Memes that made me laugh 322

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

How about a blend of American and British music?  Lonnie Donegan was a very well-known skiffle player in Britain during the 1960's, but he began by performing many American folk songs and introducing them to British audiences.  In turn, this re-popularized some of them in America, and led other American artists to work with Donegan in later years.

As an illustration of his performance of American songs, here's Lonnie in the mid-1950's singing Woody Guthrie's "Grand Coulee Dam".

However, Lonnie is best known for his humorous (and sometimes ribald) comedy English songs.  Some have remained popular to this day, on both sides of the Atlantic.  Here's "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor (On The Bedpost Overnight)?"

No tribute to Lonnie would be complete without his famous music-hall-style comedy piece "My Old Man's A Dustman".  It helps to understand Cockney slang (partly explained at the link), but you can get the gist of it even without that.

You'll find plenty more of his music on YouTube and elsewhere.  It seems impossible that all those recordings are today sixty-five years old or more . . .  Dates me, I guess!

Peter

So much for advanced computer technology!

 

Many of us will know of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a long-standing comic strip by Zach Weinersmith.  Sometimes he can make me laugh out loud.  As an "old-school" computer operator, programmer and analyst, way back in my distant youth, I did so when I read this one.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the comic's Web page (which will also allow you to read the mouseover text attached to the original image).

While on the subject of computer technology, there's an interesting article about Steve Krug, one of the pioneers of Web design.  He thinks social media is the worst thing that's happened in the last forty years.

He lays out his ideal version of social media. Users wouldn't be able to have more than 100 followers, which would tamp down on virality. Short-form videos would also be more difficult to find — only available via search and subscriptions, not through a curated algorithm — and wouldn't be "spoon-fed to you in such large doses," he says. That's a level of friction that he'd enjoy.

"There could have been a really good life for social networking that could have been a benefit to society," Krug says. "It hasn't gone in that direction at all."

He's especially worried about kids. When he was young, there were only three TV stations. Still, his parents didn't let him sit in front of the television every day after school, so he went to run around with the neighborhood kids instead. It benefited him, he says.

"They're designed for addiction, because that's how they make money," Krug says of the social platforms.

There's more at the link.  Recommended reading.

Peter

I wouldn't bet against this man...

 

I was intrigued to read this post about Elon Musk.  Click the screen capture below to be taken to the full-size version on X.com.

I admire Elon Musk.  He's made some mistakes, sure, but who hasn't?  However, he seems to learn from his mistakes a lot faster and a lot better than the rest of us, and proceeds to show the rest of the world how it's done.

That's why I'm also intrigued by the launch of X Money a few days ago.  Musk was one of the founders of Paypal, and withdrew from it several years ago.  He learned a lot about the consumer finance industry at that time (not to mention all he's learned about the corporate finance industry before and since).  X Money is still in its early stages, but I expect it'll incorporate all those lessons in due course, and will probably end up being a major threat to the consumer banking industry.  It's already offering an interest rate of 6% - three times higher than most banks of which I'm aware.  For those who keep "nest eggs" handy, either as an emergency reserve or saving to buy something expensive, that's a very large incentive, offering interest rates that offset most of what inflation is costing us.

This isn't an advertisement for X Money.  I'm just very interested to see what Musk's new venture will offer people like you and I.  I fully expect panicked reaction from consumer banks as they try to stop their customers from trying X Money for themselves.  Will this turn into his latest success story?  I wouldn't bet against it - or him.

Peter

Things are getting interesting in narco-Mexico...

 

According to a report in the Atlantic (paywalled, but an archived version is here), the politicians in Mexico who have for years - probably for generations - been bribed and/or cajoled and/or threatened by the drug cartels into turning a blind eye to their criminal activities, appear to be changing their tune.

(BIAS WARNING:  The Atlantic is notoriously anti-President Trump and routinely criticizes the policies and actions of his administration.  This article appears to be unusually positive, despite that reservation.)

