in the UK, please sign the petition below:
http://www.petitiononline.com/PopeinUK/petition.html

Big Businesses and the one with the best car: Formula 1 is back

You look at Formula 1 today, and what is the first thing you think about?

Probably, I would guess, about Michael Schumacher hoping to win yet another title or about Lewis Hamilton trying to get it back at Jenson Button, or maybe about Bernie Ecclestone and how the hell he let that amazon ex-wife of him to run away...

I, instead, being a cynical and political animal, think about the decline of Europe as an economic powerhouse.

The reason, I am saying this, is all in the 2010 Formula 1 calendar, in the link below:
http://www.formula1.com/races/calendar.html

Out of 19 races, only 8 are in the Old Continent (and no, Turkey is not in Europe, sorry), a mere 42% of the total. Asia, instead, that had just one race (in Japan) until ten or so years ago, has jumped to 8 races, equalling Europe and probably going to grow even further in the future.

Formula 1 is the sport of Big Businesses and Big Businesses follow the smell of money, and it is clear that Europe has been outstaged by Asia, while Africa is non-existent, and the rest of the world is shuffling by.

Formula 1, let's not forget, used to be until 10 years ago mainly a European affair. Out of 16 races (at the time), 11 of these were in Europe, a whopping 68% of the total. But with the passing of every year, races in Europe have dropped, while races in Asia, by contrast, have risen, and new destinations such as China and Singapore have popped out.

Interesting also to note, in the European decline, how Spain got not one but two races, and I guess it has to do with Santander, basically the only bank alive in Europe these days and you always need banks on your side and think about it:
Big Business = Santander = Spain = Fernando Alonso.

Yes, Fernando Alonso, the Spanish champ: wasn't he partly involved a couple of years ago in the McLaren spy-affair, but came out clean? And then, the year after, partly involved in the deliberate crush of Piquet Jr at the Singaporean Grand Prix that allowed Alonso himself to win the race, but again, came out clean?

Big Business is running Formula 1 but it has always been like that and it can't be otherwise, so I'll get over it, don't worry, and if I was to be asked to bet on anyone to win the title this year, I would bet on the driver with the best car.

So, grandad Schumacher, you do have a chance, maybe, after all.

What does poverty mean in today's society? Ask the Evening Standard... (not)!

Did you know that, according to the statistics published yesterday by the Evening Standard, 41% of children in London live below the poverty line?

41% means that every time you walk in the streets of London, almost every other child you see is poor! Yes! And how come you never realised that? How come you never ever felt the rush of saving almost every other child you came across in the street?

The reason is simple: 41% of children of London do not live below the poverty line.
The problem with the statistic lies in the definition of poverty line. Poverty line is defined, according to the Evening Standard again, to be at 60% of the median income.
And what does that mean? I guess that means that if you are “poor” you cannot afford Sky TV or you don’t travel abroad. Tough yeah (especially Sky TV), but that is not what I call poverty.

But then the Evening Standard, not happy with just a statistic in its crusade against poverty in London, wants to make sure we get the picture by telling us the story of two “dispossessed” Londoners and, even more, making sure we understand it is all the government’s fault, i.e. yours.

The first “poor” we come across is an 18 year old Jamaican boy in Islington who lives with his single mother and his half-sister. He is a student and lives on benefits but he said he also applied for jobs, 32 times he claims (did he count them?) but never got an interview. Oh well, why not try for the 33rd time? He said it affected his confidence… but not his laziness, fortunately.

The journalist is then describing the story of the boy, and you have to feel sorry for him and I am not being sarcastic here. In fact, as per the article:

…several things happened to plunge the family into poverty. In 1998 his father, a chemical engineer who had split from his mother four years earlier, left the country and stopped supporting his son.

That is terrible, I agree, although no ground for blaming the government. Anyway, the next sentence baffled me:

And the following year, his mother had a second child. Unable to afford childcare, she gave up her job and went on benefits.

What? A second child? From whom? The Invisible Man? For goodness’ sake, if you have a child already and a low-income job, why have another child???

But then again, it is not her fault, the paper claims, but the government’s, which does not help the “poor” and so it is the taxpayers (me and you) who pay for that.

There is then the story of a 21 year old girl who left home at 17, got pregnant (obviously) and now lives on benefits. Fault of the government (again) according to the Evening Standard, and I and you pay for her again.

