Politics | Steve Woods

What a Fine fellow

15/06/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media

In his 1948 dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell introduces the concept of Newspeak, a new of language, which is defined as follows, according to Wikipedia.

To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in Oceania, the Party created Newspeak, which is a controlled language of simplified grammar and limited vocabulary designed to limit a person’s ability for critical thinking. The Newspeak language thus limits the person’s ability to articulate and communicate abstract concepts, such as personal identity, self-expression, and free will, which are thoughtcrimes, acts of personal independence that contradict the ideological orthodoxy of Ingsoc collectivism.

Talking about a limited or non-existent ability for critical thinking, it’s time to introduce Rep. Randy Fine, the Republican Party’s representative for Florida’s 6th congressional district, in whom the capacity for critical thinking is completely lacking, as shown by his social media activity earlier in the week and the following post in particular.

Peaceful bombing, Congressman?

Yes, of course it was peaceful, Randy; there was absolutely no bloodshed and flowers bloomed where the bombs fell.

Rep. Fine’s Wikipedia entry also reveals he is an Islamophobe, racist, gun rights supporter, cheerleader for the genocidal Israeli state (he called Ireland antisemitic for its recognition of Palestine in 2024. Ed.) and, last but not least, homophobic.

Randy Fine reminds your correspondent of another very pertinent quotation from Orwell’s novel, i.e.:

War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.

Have a nice day!
The Felon’s body double visits France

08/06/2025 Steve WoodsOddities, Politics, Social Media

From my social media timeline today.

While the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump has been busy getting the United States military to invade Los Angeles, California, as part of his mission to “Make America Grate Again” (or something like that. Ed.), his body double has been spotted paying a visit to the French capital, Paris.

Quel horreur !

It is not known whether the French state has had any official contact with the Dustbin Donny/Président Poubelle or if this visit is a purely private affair.
For UK read England (and English)

14/05/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

On Monday the country’s best known toolmaker’s son ‘Sir’ Keir Rodney Starmer, in a vain effort to stem the flow of support for the Farage fascist fan club otherwise known as the Reform Party UK Ltd., made a major announcement on ~~immigration~~ racism and xenophobia, namely to the effect that he was in favour of both, despite a side serving of the usual ‘I’m not racist, but…‘

His speech met generally with condemnation from the left and varying degrees of praise from those on the right, such as ‘Honest’ Bob Jenrick, some of whom also believed he hadn’t gone far enough to be beastly to those pesky forrins to whom they would have been even nastier.

Anyway, this was a speech in which Starmer embraced his inner Enoch Powell, echoing phrases from the latter’s notorious and deeply offensive ‘Rivers of blood‘ speech from 2nd April 1968. Where Powell remarked that the country’s white population ‘found themselves made strangers in their own country‘, Starmer stated that the UK risked becoming an ‘island of strangers‘.
Another ill-conceived utterance in his speech was that immigration and immigrants had done ‘incalculable harm‘ to the country. In particular, this drew justifiable ire from many whose grandparents or great-grandparents had migrated to Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries along the lines of ‘how dare he…‘. This reaction from tax campaigner Richard Murphy is a prime example of this sentiment.

Quite right, Richard. They come over here and do irreparable harm by (say) keeping the National Health Service running, paying their taxes and so on.

Another facet of the toolmaker’s son’s speech centred on his remarks about the use of the English language. Starmer is on record as saying:

Britain is an inclusive and tolerant country, but the public expect that people who come here should be expected to learn the language and integrate.

A remark of a similar nature and of the same import was also made on Starmer’s social media account.

Which language? Starmer is conflating English, the language of England with the whole of the Untied* Kingdom, parts of which have their own indigenous languages, like Cymraeg or Gaelic. He seems completely ignorant of the fact that modern English is the product of three waves of historical incomers, i.e. immigrants, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc. who arrived after the Romans left in the 5th century CE, Norse Vikings who settled here and the French-speaking Vikings from Normandy who invaded in 1066. There are very few words from Britain’s indigenous languages in modern English.

The fact that modern English is a mongrel language brought by immigrants also seems lost on Starmer.

However, this imperative to speak English has not gone down well in either Scotland or Cymru (where Cymraeg has equal legal status with the language of invasion. Ed.), as The National reports.

In Cymru, the radio personality, TV presenter and influencer Jessica Davies took to X/Twitter to make her feelings known.

Well done, Keir. By your racism you have shown that you are well and truly a product of your father’s profession.

* = Misspelling is deliberate.
Reform VE Day cock-up

09/05/2025 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Social Media

Politicians and thus by implication the parties to which they owe their allegiance have a relationship with the truth that can be described diplomatically as problematic and at worst non-existent.

Yesterday’s VE Day 80th anniversary provided ample proof of both.

