180 Degrees News

In an exclusive interview on why he conducted a chemical attack on civilians at this stage in the campaign when things seemed to be going his way, President Assad states…
‘ After victory in Aleppo and with the Americans and the Russians starting to see eye to eye, it was all starting to get a bit easy, so I thought I would unleash a chemical attack that served no military or strategic interest of my government but would help ISIS loads. I also knew we would face the inevitable knee-jerk military response from America. Bring it on; that’s what I say.

Remember the last time I was accused of a chemical weapons attack in 2013 was the day that the international weapons inspectors arrived in Damascus. How crazy am I? Launching a chemical attack on the day the weapons inspectors arrive in the city. I’m clearly as mad as a box of frogs for doing that. I’m just that kind of guy that loves to score our own goals when we are winning to help the opposition out.

There are some skeptics out there that say that, just like in Vietnam and Iraq, these incidents are convenient ‘false flag’ operations to create a premise for an attack to further western interests and that jumping to conclusions without an impartial investigation is unwise. Some even suggest that maybe ISIS, which also has Sarin gas, might have had an interest in making it look like my forces deployed it. But look, the rebels often wear white helmets, that is because they are good guys, you know, like in the old cowboy movies when the good guys wore white hats when the audience was patronized by using symbolism to show who the good and bad guys are.

Also, other crazy people like the British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn suggest that breaking international law by attacking a sovereign state without international agreement and without impartial evidence of who is to blame sets a bad precedent. They say it also shows how easy it is to trick Trump into a knee-jerk reaction before the evidence is clear. You, skeptics, are just plain conspiracy theorists, and anyway, there is no way shady western military intelligence agencies would try to orchestrate mainstream media support for false flag operations; again and again, the public would never fall for it again and again. Fox News, CNN, and BBC are right; believe everything you hear from them. Anyway, I must go and drive my car into a wall; maybe later will drown some kittens on Facebook live, and then finally, I will call up Putin and call him a bear shagger. Yes, I am that crazy; I must be, mustn’t I?’

Count up to see if you have arrived in middle class heaven?

1. Talk loudly to your toddlers in public situations as if they are adults.

2. Being conspicuously always busy, rushing from one appointment to the next, and always tapping away on your phone, even when with friends or family.

3. Kids must be signed up for a myriad of classes, clubs, and groups that they are rushed around to (linked to number 2), including ballet if you have a girl.

4. Unnecessarily super fancy buggies/prams that you need a Ph.D. to fold up and put in your oversized car.

5. Flaunting a healthy lifestyle on social media, a 10k run, expensive mountain bike, gym membership – signed up to the current fad classes, wearing expensive extreme outdoor clothing or gym clothing as casual wear, going in for expensive superfood fads.

6. Proclaiming publicly in restaurants intolerance to certain kinds of foods (gluten) without any proven medical condition.

7. Trying to go grand designs on your kitchen usually involves an open plan, an island, nice worktops, a glass sunroom, a log burner, or suchlike. High-end kitchenware, expensive knives, chopping boards, etc., are a must to chop up your occasional organic farmers’ market produce.

8. At least two holidays a year, ideally a private villa, so you don’t have to mix with the plebes, not a hotel. Skiing is a must, and Aldi ski wear is obviously not acceptable.

9. Going to high-profile concerts, festivals, or sporting events. Have your picture taken drinking beer in a plastic cup or wearing fancy wellies.

10. Conspicuous giving – doing something usually linked to number 5 above for a high-profile charity and posting it on social media to get sponsorship.

Now, how the middle class is you?

0-2 I bet you still call your lunch dinner, and dinner, tea, and you sometimes have it sitting on the settee in front of the telly, usually around 6 pm.

3-5 Ah, you are climbing up the posh ladder. You call the living room the sitting room and will uncork some prosecco there on the sofa (not the settee) after you have your dinner at the table around 7 pm.

6-8 No matter how much prosecco you have on the sofa, you will never go to the toilet, only to the loo.

9-10 Congratulations, you have truly arrived in aspirational middle-class heaven. On a sunny evening, Mummy and Daddy (never Mum and Dad) are served boutique gin on the terrace (not the patio) at the back of the house, never at the front of the house. Socializing in the front garden is vulgar.

