Basketball Anyone?

(Photo: RF)

Basketball's a team sport with two teams of five players who must be at least 13 feet tall with shovel hands;  find it ridiculously easy to loop up-court in two strides, bouncing a ball once before popping it thru an 18'' hoop just 10 feet off the ground. You're not obliged  to rim swing, but show-offs can. Now, you're permitted to dribble but it's a no no to travel or carry a Kit-Kat in your drooping shinny pants.Typically the tallest, which defacto means anyone,  plays 'centre' 'small or power forward' but the NBA once allowed a 5' 3'' Muggsy Bogues to play 'cause he could run in-between anyone's legs completely unnoticed. There's also 'guard' and 'shooting guard' both very handy when the opposition threatens a four figure win. Girls/Women have their game too; and if you have a horse or donkey bring them along, though they won't be allowed to take part in the Basketpool version. You certainly can't fault hoop rim lovers for the variety of venues to go brain dead at. But really, it's the anticipation of much disruptive physical contact which loyal fans are keeping awake for. The preferred climax to an evening of amnesia is always a brilliant free for all punch-up and ass kicking rumpus, after which the near satanic away coach is chased from the arena before he's lynched on court. Is basketball popular? Well, it certainly is for those who don't blink much and like scores in the region of the number of grains of sand on an average beach. But, would I like watching it? Perhaps worth considering if you've already exhausted your bucket list and rigor mortis holds no fear. Chess it ain't.

Who REALLY Owes What To Whom?

(Photos: NASA)

 The Debt: Around $14.3 trillion. If one dollar

 bills are laid end to end from Earth to yonder Moon how many times could they go back and forth? Well, I don't know either but they're nice pics...now here's a curios thing:

      Is Mr President, an old Donkey and Elephant up on the Hill     

telling you salt of the earth citizens of these United States all they know about Debt Mountain stuff?

     

   Do the major new quiz below to find out!

Q 1: How much of the debt does the US of A owe to Jonny foreigner? Is it (A) $3.6  (B) $4.5 (C) $6.7 trillion.

   
           Q 2: How much of the debt does America owe to America?
               Is it: (A) $1.8 (B) $2.8 (C) $ 9.8 (D) $ 6.3 trillion.

(Photo: Royalty Free)

* If your answer to Q1 is (B) take one slice of apple pie.
   And for Q2 if you said (C) as well, then add ice cream.
 

(Photo:Royalty Free)

Perhaps a little surprised at that, eh? So what could you do? 
Well...here's the plan: cancel all the American debt ($9.8) trillion to America IE yourselves; then tell Jonny foreigner to bugger-off. See now you can have that new off-roader and a ranch in Arizona.

*Note: The correct answer figures are for real!

Al-Shabaab says: No Famine Here!

(CNN) -- Islamist militants in Somalia have reversed a pledge to allow foreign aid agencies to operate in famine-struck regions in the nation."

To his eternal credit, George Cloony has spent time and money trying to make it widely known to the world at large that Al-Shabaab (aka: Islamic genocide brigade) have never been out of business.

Farrakhan: Leader of the Nation of Islam.

And why no condemnation from the smiling bow-tied one? I guess his take on it might be: Islamic brothers simply doing G-d's work. 

Beer Reclassified!

"Russia classifies beer as alcohol! Until now anything containing less than 10% alcohol in Russia has been considered a foodstuff."(BBC)  

Major Disappointment For Mr Six Pack! After 20 years of quaffing the golden nectar at 4.8% proof, there's scant pride in having cultivated that big extended belly; for on the Russian Richter it's really just the equivalent of having downed 6,523 Milkybars.

Many years ago, far away in the Land of Vodka, a lonely Ivan on the grave yard shift deep down in missile city, conscientiously worked his way through a 9.9% proof sandwich. And 19 year old Ivan was very partial to the contents of his Tupperware box. Between addressing his 9.9% friends, he'd nibble a wee choc bar as a nod to healthy living, before returning his faltering and rapidly failing attention to some serious 9.9% throat dispatching; attempting all the while to avoid any meaningful contact with a large red button.

