Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

Ah, that brilliant picture of one of my historical heroes laddie from the South. Robert e. Lee a true gentleman and great man who was admired by those who served with him. When soldiers get together to see you have a brand new uniform before signing a sad agreement tells you something!

‘Sometimes you get professional people on £60,000 salaries dropping in.
..They have just been made redundant and feel embarrassed to be here. They still have the trappings of a good job, like Sky TV and iPhones, which are under contract, but they can’t afford to eat.’

Alan Tait, who presents The Golf Show on BBC Radio Scotland, was on a three-day golfing holiday in Spain when a gang spiked his drink with horse tranquiliser ketamine, robbed him and left him for dead last Friday night...

At least I'm alive

Damn Spaniards and Belfrager has to live next door.

Probably not Protestants either.

Damn Spaniards and Belfrager has to live next door.

Turf wars that were once settled by younger men eager to impress their bosses are now being waged by men well into middle-age. When two gangsters connected to a Yamaguchi-gumi rival were shot dead in the street last October, police arrested a 68-year-old suspect.

In the past, younger gangsters would commit crimes on the orders of their oyabun bosses and be out of prison still in their 40s with their reputations enhanced and financial futures secure. But longer sentences – including life terms for some murders – mean rewards for bravery and loyalty are no longer guaranteed.

...

Combined with more than two decades of economic uncertainty, stricter laws have weakened the yakuza’s role in Japanese social, political and economic life, Suzuki said. “Although the police won’t admit as much publicly – they don’t want to talk themselves out of a job – we have already entered a time when the yakuza are becoming irrelevant in Japanese society,” he said.

In 1950 only a handful countries had a median age below 30. To list: Austria (35.7), Germany (35.2), Scandinavia (31.7-32.4), Australia (30.4), and the USA (30.2). Japan had a median age of 22.3 years.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Hungary’s eastern neighbour on Feb. 24 upended Orban’s decade-long efforts to deepen business and political ties with Moscow and set his campaign on a new course.

Since then, Orban’s ambivalent stance on European Union sanctions and failure to condemn Putin have distanced him from Polish and Czech allies but his messages of peace appear to have resonated with many Hungarians at a time of conflict.

Sunday’s victory against a united opposition, which won 57 of seats in parliament against 135 for Fidesz based on preliminary results, granted Orban yet another sweeping majority that had enabled him to rewrite the constitution and major laws.

"We have scored a victory so big, that it can be seen even from the Moon, but definitely from Brussels."

Der Zustand unserer Bundeswehr und der zivilen Verteidigungsstrukturen, aber auch unsere allzu große Abhängigkeit von russischer Energie sprechen dafür, dass wir uns nach Ende des Kalten Krieges in falscher Sicherheit gewiegt haben. Allzu gern haben Politik, Wirtschaft und große Teile unserer Gesellschaft weitreichende Konsequenzen aus dem Diktum eines früheren deutschen Verteidigungsministers gezogen, wonach Deutschland nur noch von Freunden umzingelt sei. Das war ein Irrtum.

Policing Minister Dame Diana Johnson had her purse stolen from the hotel where she gave a speech at a conference for senior police officers on Tuesday.

Thieves struck while Dame Diana was giving a speech blaming the Conservatives for an “epidemic of antisocial behaviour, theft and shoplifting,” at the annual Police Superintendents' Association (PSA) conference at a hotel in Kenilworth.