Dave, who is in a souped-up Mitsubishi with go-faster stripes, and Tony, who is in a Vauxhall with a specially designed noisy exhaust, have been waiting, facing each other, at both ends of a narrow single lane street in Working for a three days and nights now. They have both been frantically flicking their headlights at each other to indicate that they are graciously allowing the other car to pass first. Neither will budge, and police have had to implement a diversion around the street until the impasse is resolved.
‘I’m not budging,’ says Tony, who has been using a coke can to piss in the last few days. ‘It’s a pride thing. I’m the most courteous driver on the road in the whole of Working, and no man can outperform me in terms of road courtesy. When I stop, give a flick of my headlights and a self-righteous nod as you pass, you should be grateful, drive on sharpish with a submissive thankful smile. The prick in the Mitsubishi will crack and give in to my courtesy before I give in to his’.
I ask the other driver Dave if Tony’s courtesy will indeed be stronger than his. ‘No way. Look, I’m dying for shit, but I’m not going to give up. It’s the British bulldog spirit. That’s how we beat the Argies and the Germans. The British weren’t going to retreat from their trenches just because they were touching cloth, and neither am I. Courtesy? You got it all wrong, mate, giving way to other drivers like this ain’t about courtesy to them. Stopping and flicking your lights at someone to put them under pressure to drive on, especially at junctions, can be very dangerous. Have you ever noticed that it is only blokes that stop to allow others to go first at junctions and not women? It’s about who has the biggest gear stick, if you know what I mean? When I stop and make others go at my command with a casual flick of my headlights, I’m demonstrating that I’m top dog, throwing a bone to you, my road bitches, which you should take and be thankful for’.
As Dave’s proud wife Chantelle hands some adult nappies through the car window and another packet of rizlas, it looks like this Woking Mexican standoff has a long way to go yet. But it is still a long way off a world record. Alpha males in the Ural mountains kept a road courtesy standoff going for two generations on a stretch of single-track forest road to maintain the honor of their families. It only ended when both families could save face and drive on, without either having to accept an offer to go first when the road was widened.

‘I have this thing about wallpaper texture in hotel rooms,’ reveals Cheryl (23) from Brighton, ‘I want to rub my fingers across it and then with tracing paper take a pencil rubbing of it so I can develop an extensive collection where I can compare and contrast the textures from all major upmarket hotels.
So when I caught the eye of a famous drunk footballer in a nightclub at 2 am, and we kissed and he asked me if I would like to come back to his hotel room, I first of all checked I had my 2B pencil and some tracing paper ready and then, of course, accepted his request, why wouldn’t I? It’s a perfect opportunity to get another rubbing for my collection from an expensive hotel room I could never afford to visit on my own.
Then when I entered the room with him, with my tongue down his throat, I was so excited at seeing a wonderfully textured wall surface with a kind of stand-out golden Paisley pattern, something new for my collection. I couldn’t wait to get my tracing paper and pencil out of my Versace handbag and get started.
Then I couldn’t believe what had happened. What on earth was he thinking!? I went into complete shock as that monster bizarrely misread the whole intention I had for coming to his hotel room and started trying to put his hand down my hot pants. I was outraged, utterly shocked, and felt deeply violated.
Luckily for me, after a couple more glasses of champagne and him autographing my mid-riff with lipstick, he was too drunk to continue his assault and fell asleep with his face in a kebab he bought on the way back to the hotel.
Ever since that night, I have been a shaking mess, unable to watch football on TV and beyond doing my sexy but tasteful photoshoot for the Sun and Daily Mirror newspapers in my expose of this monster. I have lost all confidence in appearing in public and lost all trust in my men.
This whole incident has destroyed me, and I can’t bring myself to continue my passion for doing pencil rubbings of textured hotel wallpaper. I have had to limit myself to tree bark rubbings instead, mainly sycamores and an occasional oak tree which just aren’t the same.
If a woman cannot feel safe to pursue her hobby without molestation at 2 am in a rich drunken footballer’s hotel room, when and where can she feel safe?’

