SPORTS NEWS: Poor Boca, Rich River, by JD

The Copa Libertadores is South America's version of Europe's Champion's League, previously known as the European Cup.

For the first time in its 58 year history the final would be contested by River Plate and Boca Juniors, both of Buenos Aires and with a long history of sometimes bitter rivalry.



It could be compared to the rivalry between Rangers and Celtic in the bad old days. (As an aside, you will notice the two Argentine teams have English names, Boca is the name of the port district of Buenos Aires, but that is another story.)

The final is a two leg affair and the first leg in Boca's La Bombonera stadium finished in a 2-2 draw. The second leg was due to be played in River's Estadio Monumental on 24th November. But.... as the Boca team bus was nearing the stadium it was attacked by the River Plate hooligans (all clubs suffer from a lunatic fringe among the fans unfortunately).



The bus was badly damaged and one or two players had to be taken to hospital. Not a good advert for the game or for football.  The game was postponed postponed until the following day but Boca objected saying that some of their players would need more time to recover so it was postponed again. That's the background story and so far, so good or bad depending on how you see it.

There followed much consultation among the football authorities and then Conmebol, the South American football federation said that for security reasons the game would be played in another country. At first it was thought that one of the other members of the federation would host the game with Paraguay and Brasil rumoured to be favourites. Then there were tales of it moving to Miami but it was Qatar who made a firm offer of $13 million to stage the game. That was unacceptable as Qatar is the main sponsor of Boca; they have Qatar on their shirts. Finally it was decided to hold the second leg in Spain in Real Madrid's Estadio Bernabeu to be played on 9th December. Details of ticket allocations were even announced and much publicity ensued.

But the River Plate chairman lodged an official complaint in writing. (1) Reading the letter I was highly amused by paragraph 'f' in which the River Presidente suggested that the World leaders gathered in Argentina for the G20 summit should be invited to the game. "How could they refuse?" How indeed!

So it is now all in limbo and I have heard that Boca are also refusing to play the game in Madrid although I have yet to see anything in writing from Boca.

However, Alejandro Dominguez the Presidente of Conmebol, said on Saturday that the decision was 'irreversible' and that was that. (2) (Sorry but no English version of the story) As we are all aware, bureaucrats know best! At the time of writing the situation is unresolved so who knows what will happen next because all sides seem to be entrenched in their views. I see a battle of egos looming!

This is just the latest episode in the degeneration of sport into pantomime. It is slowly being turned into a travelling circus with games being played away from traditional venues and in the location of the highest bidder. We have already seen NFL games played at Wembley (and ruining the turf in the process) Spain's La Liga recently signed a deal with an American media company to play 15 games per season in the USA. This is being resisted by Spain's players, the fans and their Football Federation.

The inevitable result of all this greed for money, and that is what is behind this travelling circus mentality, will be to drive the fans away. I used to go to football but now I can't afford it, among other things. Friends of mine in Glasgow no longer go to Ibrox to see Rangers, they prefer to watch their local park team. The last game I went to was Real Madrid v Valencia in January 2004 and it was £480 for six of us; £80 per seat. Greed will kill the game and the P T Barnums of this world will move onto something else from which they can suck out the life and transfer the money into their grubby hands: think of the Yahoos in Gulliver's Travels and you will understand.

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(1) https://www.marca.com/en/football/international-football/2018/12/01/5c02a29246163fa0208b4574.html

(2) https://www.marca.com/claro-mx/futbol-internacional/copa-libertadores/final/2018/12/02/5c032fd7e2704e4a138b463e.html

Fact Check: Macron's Fuel Duty Advancing His "Progressive Climate Change Agenda"?

The Yellow Jackets in France are protesting a 23% y-o-y increase in diesel fuel duty, according to Breitbart. Supposedly this is an element of President Macron's campaign to fight climate change.

France is a pygmy in the CO2 emission stakes - 19th in this list of countries (21st if you count international shipping and aviation). The elephant in the room is...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

In fact, according to the same source, and as with the UK and Italy, France's emissions are less than half of Germany's.

But giant China is accelerating. Back in May this year the FT was saying that her emissions were set for "the fastest growth in 7 years", and it seems that in the first quarter of 2018 they were already up 4% on the same period in 2017.

