Geo-political commentator and one-time long term yachtsman Dmitry Orlov has written a cogent analysis of why Russia would not be particularly interested in talks with the West in his essay No Reason for Peace Talks. He covers the basics of how the West, in particular the Anglosphere, has been lying in most negotiations since the 1600’s. Just ask the North American Indians, the East Indians, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Koreans, the Iranians, the Lybians.

Of special interest is Orlov’s short and sweet notes on the current Russophobia enveloping Western discourse.

4. The idea of peace talks presupposes a modicum of mutual respect between the parties involved in the negotiation. And yet if you take any one of a great many articles about Russia being published in the US or the EU and simply replace “Russians” and “Russian” with “Jews” and “Jewish” and publish the result, you would rather quickly find yourself in jail for hate crimes.

Continue reading Russophobia is a hate crime at uncoy.

It’s funny – if a little sad – to see the UK finally putting an end to rail privatisation, ostensibly due to Covid-19. These operators largely failed to live up to their agreements, offered terrible service, impossibly complicated fare structure (the UK lost an annual trip per year due to double charging me for a trip from London to Durham due to a tiny error on a train ticket). After the operators have taken their profit and there are only losses to be had, those operators are reneging on their obligations entirely.

Train operators have estimated that passenger numbers will only return to 90% of pre-Covid levels in five years’ time, rendering previous franchise agreements economically unviable. So why on earth are ministers still wasting £100billion on HS2? https://telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/09/12/franchises-scrapped-lockdown-rail-costs-rise/

The UK Conservative government who privatised the railroads at great cost to the public purse in the first place is effectively renationalising the railroads, except with an out to funnel some profits in flat fees to the existing operators.

Continue reading UK Railroads to be renationalised after being privatised at great expense. at uncoy.

This black high school student in England was charged with assaulting a police officer. Fortunately for the young man, there was a CCTV camera trained on the incident. Very fortunately the police didn’t get to that CCTV camera first.

PC John Lovegrove had charged the young man with assaulting a police officer:

Lovegrove claimed the youth, who was handcuffed behind his back at the time and forced to the ground by police, rolled over and, in doing so, caused grazing and bruising to the officer’s knuckles. The youth was also accused of spitting.

The CCTV cameras showed the youth to be “lying there like a dead fish”. Lovegrove went on to accuse the young man of drug use as he had cigarette papers on him.

So the prosecution finally dropped the charges in court.

Continue reading PC John Lovegrove lied about assault: why has Lovegrove not been charged with perjury? at uncoy.