Cornell University has conducted an extensive review and impact assessment of the most and least effective ways to get rich quickly, looking into everything from becoming a stockbroker, an internet entrepreneur, or a CEO of a successful multinational company. What came out on top as the best way to get rich quickly is writing and publishing catchy titled get rich quick style books targeted at people hopelessly stuck in poverty traps, especially in developing countries.

Professor Dan Curtis of Cornell University, ‘Who would have thought that selling gets rich quick books is actually the best way to get rich quick! It never mentions this within the pages of the get-rich-quick books themselves. Maybe they should be re-titled ‘ Get the author and publisher rich quick’.

On studying a range of these publications, the contents sound good but don’t actually tell you anything practically useful, just common sense rhetoric packaged in jargon, acronyms that spell out words, and annoying metaphors. A recurring ingredient in many of these books is trying to link the get rich quick philosophy with Christian values, which is quite odd because Jesus liked to hang out with the poor and despised greed. But the common denominator is that both the get rich quick books and religion appeal to those who are getting the shit end of the stick in life and want a golden ticket out of their situation.

For poor people, US$9.99 might be a lot of money to spend, and this certainly adds up to a hefty profit for the author and publisher of the book. Writing get rich quick books is definitely a great way to redistribute wealth, that is distributing what little wealth the poor and desperate have to spare, to wealthy authors and publishers.

A good thing that has come out of this study personally for me, is that I have been able to use the results from the study to write my own publication entitled, ‘How to get rich quick by writing how to get rich quick books’. It is only US$8.99 on Amazon, and definitely a bargain considering how rich it will make the reader very quickly. However if this book sells well, and others try to copy the topic and flood the market with similar titles, I will be one step ahead of them by taking it to the next level with another book entitled, ‘How to get rich quick by writing books about how to write get rich quick books’.

Jen Whiteman, a spokesperson from Facebook explains the rationale behind the new application.

‘We are the first generation who will have to face how to deal with both physical and potential online death. People are increasingly reliant on having a regular online presence and the thought of that presence being abruptly ended is quite upsetting for some people. Physical death can be quite an inconvenience to keeping your status up to date or posting comments, so we have created a new app, especially for this demographic called the ‘I’m dead lol! app’ which will ensure the online presence doesn’t have to stop just because the heartbeat does.

This is not only important for the deceased user to maintain their online presence but also for the benefit of all their Facebook friends. It is such a bummer going onto a Facebook friend’s home page to find them inactive because they have died. This will be a growing problem as the Facebook generation ages.

The app works by learning about your Facebook behavior when alive, what you comment on most, and the type of comments. These will then be mimicked after death by the artificially intelligent application. When it comes to posting pics, old pics will be recycled of nice places you have been to, to which we will add appropriately boastful and at the same time self-mocking comments like; ‘Look at me in our hired villa in the south of France, don’t I look gorgeous? You wouldn’t want to see me now #deathnotgoodforcomplexionlol!.’

We will also send personal messages from the deceased to ex-family members and partners to keep the deceased in their thoughts such as…‘ I can see what you are doing you know, and its disgusting!’.

The ‘I’m dead lol app’ starts at just US$29.99 per year, for an additional US$9.99 supplement a live chat feature can be enabled, with artificially intelligent responses which accurately mirror the responses the deceased would have given if alive.

So for many people what this app will effectively do is maintain a very similar level and type of communication after death with most of their Facebook friends that they had when they were alive. For some it might even improve communication.’

‘How many cans of strong larger can I get for an IPad with a cracked screen and a fluorescent Frisbee?’ asks Jimmy Mc Clean in a strongly worded letter to his local Scottish National Party office. ‘If I need a plumber to come and fix a leak, would 3 unopened bottles of wine, a foot rub, and a slightly soft turnip suffice as payment? These are the sort of questions we need Salmond to answer now that he has ruled out a Plan B on the currency. If we don’t get the Pound, the only option we will have left to us in Scotland is bartering’.

Such questions are coming in the aftermath of the televised debate between pro-independence Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond and the leader of the pro-Union Better Together campaign, Alistair Darling who successfully pressed Salmond on currency questions that he was unable to answer to the satisfaction of the audience. The debate left Scotland with the impression that if Plan A doesn’t happen – a currency union with the rest of the UK – Scotland will be left with no currency.