Now, what really pisses me off about these stories is reading about people who cannot find a job.

When I arrived in this country more than 10 years ago my English was non-existent and I did manage to find a job and, I now discover that I was living under the poverty line by earning (at the time) £96 a week and considering my rent was £55 and travel-card £13, I had £28 a week to live by and damn! How could I not realise that I was living under the poverty line? Was I stupid? Or had I been “indoctrinated”? Or was that maybe, just maybe, for me poverty meant my granddad eating rats in the Second World War or my granddad again as a child not being able to go out because he had seven brothers and only two pair of shoes for all of them?

And again, today, just to make sure we got the picture about “poverty”, the Evening Standard reports the story of a “hero” of a woman who is a single mother raising a family of…

(I have not made this up) 11 children

By

(I have not made this up either)

5 different fathers

And the “hero” is (surprise surprise) living on benefits, and you know what?

It is all the government’s fault!!!!!!!!

Global warming... or global cooling? Welcome to one of the coldest winters of the last 100 years

Yes, I have heard about Global Warming, yes, I know the Kyoto agreement was not followed, and yes, I know Prince Charles has declared that we have, I guess, 90 months to save the planet and yes, I know that Al Gore has told us the sea levels will rise, and the polar bears will melt and that G. W. Bush is the evil bastard to blame for all this, but… I was considering something, you know, something that recently has been buggering my little silly mind of mine:
If the world is really warming up (and it is all our fault, obviously) can anyone explain to me why, here in Britain we are experiencing one of the coldest winters in the last 100 years????

I mean, I know Global Warming is the coolest bright idea of the moment, and that Al Gore really knows his stuff (does he? He is a scientist after all and not a loser US presidential candidate, thank God) but if this winter is one of the coldest of the last 100 years, maybe, just maybe, we are not really warming up that much…

Also, recently I was reading an article where it was reported that in one region of Peru in the last 50 years the temperature has been getting colder and colder. Hmm, better keep the news quiet, shall we?

Now, some global warming “experts” have the answer for this. Yes, they do! Aren’t you all feeling much better???

They claim that… the cold temperature we are experiencing is due to a climate change… (!)

Don’t you love how the simple twisting of the word can make a lot of new meaning??? I mean, so is the world going to get cooler then? And how it is all of a sudden getting cooler if the problem is carbon emission? If we emit lots of fumes and smoke in the atmosphere it can only get warmer, not cooler, right? Or should we ask Al Gore?

Al? Al Gore? Where is Al? Damn, he took another long-haul flight to get to a conference to tell people not to take ever again a flight! Well, at least he is warming up the planet, not sorry, I meant cooling, no, sorry again, changing the climate of the planet, dare you go.

So, enjoy the snow and the cold. But please do worry about the world. It is at the boiling point. Yes, of bullshit.

Nobel Peace Prize winner bombing Yemen????

Would you believe it? The Nobel Peace Prize winner is thinking about bombing Yemen.
I am sure that no science fiction writer has ever dreamed to come up with an absurd storyline like that… what next? The Prince of Wales fighting for the establishment of the English Republic? Or Global Warming scaremonger Leader acknowledging that it is actually a bloody cold winter?

Anyway, apart from the Nobel Peace rubbish business, what I find amusing is how Obama is now the man who can tell when a war is bad and when a war is good. I thought he was the one that would have brought peace to the world just by being nice, cool and trying to understand the reason why the Islamists do-not-like-us-and-what-to do-to-change-their-minds. Well, it’s not working that way, and even the most blind deluded optimist can see that, so when the game gets tough, what does Obama do? He drops the bomb!

But that’s fine, he is Obama and he won the Nobel Peace Prize. If it had been Bush, he would be a world criminal. That’s double standards for you. That’s life.

I am actually really surprised by Obama’s behaviour. He was always the one playing it cool with “terrorism”. Remember that US soldier, what’s his name? Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert who murdered a US Army recruit in Little Rock, Arkansas in June? Or that Major, what’s his name? Oh yes, Major Nidal Malik Hassan, who slaughtered 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas? And that recent wannabe bomber, what’s his name? Oh yes, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab?

They were “isolated cases” according to Obama, but now, the Nobel Peace Prize winner is possibly starting to think that maybe, just maybe, the Islamic threat is real and it wasn’t just a deranged fantasy of that deranged President before him.

Happy 2010 everyone and please do not go to Yemen!