Martin World News

 

The debate raged between me and myself whether to do MWN or "Music deaths this year", especially after Chris Rea's ("Fool If You Think It's Over") death at 74 this week.  But I decided I'd rather be snarky and happy than factual and morose.  Hopefully you'll agree with that- but wait until after the post to judge, lol!

GB News

Guess who's getting a lump of coal....

Headline: 'Beyond silly!' Free speech chief lambasts museum for claiming Santa Claus is 'too white'

Now the whole thing is retardedd on the surface- you want a black Santa? Don't clean your flue!  But it goes deeper than that:

Speaking to GB News, the Director of the Free Speech Union took aim the suggestion, made by Brighton and Hove Museum and declared it "beyond silly".

The museum made the claims in a blog post on its website, which suggested Santa should refrain from "judging" children and rewarding them based on a "Western binary of ‘naughty/nice'."

The post read: "For many children, the story of Santa Claus is as much a part of Christmas as gifts and Christmas dinner. But the tale of a white, Western Santa who judges all children’s behaviour has problems."

So the museum would prefer a gauntlet of multi-ethnic Santas delivering "participation presents'? Um, I thought the point of Santa judging was to reward kids for GOOD behavior.  Apparently in Britain, good behavior is no longer a goal of parenting.

Moscow Times

Too soon, dontcha think?

Headline: Not Even Pro-War Russians Find This Ukraine War Comedy Funny

In an effort to bring some 'popularity' to an increasingly unpopular war, the Russian propaganda machine is turning to an unlikely inspiration, it seems: Hogan's Heroes.

A group trying somehow to support the war effort has started filming a new comedy, "The Other Side Of The Coin", involving soldiers in the war against Ukraine.  Let them tell you about it...

The plot is simple: “A group of volunteers arrives in the combat zone. The newcomers are placed under the command of an experienced fighter with the call sign ‘Cuba,’ who doesn’t want to babysit recruits but follows his commander’s orders. Their first task is to set up a temporary base in a ruined house. Thus begins the everyday lives of young fighters under the supervision of experienced commanders.”

The story notes that one of the actors was jailed in 2003 for calling Russia "a fascist military state".  Now, Hogan's Heroes was done with the express concept of making fun of a long-defeated, obviously evil, aggressor enemy.  Even then, the producers had to be careful.  Here, though, we have a current war against an enemy who didn't start the fight- and with 7,000-8,000 Russians being killed and wounded in the war EACH WEEK, I'm guessing this won't end up near as funny to persons not laboring with the handicap of "head up your butt disease".

BBC, et al

You do realize, that's free fertilizer...

Headline: Cat poo row goes to high court after neighbours kick up a stink

So the "et al" means that the best headline came from the BBC, but the story on their site was under subscription- and I ain't about to help them pay off Trump's lawsuit against them- so I went to the Iri9sh Journal and Google AI for the details.  

And what I found was, there were not one but TWO ongoing cases in this genre- one in Caerphilly England, and one in Dublin Ireland:  Cat likes to use the neighbor's garden for a bathroom.  Garden owner protests.  In Dublin, it went to court, with the cat owner countersuing for harassment...

A judge in the District Court awarded the Nugents (the gardeners)  €6,000 damages against Kennedy (the cat lady) and threw out her counter claim for compensation for harassment and restraining orders against Michael Nugent who was filmed on a door-cam persistently ringing their unanswered doorbell and rapping their door knocker.

In the second, the garden owner expressed concern because he had a newborn "who would soon be playing in the area", and took it to the local Council, who declined to take action after investigation.  Despite the fact that, why would you let a baby play in a garden sounds strange to us, this owner cited an environmental law from 1990 and took it to court.  Today, the court ruled that according to the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the council had looked at whether the cat owner had provided adequate opportunities for the cat to poop elsewhere, and had not considered the EPA1990, and needed to revisit the case.

In each case, it looks like the final result will be...

And finally...

Japan Times

(if you think I'm gonna comment on this one...)

Headline: Will Japan's 'fire horse' curse strike again in 2026?

2026 is the Japanese "Year of the FireHorse", and as such, there is a curse supposedly involved... and it involves women...

Fire horse babies are said to be stubborn and violent — that is, if they’re women. This decidedly unequal-opportunity superstition says that girls born in the Year of the Fire Horse will be temperamental, have bad marriages and be lethal threats to their fathers and husbands.

And, just why would they think that?

In 1682, a teenage girl in Edo (premodern Tokyo) fell in love with a temple assistant while a disaster known as the Great Tenna Fire consumed the city. Separated from her beloved in the year that followed, she set another fire in a misguided attempt to reconnect with him. “Yaoya Oshichi,” as she’s nicknamed, was burned at the stake for attempted arson, a full-circle ending for the woman said to be born in 1666 — a hinoe uma year.

And people believe that? 

In the hinoe uma years of 1846 and 1906, Japan saw a 6-8% drop in births compared to the surrounding years. The last fire horse year was in 1966, and with contraception and abortion more widely available, there was a significant drop in births: 21-24%.

Can you imagine?  "No sex for you husband, for the next year- Unless you want your daughter to kill you!"  In America, at least, the answer would be, "I'll take my chances...