Getting the word on the street, we interview a clearly worried Scottish pensioner, Bernie Mc Taggart who states, ‘I don’t have much to offer, I live in a one-bedroom flat, nothing valuable there, I gave most good stuff away to my grandchildren. All I have to look forward to is Bingo on a Friday night, but without any currency or decent goods to barter for the entrance fee, how can I go? Also, what will the prizes be if there is no money? Probably homemade jam. My cupboards are already full of moldy raspberry jam that I won at the Women’s Institute tombola. I tried to barter that for 2 packets of Lambert and Butler cigarettes down the Spar, but the girl at the counter said I would have to throw in a kitten or 1-night babysitting service to sweeten the deal. It is so frustrating. Salmond has a lot to answer for.’

To seek some clarity on post independence scenarios regarding how exchanges of goods and services will work, we ask financial expert Professor Harvey Hanney, of the Institute of Financial Services of Ireland, ‘When Ireland became independent, how many eggs did it take to buy a pint of Guinness and a fish supper?’

Professor Harvey Hanney ‘Ha ha ha! We actually used the British Pound after independence, just like before independence, without a fiscal union, then later when the time was right set up our own currency. As with Scotland now, we had very little, if any influence on the British Pound before independence, so Scotland’s worst case scenario of keeping the Pound without a currency union wouldn’t be that much different to the situation now, no one would notice the difference.

After a transition period Scotland could pick the currency that suits its interests best. The Euro is not such a bad choice really for northern European countries, the southern European countries keep the Euro’s value artificially low, which would make Scotland’s exports more competitive, just like Germany’s are. Having its own currency, well that has worked well for the Swiss and the Swedish. Currency is really not a biggy, all independent countries go through this and it hasn’t been a problem for any wealthy small independent nation before. There are certainly some transaction costs, risks and opportunities with different options, but currency won’t be a major problem for Scotland.

Maybe the most important bartering question Alex Salmond should ask himself at this important time is… ‘ How many red herrings like this currency issue will it take to lose the referendum?’. My advice to Mr. Salmond would be to be open and clear and lay out the pluses and minuses of all currency options and let the canny Scots weigh things up. Otherwise this could be his Waterloo, or more appropriately, his Flodden.’

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Linda and Hamish (not real names) have written a desperate anonymous letter to the Guardian Newspaper appealing for the middle class to call a truce over the summer months on one-upmanship, so they can have a financial, physical, and emotional rest.

Linda, ‘I don’t even like going somewhere foreign on holiday, it’s full of foreigners and foreign food, but now I have to go foreign 3 times a year to keep up with my other middle-class friends. Facebook has made it all so much worse, there is no escape from what the others are doing and they always look so happy and perfect with their private villa or après ski drinks.

We have a huge mortgage just so we can live in a desirable area, a top of the range car on hire purchase, and have to tag ourselves in some fancy restaurant at least once a week and I have to try to keep up with the most fashionable thing in the gym which changes every month. Please please please can all other aspiring upper-middle class just relax for a few months, chill out, watch TV and have the odd walk or jog if they want to exercise, without any Facebook updates doing something expensive or energetic? I’m exhausted and we are almost broke’.

Hamish, ‘I have an 800 quid mountain bike crammed into the shed with my sit on a lawnmower. I used that bike only once, even having a helmet camera, all because the guy in the next cubicle at work wanted us all to go biking on his 40th. I couldn’t go on a cheap bike, could I?

I actually hate most of my so-called friends and social life, it is just showing off doing expensive sports badly and uptight dinner parties with superficial chit-chat – which all centers around people trying to big themselves up, boasting about their job, holidays, what ridiculous but facebook friendly thing they are doing for charity, or some unnecessary gadgets that inform the world of how far people jog. Who on earth is interested in how far around some city park someone has jogged?

I really miss unwinding and having fun with normal friends, having a pint or two down the pub with some relaxed banter. Cheap or even free activities are fine with me, a game of cards or a kick around. Keeping up appearances and only mixing with the ‘right sort’ of people is boring and tiring, they are basically all wankers up their own arses, which forces me to become a wanker up my own arse.