In short, come off it!

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https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/03/anti-macron-protests-spread-ambulance-workers-join-rebellion/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

https://www.ft.com/content/98839504-6334-11e8-90c2-9563a0613e56

https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/05/30/china-co2-carbon-climate-emissions-rise-in-2018/

Yes We Can: Climate Change, Brexit and Can-Do, by JD

Two brands of lunacy -

1. What could possibly go wrong?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6453143/Scientists-copy-effects-huge-volcano-eruption-fight-global-warming-2-3m-study.html#comments

2. On Brexit, why are the politicians so scared of 'no deal' why can they not walk away? If we had a Trump over here that is exactly what he would have done. I think the answer is that our politicians genuinely have no idea about the realities of commerce, about business but also they have no confidence in the British people's ability to resove problems or to come up with imaginative solutions, despite all the evidence. A recent example was Danny Boyle speaking on a TV programme about his 2012 Olympic show. He said they spent ages trying to get the lighting right and properly sequenced. All of his set designers and experts were stumped by it but when the lighting riggers and electricians worked it out and did it for him he was amazed: 'But they are just ignorant peasants with no education' - that was not what he said but it was clearly in his mind because he did not have the creative imagination to solve problems and they did. (I have seen that countless times with architects)

Any problems with 'climate change' or caused by Brexit can and will be overcome by the remnants of our industrial heritage and our make-do-and-mend approach. Unfortunately such things have been educated out of us over recent years. I have mentioned that before in a post but can't remember which one :)

Macron's Radical Centrism: When Triangulation Goes Wrong

"When thousands of masked protestors fought running battles with police in Paris on Saturday, torching cars and starting fires on some of Paris’s most expensive streets, the government called them extreme-right and far-left “professional rioters” who had infiltrated the peaceful protests by gilets jaunes." (1)

We're back with Tony Blair and his pretence that he was "somewhere in the middle":

"One of Tony Blair’s greatest political skills was what he called “triangulation”. The idea is to take up a position that seems equidistant between Left and Right, thus winning a majority and perplexing political opponents." (2)

Emmanuel Macron must be a truly radical centrist if he manages to get the whole population from left to right against him.

Politics is not one-dimensional. As l'Empereur himself observes: "A station, it is a place where one meets people who succeed and people who are nothing." (3)

The Triangle, Macron Edition:

Sackerson 03.12.2018

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(1) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/02/warnings-of-latest-crisis-facing-macron-were-in-plain-sight
(2) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/10/silver-tongued-tony-blair-wont-spin-britain-back-eu/
(3) http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/le-scan/2017/07/02/25001-20170702ARTFIG00098-emmanuel-macron-evoque-les-gens-qui-ne-sont-rien-et-suscite-les-critiques.php

Political Cartoons: If Only They Could Talk

If words fail, if you don't have facts and logic on your side, draw a picture.

Here's a nice example, from The Guardian as it happens, but similar treatments can be found elsewhere. It plays on the indignation felt by some - but skilfully encouraged among many more, by mainstream and social media propagandists - at President Trump's cancellation of his planned visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, 50 miles out of Paris:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2018/nov/11/ben-jennings-on-donald-trump-marking-the-armistice-cartoon

If only the cartoon could use words to speak to you...

"Just look at him! Come on, you guys, Trump! Need I say more? Just look at his flabby orange face, his petulant expression, the ridiculous hair! (Don't I show all this so well! The man who drew me is an artist, no question!)

"Quite obviously he intended to insult and alienate millions of American voters by showing how little he cares for - whoever the hell it was. In France or Belgium? Don't ask me, I'm not a damn geeky historian and the place and victims aren't the point!

"The point is - Trump! And all because a little drop of rain might spoil his precious hairdo!

"Let's contrast him with Frau Merkel. She might be old, ugly and mad, with a mixing-bowl haircut, but she knows how to behave at a solemn public occasion, not like this preening chimp! I've sketched a look of disapproval on her map so you'll know just what to feel."

However, once you convert the pure emotionalism of a political cartoon into words, then the megaphone is laid down and dialogue has to begin. This is not the aim of the propagandist, who simply wishes to convince without getting into an argument - and in some cases, perhaps, is doing it not out of conviction but simply for pay.