Perhaps the most egregious example of being less than truthful was posted on the X/Twitter account of Reform UK Ltd., a limited company masquerading as a political party, the latest incarnation of the cult dedicated to the promotion and adoration of a perennial charlatan commonly known as Nigel Paul Farage, who also just happens to be a great pal of the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, who is on a one-man mission to Make America Grate Again (or something similar. Ed.). Whether Farage’s adoration is reciprocated in equal measure is not known. given The Felon‘s disposable relationships with the rest of the human race.

What the Farage Fan Club posted on X/Twitter is shown below.

There’ll be bullshit over the white cliffs of Dover…

So far, so patriotic at a first casual glance – the white cliffs, a union flag, Churchill at Buckingham Palace, a Royal Navy ship is glorious monochrome and any reference to the Brits in WW2 would be incomplete without a Spitfire.

However, this impression is debunked the closer one looks at the image. We’ll come back to the Spitfire, but first let’s look at that naval vessel used by Reform’s graphics whizz-kids. A special research technique otherwise known as using a search engine for five minutes reveals it is in fact HMS Vanguard, the last battleship ever to be built. Although her construction started during the war, she did not enter into naval service until 1946, i.e. after VE Day and even VJ Day, which marked the final official end of hostilities.

The vessel’s identity can be easily confirmed by looking at one of the photographs used by Wikipedia; the motor launch can be seen in both the image on Wikipedia and in the much edited image used by Reform.

HMS Vanguard. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Now let’s return to that Spitfire. Doing an image search for a Spitfire with the roundel identification AI yields not a single result; and your ‘umble scribe can find no reference anywhere to an actual squadron with that identification. Besides that, a search for AI or A1 Spitfire squadron identifications yielded zero results. Furthermore, the aircraft itself has a very glossy appearance, a feature that was shared by all the Spitfire images produced by generative AI that came up in your correspondent’s search. The conclusion I’ve reached is that the Spitfire exists solely in digital format and has never actually flown, let alone seen active service. This seems very reminiscent of the dishonesty shown by the equally right-wing British National Party, who attracted much derision in 2009 when in a supposedly patriotic poster where they used a Spitfire flown by a Polish squadron.

A final reminder to Farage and his fellow travellers; your side surrendered unconditionally on 8th August 1945.
Larry writes German

04/05/2025 Steve WoodsPolitics, Social Media

Earlier this week, one Marco Antonio Rubio, inexplicably elevated to the senior government position of US secretary state by the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, had to be given lessons in both history and governance by the German Foreign Ministry.

The reason? Take a look at what Rubio – allegedly the States’ top diplomat (the title comes with the job. Ed.) – posted social media. Note the casual racism in the middle sentence.

Rubio is not the only member of the current Trump regime to have shown support for Germany’s fascist AfD: a couple of months ago. just nine days before the German federal elections, the charm void known to the world as James David Vance, a man who does very poor vice-presidential impressions, was criticised for meeting the AfD’s Alice Weidel in Munich (how appropriate for right wingers! Ed.) in what could be regarded by some as electoral interference.

Anyway, back to Rubio. His social media post was prompted by the news that the AfD had been classified as extreme-right by German intelligence and placed under surveillance.

Rubio’s take on events did not go down well in the corridors of power in Berlin, earning him the following rebuke and and history lesson courtesy of the German Foreign Ministry’s social media account on X/Twitter.

That’s quite some rebuke.

Indeed it even prompted Larry the Downing Street Cat to post a response in German to the Foreign Ministry.

Whilst the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office has made his thoughts known, the ultimately man in charge of the Downing Street cat food supply, toolmaker’s son Keir Rodney Starmer, has yet to comment at all on this matter.
German state to move to ODF

29/04/2025 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Politics, Tech

Germany’s IT Planning Council, whose duties include IT co-ordination, standards, administrative digitisation and e-government projects, published its decision on open formats for document exchange a couple of days ago. In particular, it specifically mentions the Open Document Format (ODF) as an example of the open formats being used to a greater extent.

The decision itself consists of three sections, as follows:

1. The IT Planning Council recognises that open exchange formats are necessary for nationwide collaboration and welcomes the resolution of the Digital Ministers’ Conference. Open formats and open interfaces are an important building block for the necessary process of setting the German public sector on the road to greater digital sovereignty and innovation.

2. The IT Planning Council is committed to ensuring that open formats such as the Open Document Format (ODF) are increasingly used in the public sector and become the standard for document exchange by 2027. It has commissioned the Standardisation Board to implement this.

3. The IT Planning Council further recognises that the exchange of documents via email is no longer appropriate for cross-border collaboration, especially for the preparation and follow-up of ministerial conferences, and advocates – in line with the approach of the First Ministers Conference (MPK) – the use of open collaboration solutions in inter-state cooperation. It instructs the Federal IT Co-ordination organisation (FITKO) to present a plan for providing a collaboration solution by its 48th meeting.