Linda and I are prepared to step off the never-ending conveyor belt of ‘we are doing better than you’, if everyone else will do the same? It makes sense to call a truce, otherwise where will this all end, who is really winning from all of this?’.

A spokesman for the British Treasury, Sir Malcolm Harvey-Baxter explains that, ‘ A truce on one-upmanship is absolutely out of the question. Publicly stating that cheap or even free activities are a good way to spend your time is downright dangerous talk. Advertisers have spent 100s of millions of pounds tricking the aspiring middle classes that trying to outdo each other through conspicuous consumption of the most fashionable goods and services is the only true route to happiness. One-upmanship is the back bone of our economy and Facebook and Twitter are helping things along nicely, by herding the consumer sheep towards the next fad….I mean free thinking humans, towards their next unique lifestyle choice.

Sounds like Linda and Hamish urgently need to max out on their credit card and book a holiday somewhere where they can pose with glasses of champagne with a turquoise sea in the background. That will really piss their friends off and make them both deeply happy’.

In 2011/12 Scotland contributed £56.9 billion in tax revenue which is equivalent to £10,700 per person, compared to £9,000 per person for the UK as a whole. Since 1980/81 Scotland has contributed £222 billion more in tax revenues than if it had just matched the per capita contributions of the UK. For every one of the last 32 years, Scotland has contributed more to the UK than the UK has contributed to Scotland.

A Scottish government spokesman reassures England, ‘ Even with independence, when the formal subsidy we provide to Westminster under the union stops, and England feels it can’t afford the loss, Scottish people will not wash their hands of their southern neighbors. Scottish people are a friendly lot, we have many bonds with England and we will be good neighbors.

No matter how tempting it may be, we will not be spending all our time lifting our kilts and showing our white bum cheeks across the border in England. Although it might happen occasionally.

A thank you for the net economic contribution we have made to the Westminster government over the last decades would have been polite. Giving money to help your neighbor, then your neighbor spreading the rumor that you are a freeloader is not very gracious behavior.

I do feel very sorry for the people of the north of England who played such a major role in making England wealthy over the centuries. Yet the number of families relying on food aid in Northern England has increased by more than 170% since this time last year, it is shameful. We don’t really see any credible plan by Westminster to deal with the severe and worsening economic and social problems. We will escape the Westminster Government with independence, but we do feel sorry for those that will be left behind.

I have quite a large boot in the car and after independence will be spending some weekends delivering food parcels south across the border, and it won’t only be Walkers Shortbread but good wholesome Scottish agricultural produce. We will be encouraging all Scots to be good neighbours and to always fill a box of charitable contributions for ‘England Aid’.

Also we promise no threats to close the border, passport control or anything spiteful like that. English economic refugees fleeing north to Scotland will be welcome. We also promise not to stereotype, poke fun at them or their strange accents. That would be racist.’

We ask a Conservative government spokesman to respond to this kind gesture from Scotland, ‘How dare the Scots say we don’t have a vision or plan. Who do they think they are lecturing and patronizing us, that England hasn’t got what it takes to look after itself? Would we ever say things like that about Scottish government plans or Scottish people?

England will be more than fine on her own, the huge unsustainable mountain of debt we continue to accumulate to finance even basic services will be reduced to a mole hill when our carefully crafted new concrete 3 point economic plan kicks in. The following gives Scotland a taste of what they will be missing with independence and their silly White Paper.

Firstly baby massage, Zumba and Pilates are going to take the place of industry as a cornerstone of the economy in England. Secondly we are going to increase, by the millions, the number of winners of the lottery and the X-factor, and thirdly we are going to borrow a new layer of money from the Chinese at a higher interest rate to pay back the money we already borrowed from them at a lower rate. Although I think we will have to promise to remove the name of Tibet and Taiwan from all school atlases. That can be cheaply done with felt tip pens.

Even though statistics show that immigrants to England are making a net contribution to the economy, in the highly unlikely event of the 3 point plan failing, we can always blame them.