But an argument is what he's going to get, for I've seen more than enough of this kind of nonsense about Trump, Brexit, drugs and so on. We have a young adult generation who have not put away childish things and need Skeletor to dance them into using Money Supermarket:



The flight from reason has gone on for too long. It is time to deconstruct and challenge. So, back to the obviously (to any right-thinking person) odious and contemptible Trump:

There is no room in the cartoon to explain that bad visibility meant that the helicopter flight wasn't judged safe to transport the most powerful person in the world to the cemetery. Helicopters don't glide out of trouble: British readers may remember the 30 October helicopter crash that killed Leicester City's club owner and his entourage. Those with longer memories may recall the June 1994 Mull of Kintyre crash that killed a bunch of intelligence experts coming back from Northern Ireland in thick fog.

Team Trump has also said that the alternative of driving him there was considered, but the motorcade would have disrupted Paris traffic.

And it would have taken hours to get there, do the honours and come back. The US President's time schedule is not like the ordinary person's - I've seen part of one for a previous incumbent, and the team plan to the minute.

Besides, imagine the motorcade making its way 80 kilometres into the countryside, not on home turf and not pre-checked by the Secret Service. Disruptor Trump probably has even more mortal enemies than JFK. All those hedges and grassy knolls...

Does anyone, when asked in so many words, seriously think the President would arrange an emotionally-loaded photo stunt to be seen by tens of millions of registered American voters, merely to cancel it on a whim and a flimsy excuse?

Oh, and Frau Merkel? Two days after the sober-faced mummery of the centenary Armistice ceremony she was back in the EU "Parliament" once again urging the setting up of a European "intervention force" and eventually a full-blown EU army; something recently re-aired by French President, Emannuel Macron.*

As for Macron himself (not featured in this drawing), he used the ceremony as a hook for a weird, word-twisting globalist speech in which he said patriotism was the opposite of nationalism. Humpty Dumpty might have been embarrassed if someone had replied that the French had been signally nationalistic when negotiating the Common Agricultural Policy heavily in favour of their farmers, or when developing France's independent nuclear weapons programme while the Community was trying to forge a common European defence policy.

Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words - precisely because it avoids them so you can't answer back.
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*A propos, see this short video by Irish MEP Luke "Ming" Flanagan, on a European Defence Association conference which was scheduled at about the same time as an EU Parliament plenary session so that MEPs were unlikely to be able to attend (and in any case, it was invitation-only.)

He went in for a short time - after difficulties in gaining entry - and was amused-shocked by the enthusiasm of a delegate "representative of civil society" there getting excited over the prospect of killer robots:

TO PLAY, PLEASE CLICK LINK BELOW:
https://www.facebook.com/Lukemingflanagan/videos/208481996742051/

But seemingly, the satirists would rather have hypocritical gurning at the graveside of men many of whom would have thought like the last British survivor of that war, Harry Patch:

"Earlier this year, I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Charles Kuentz, Germany's only surviving veteran from the war. It was emotional. He is 107. We've had 87 years to think what war is. To me, it's a licence to go out and murder."

So, dark clothes, sad face, dump the wreath and then on to the defence industry beanfeast.

Weekend Wonders: Five Miles Down - the Mariana Snailfish

http://www.sci-news.com/biology/mariana-snailfish-pseudoliparis-swirei-05481.html

FRIDAY MUSIC: Led Zeppelin - with a twist, by JD

A lot of Led Zeppelin fans worship Jimmy Page and regard him as a deity. On the other hand there are a great many people who think he is the devil incarnate. They are both wrong of course. Page was an excellent and very reliable session musician in the 1960s and subsequently joined The Yardbirds alongside Jeff Beck after Eric Clapton had departed. It is not mentioned in his Wiki entry but he knew that he needed to learn music notation which would help his songwriting, and so that is what he did but it also helped him to write music that has lasted to this day and a lot of his music lends itself very well to orchestration.

A lot of classical musicians could see how the songs were structured and how they could be transcribed for large or small ensembles. This is a selection from the many available on YouTube. I have included two versions of Kashmir to show how the same tune can be interpreted in very different ways; the first by Ghislaine Valdivia being very dramatic and rhythmic and the second being more lyrical.

Good music is always a nourishment for the soul!