... the governor of the strategically important border state of Baja California was just caught on tape offering to become an FBI informant. The remarkable thing here is that she would not be the first; the list of current and former Mexican officials and drug traffickers who have offered to cooperate with the U.S. government is now lengthy.

. . .

Since his second term began, Trump has periodically threatened military action inside Mexico, alluding to air strikes or operations that would “take out the cartels.” Mexican officials have repeatedly rejected the possibility. “There will be no invasion of Mexico,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said last year. But quietly, Mexican officials have discussed what it would mean if they were attacked by their neighbor and largest trading partner. Would it be a special-forces operation, like the one that seized former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro? A drone strike on a fentanyl lab? Some Mexican officials are reading books about the Mexican-American War, searching for historical precedent.

Because the threat of military intervention is so dramatic, not enough attention has been paid to a type of intervention that is already taking place, one that could pave the way for strikes. In a break with long-standing precedent, American prosecutors have used informants to pursue members of the Mexican government, apparently “moving up the food chain,” as one U.S. official described it to me ... Several former Mexican officials facing U.S. charges have turned themselves in, apparently agreeing to cooperate with authorities to reduce their sentences. Dozens of newly extradited drug traffickers, too, are believed to be cooperating. Their accounts appear to have allowed U.S. investigators to build cases against members of Sheinbaum’s Morena political party. At least four have been indicted. Many more have had their visas revoked.

It’s a high-risk escalation in the Trump administration’s fight against narco corruption—and possibly also a pretext for a unilateral attack. Trump could use evidence of the government’s links to organized crime in an attempt to justify using force in Mexico. This week, the Trump-appointed head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Terry Cole, gave a speech describing “the deadly connection between cartel networks and the Mexican government.”

“They are one [and] the same,” he said.

. . .

Last week, the State Department designated two lesser-known drug cartels—the Juárez Cartel and Los Viagras—as “foreign terrorist ⁠organizations” and “specially designated global terrorists.” Some within the Trump administration believe that those designations would offer some kind of legal authority for an attack, though international-law experts largely differ ... The campaign against cartel leaders has been so successful that, even if the United States wanted to decapitate a drug-trafficking organization, it’s unclear whom they would target.

There's more at the link.

This has mostly been taking place "under the wire", so to speak.  We've known for years that the entire government structure of Mexico - local, regional and national - is corrupted by drug money from the cartels, who effectively run most of the country.  However, if the cartel leaders, and political leaders, are rendered ineffective (or imprisoned), what's going to happen to the social fabric of Mexico?  So much of it is cartel-corrupted (including almost every element of the police and armed forces, the emergency services, etc.) that ordinary citizens have learned to live without most of the social structure we take for granted.  If the replacement structures of the cartel are suddenly removed, will Mexico survive in its present form?

I think there are three possibilities.

1. Mexico will collapse into a "failed state", with widespread chaos and anarchy.  It will be almost impossible for business to function without paying massive bribes to local strongmen, but those strongmen will be at war with each other, so that an effective regional or national government simply won't be possible.
2. Mexico will limp along as it does at present.  The cartel structures will continue to use their financial wealth (very considerable, having amassed it over decades) to buy the cooperation of the civil authorities.  However, the competition between cartels to take over those resources will devolve into civil war in parts of the country, and will likely spill over into the southern United States.  I'd expect southern California, Arizona and New Mexico to become very dangerous areas, even more so than at present.  (I daresay Texas will probably cope better than they do, because Texas law enforcement authorities aren't handcuffed by liberal politicians who'll do everything in their power to restrict them.)
3. Mexico may break into several smaller nation-states, based on divisions that go back centuries.  Don't forget, "modern" Mexico was "created" out of a series of revolutions and civil wars that imposed unity out of the barrel of a gun, and killed anyone who argued with the concept.  With the number of guns in circulation there now, it'll be harder to impose authority in that way.

I could be completely wrong, of course.  Time will tell . . .

Peter