 (Circa 1970)

Meanwhile somewhere in South Dakota, Mike & Mac, joint key holders to the portals of Armageddon, presided over a brood of Minuteman ballistics, medicating their nasal passages through many a weary hour...

Smell the roses every day.

Callin' All Low Life/Tea Leaf Types!

 "The first official estimate of the impact on police of the austerity drive predicted more than 34,000 policing jobs will be lost by 2015, including 16,200 officers." (Telegraph, UK)

Lads and lassies who have a penchant for alighting unannounced in other folks' houses, going on four wheel outings (T.W.O.K. to you) and all chirpy wee light fingered urchins: Listen Up!  Uncle David and Dep Dog Nick have declared just for you:  Xmas...everywhere in the UK.....every day....every year.....forever! Well, perhaps just for as long as Uncle Dave's party of law and order and his shot gun political hubby don't fall out.

Battle of Agincourt: Revisited.

                                          (Photo: Alamy)

From the beginning, Frenchy was totally convinced they would win the battle, so instead of having a good kip after haying the horses, admiring themselves in mirrors and polishing their much too heavy armour, they partied til dawn; celebrating with a goodly vintage and with such capers and mirth, taunting the English army... who were but a quarter of Frenchy's number...as to the whereabouts this eve, of their true and betrothed wenches.

The Day of Battle: Now...it must have been pissing down for it resembled Glastonbury on the third day and Frenchy was already complaining to the referee about how muddy their feathers and finery would get; and there was still that nagging doubt about the wisdom of togging up in obligatory heavy metal gear. Still, the English playing away from home gave Frenchy ground advantage, so potentially a couple of easy points to them. Plan A: a quick knightly charge down to the scruffy Anglo Saxon lines, do the messy piercing and chopping stuff, then gallop back in time to get their kit into the dry cleaners: sorted. But not so quick my garlic ones. The scruff bag English may smell like goat entrails after two days in the sun, but they are long of bow, strong of arm and the sound of T-W-A-N-G as 10,000 Saxon ale swiggers release their arrows, will pucker the sphincter of even the dumbest, charging noble-birthed bloke. And this it most certainly did! So an early bath and nae points for Frenchy by days end.
Their defeat at Agincourt should have been an early lesson in chicken counting...but no. So in WW2 when Jerry came through the Ardennes Forest via the Low Country and around the side of Frenchy's really big wall (aka the Maginot Line) their report card read: too complacent, too cocky, bowled out in six weeks. Yeah, I know 'twas real sneaky of Fritz to do that, but that's Attila's boys for you.

M&M's Big Day Oot!

                                               (Photo: BBC)
"The Murdoch family gave as good as they got during yesterday’s Commons select committee hearing into what they knew (or didn’t know) about the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed their empire. What had been billed as a merciless grilling of Rupert Murdoch, the world’s most powerful media tycoon, and his son, James, was an engrossing affair." (Telegraph, UK)

Former UK politician Dennis Healey's phrase comes to mind about being 'savaged by a dead sheep'. And as for the Telegraphy's idea of a 'merciless grilling'; well it would have got them fired from the Union of Spanish Inquisitors. Half the world's cables and mobile satellite dishes seemed to have been employed, with the hacks all but creaming their jeans over the so called 'engrossing affair'.  For most ordinary working 5 to 9ers the price of tripe is more griping. And anyway, what's new about wire taping, phone-hacking and the boss not knowin' nut'in'.  There's always been fat brown envelopes passed under tables if deemed to be worth the risk of getting a juicy story. It was all so puke provoking watching the media overdose on gravitas, hype and hypocrisy; scribbling below madam guillotine in a flight of phony morality and not so secret delight at Murdoch & Murdoch's humble pie picnic.
It's just one old fox's empire having been found with their undies around their ankles; and next week with a bit of luck it will be some other media glass house that cops for a well placed brick.