The decision is sure to receive widespread support from the opensource community, as has already happened with The Document Foundation, curators of the LibreOffice suite.
Another Bristol Live exclusive

21/04/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics, Social Media

Another day, other news.

Your ‘umble scribe awoke this morning to hear that Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic church, had died aged 88 years.

In a situation eerily reminiscent of the demise of Mrs Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Mountbatten-Windsor in September 2022, when she had been visited just two days beforehand by a certain Mary Elizabeth Truss, the pontiff’s death comes very shortly after an audience with a certain James David Vance, who has been appointed to preside over vice by the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump.

Social media has been awash this morning with posts about the similarities between the two deaths

However, all this speculation is pointless, as is any explanation that the pope was a very ill man.

For the real reason for the passing of the pontiff, one has to consult Bristol ‘Live’, the West Country’s newspaper of (warped) record.

Under the Bristol News header, this Reach plc title seems to have an exclusive scoop at to what or who was actually liable for Francis’ demise – West Country folk reacting.

Now look what you’ve done, Bristolians and neighbours!

Unless, of course, it’s yet another example of bad English usage and even worse journalism of the putting the cart before the horse variety.
God? No!

20/04/2025 Steve WoodsOddities, Politics, Social Media

My social media feed on the federated Mastodon network is a source of news, conversation, merriment and occasional consternation. In particular, consternation nowadays concerns mostly information emanating from the authoritarian regime of the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, who is on a mission to Make America Grate Again (or something like that. Ed.).

The latest barminess to cross over from the eastern shores of the Atlantic and land in my timeline is shown below.

On seeing the image, your ‘umble scribe’s immediate reaction was along the lines of Brian’s mum in Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

I was then reminded how the god of the Semitic religions has allegedly never liked to share the limelight with any other deities and/or beings, as exemplified in the words of Exodus 20:7.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

There are going to be some awkward questions asked of the MAGA louts above when they turn up at the pearly gates… 😉

Tip of the hat: SufferForMe.
Katy Perry’s space tourism – the backlash

19/04/2025 Steve WoodsOddities, Politics, Tech

Last week six women – singer Katy Perry, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, US TV personality Gayle King, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez – boarded Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket for a frivolous 11 minute flight. The crew were weightless for just four minutes after passing the Kármán line, a 100 km-high boundary that is internationally recognised as the boundary of space.

The stunt has attracted plenty of criticism, not least because Blue Origin is owned by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, a man not renowned for paying much income tax.

Part of the backlash consisted of the bus shelter poster below which was seen this week somewhere near Amazon’s UK headquarters in London.

The criticism wasn’t just confined to Perry and Bezos, but his low tax, anti-union sweatshop Amazon too.

No further comment is necessary.
The new British invasion

13/04/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics
One of my regular weekly listens is The Coffee Klatch presented by former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and Heather Lofthouse of Inequality Media.

Bob’s and Heather’s are two of the few voices of sanity I hear coming across the Atlantic from a country where the head of state wants to Make America Grate Again (or something like it. Ed.) when he’s not on the golf course.

However, what has surprised me in the last two weeks is Mr Reich’s increasingly regular use of British English vocabulary.

Yesterday, for instance, he used the rude and informal term shite to describe one of the authoritarian Trump regime’s latest outrages, whilst the week before he defined another as bonkers.

We’ll return to bonkers later.

However, it seems your ‘umble scribe is not the only one to have noticed British English. Yesterday’s Guardian drew attention to the increasing use of British English terms in the USA, particularly amongst the young.

It states:

The most common was bonkers, meaning “absurd”, which was applied to topics from politics to sports to internet trends, according to the language learning platform Babbel.

The rest of the Top Ten Briticisms are:
- Amongst, rather than “among”;
- Queue, as opposed to “line”;
- Wonky;
- Cheeky;
- Snarky;
- Cheers, in the context of thanking someone;
- Keen, i.e. enthusiastic;
- Maths instead math; and finally
- Nil.
The piece notes that this phenomenon is partly fuelled by British musicians such as Charli xcx, as well as newspapers such as the Grauniad creating US editions, as well as general “global culturization“.

However, if your correspondent were to pick holes in the piece, it would be with the following assertion:

In addition to the list of words, researchers examined the demographics of the speakers. They found that the use of “bonkers” is most common among gen Z, whose members accounted for 77% of uses in the database. People aged 66 and older didn’t use it at all. Meanwhile, 90% of “bonkers” speakers were women, and 97% lived in urban areas.

Mr Reich, like your ‘umble scribe, is over 66 and therefore incapable of using vocabulary such as bonkers according to the academic researchers quoted.

In case Mr Reich happens to read this, corrections and clarifications can be submitted to the paper should you so wish. 😀

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