Can you tell I love me some Die Hard? They’re cheesy and tacky but despite being terrible films, as artistic exercises, it’s hard to deny that they’re a lot of of fun. Anyway, that’s besides the point. Bite Sized News is back again, it’s been a while so I thought I should get back to some proper news stories. You lot are hardly likely to read newspapers so I’m providing a public service.
Upon hearing the news that a lookalike of the missing Madeleine McCann had been spotted I immediately began feeling sorry for her poor prents, getting their hopes up only to have them dashed. Then when I went to dig up the story I saw the girl in question. Am I the only one who thinks she looks NOTHING like Madeleine?
One of the big news stories over here recently has been that of Scarlett Keeling, the 15 year old English girl raped and killed in Goa. At first there appeared to be a bit of a cover-up, and having lived in India I can tell you that attitudes towards rape out there are somewhat backwards. When they finally did investigate I heard some, shockingly enough from the UK, claiming that the mother’s own neglect or the girl’s promiscuous behaviour meant she “deserved” it. I think attitudes like that belong in the past.
Whilst I do agree that her mother was neglectful and ought to face some sort of punishment, nobody “deserves” to be raped and killed. A woman’s sexual promiscuity is entirely besides the point, it certainly is in court, where you can no longer ask questions like what the victim was wearing or how she was behaving. It’s good to see, however, that the Goa officials are finally cracking down and taking the right stance.
Normally I like to give commentary but I’m just in shock at this. Need I say more?
Another thing that’s got my goat is people complaining about the banks over the current credit crisis. Blame the government, blame the banks, blame anyone but the frivolous nature of the people who allowed the credit bubble to become what it is. No, that wasn’t the banks. They were simply trying to turn a profit, as all companies do, and it’s how they can afford to lend or pay you interest on your savings. Bankers are professional speculators, it’s their job. No, it wasn’t the government or the central banks. They could have stemmed the blood loss but the wound wasn’t their fault.
People trying to make a quick buck were the ones who did. No, not the bankers, as I’ve said already, for them to speculate is merely doing their job. What excuse do people who have no professional training have for speculating to such an extent? People over-leveraged themselves, mortgaged and re-mortgaged their homes so that they could buy to let, or buy to sell, trying to “get rich quick” off the back of the property market. They saw other people making money on property, why couldn’t they?
So long as people speculated with what they could afford to lose, all was fine. Yet people began using credit cards and huge amounts of leverage to fund property development, and eventually this house of cards was always going to tumble. If people had lived within their means, spent what they could afford and not relied so heavily on the easy credit that was available, we wouldn’t be in this mess now. Simple as that.
Finally I’d like to end on a positive note. I hope you guys had a great night last night, celebrating “St Patrick’s Day” but I’d like to just point out to those of you nursing a hangover this morning that yesterday was not St Patrick’s Day. You see, due to Holy Week, which started with Palm Sunday last Sunday, St Patrick’s Day was moved to Saturday. Still, I doubt many of you revelers care so I hope you had a good time.
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