Compare our 3 point plan to Scotland’s flimsy potential. What does Scotland really have apart from a strong positive international brand, the food and drink industry including the booming global market for whisky, renewable energy, water, tourism, fisheries, forestry, the potential for increased Scottish rural productivity with land reform, financial services, attracting foreign investment with lower corporation tax, revitalised oil and gas industry, the consistently highest ranking education system on this island and lots of space for its population?

Weigh that all up against what we in England have and you will understand why it’s the 5 million Scots that should be worried, not the 55 million people crowded into England who are primed and ready to unleash the full economic potential of baby massage to turn the economy around.

I would finally ask the Scots to remember that London was the centre of an empire where the sun never set. Empires never die, well at least not the superior, complacent sense of self-importance that empires seem to foster. Have you never heard of the expression ‘pride before continued greatness’? Well that spirit of entitlement and greatness still stays strong amongst Conservative politicians and this will not be shaken by the breaking free of another one of our vassal states…I mean the separation of an equal partner in the United Kingdom.

Even if England has been living way beyond its means whilst not admitting it, and if it will be even further up shit creak when we lose Scotland’s net contribution, we Conservatives will stand strong in the face of adversity, stiff upper lip all the way.

Through a network of public school boys we have carefully developed one of the most unequal societies on earth. So the rich elites in England will always be fine. No food parcels needed from Scotland for us, thank you, unless they contain Foie Gras.’

The core inspirational messages from the anti-Scottish independence Better Together campaign such as ‘there is uncertainty’, ‘no’, ‘it won’t work’, ‘we cannot pay for it, and ‘you won’t be able to watch EastEnders’ are making ripples far beyond the shores of Scotland. Among the many other nations that used to be under the control of London but have since broken free, the Better Together campaign has got leaders deeply questioning what they are missing with Independence.

President Obama states, ‘ We were brought up to admire the many nationalists who fought and died for the independence of this great nation, but after listening to the leader of the Better Together campaign, Alistair Darling’s ‘can’t do’ philosophy, I am certainly asking myself some fundamental questions about the benefits of self-determination and of being an independent nation.

I’m now pretty much convinced that we should hand over 90% of the oil profits from Texas to London and that major political decisions about our nation should be taken by a government in London that we didn’t elect. It certainly takes the pressure off me and I could dedicate more time to improving my golf swing. Also, I have heard a lot about this program EastEnders, sounds really exciting. Is it anything like Breaking Bad? If so might well be worth trading independence for’.

The Better Together campaign’s infectious arguments have even got leaders of non-x-British colonies lamenting and reconsidering past unions.

Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg, ‘We are a pretty comparable nation to Scotland in terms of resources and population, we were also in a union with our larger neighbour, but when our citizens voted for independence from Sweden in a referendum in 1905, 99.95% voted Yes. But I think that is because we didn’t have a Better Together campaign to put the fear into us back then.

I think Norwegian voters are now fed up with independence, it is all too safe. We have a caring, responsive and representative government that has steered the country to effectively and wisely use its resources for the welfare of the people. We put our oil money into a US$810 billion oil fund as security for our citizens’ future. Scottish oil wealth was probably used to build the M25 around London and there isn’t a penny saved for the future. That’s the kind of live for today, not tomorrow, edgy decision making our citizens crave. After considering the Better Together campaign’s negative arguments about self rule, I think returning powers to Stockholm again for a bit of remote governance will set us on the right path again’.

President Obama provides some concluding food for thought. ‘Over the centuries many thousands, hundreds of thousands of people felt it was such a worthy cause to seek independence from London they gave up their lives for it. Now Scotland is being offered that choice on a plate without any loss of life.

Instead of losing all those lives, all we really needed was the fatherly and dismissive voice of people in the Better Together campaign telling us not to be silly and think we can run our own affairs better than London does. Even though David Cameron stated that ‘It would be wrong to suggest that Scotland could not be another successful independent country’, Alistair Darling provides the visionary revelation, ‘Why make a choice (for independence) we don’t have to make’. That’s the kind of game changing message we needed back in the day when we were making our own choices about independence, that would have stopped George Washington in his tracks.’