Battle for the Malklands/Las Falvinas

So, Argentina is kciking up a bigger stink than usual about a group of sharply windswept islands (although with potentially huge oil wealth), as if Patagonia had been lost. The president, Cristina Kirchner, who directly succeded her husband (going one better than Hilary Clinton) is very unpopular and lays into distant Britain, in the way the British often talk about the European Union.
The Falklands Islands have been British since 1833, whereas before that they were only Argentinian for 13 years. I mean, why doesn't Spain claim them for its fifty years of occupation prior to 1820? Well, if the Argentinians want reunification with their beloved Malvinas, they can have it, with the British conquering them and incorporating the mainland into Greater Falklandia.
If the Venezuelans threaten anything more than hot air we'll bushwhack their arses like we did in 1904 when we thumbed our noses at the Monroe Doctrine and expanded British Guinana (now Guyana) at their expense. To guarantee regional acquiesence we'll assign parcels of Argentinian land to Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil (and if they don't want it so much the better for us).
Where will the troops come from to achieve our glorious and inevitable victory where the Queen of England will show Argentina and Hugo Chavez that the time of empire is not over? We'll just take our battle-hardened boys out of Afghanistan for a few months. That's all it would take. The only unfortunate part, like the situation of the 13 American colonies after our victory in the Seven Years War, is that without a large threatening neighbour that needs to be countered by the mother nation, the Falklands will declare their independence. We'll make sure this time the French don't interfere. Fantastical? No more than Argentina's claims of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands which overwhelmingly wants to remain under British suzerainty and has been (bar a small interlude in 1982) that way for 177 years. In the words of Chavez, the time of empire is over, so the Argentinians should stop trying to forge one.

Having watched the first two films of The Godfather over consecutive weeks, I have to say they are both great exemplars of cinema. Personally, I preferred the first, with its linear plot and character arc. Al Pacino in the first one is absolutely compelling (as is Robert de Niro in the second). The second one is more subtle, making you think more which is enjoyable in itself. However, aside from a youthful Vito Corleone, the anti-heroes of the first instalment become outright villains here, making it harder to sympathise with them though at least you understand their credible transformations. This is not to detract from its art though. Each of them is a masterpieces of the 1970s.

Robocop the movie was prescient in predicting social chaos bordering on civil war in Mexico. This World documentary broadcast late on Sunday night showed the communal disorder where even young children are purposely gunned down (to avoid leaving witnesses of killings committed in the vicinity). The floor in a house in Ciudad Juarez, the murder capital of the world, was murky red and I half-joked to myself that it was blood all over the floor, then the camera panned to an undiscoloured part of the floor and, horrifically, it proved to actually be blood – the slaughter was so great that it was spread over the ground from room to room. The drug warlords are audaciously bidding to seize control of the country – not so much going loco in Acapulco, but everywhere, having infiltrated nearly 80% of the legal economy too – and though the government is fighting back, with federal troops in many cases, the outcome is still in the balance with many top criminals seemingly untouchable by law enforcement.
What is fuelling this nightmare? American liberals’ love of weed and Americans conservatives’ love of guns. Generalisations yes, for there will be US right-wingers who like a toke and left-wingers who enjoy holding weapons, but the facts speak for themselves. Marijuana is the chief drug the Mexican cartels export over the Rio Grande to the biggest junkie in the world (more drugs consumed in the Land of the Brave than anywhere else), while 90% of illegal firearms have registration numbers linking them to purchase in the USA (as gun ownership is outlawed) – one border agency’s prize seize was a high-powered machine gun that has to be mounted (on a truck, a bunker, etc.) and can penetrate armoured cars and house walls. Why should the US care about this Mexican standoff? Well, it is the third point of this triangulated gunfight and I’m sure most Americans don’t want a narco or failed state on their doorstep. Having a Columbia or a Pakistan as a next door neighbour is hardly an appealing prospect.
I’ve been aware that Mexico has been in a bad way for a long time in its battle against the cartels, but to see it makes it clear that the government there has to prevail. This is something the whole world should hope for.

Following This World’s strand, was the ‘comedy’ The Persuasionists. The Greeks may think the years of current and forthcoming austerity will be bad, but at least they don’t have this commissioned by their television networks. It first got showed near primetime at 10pm on Wednesday but so unremittingly awful has it been – no doubt a ratings black hole, to boot – that is has been shunted to the graveyard shift on Sunday night/Monday morning. I watched the first 20 minutes of the first episode before switching over and I’m a bit of a completist liking to see things through to the end. I had enough of wasting my time. One of the characters said comedy is based on truth, but in truth, I laughed only once and that was it. Adam Buxton deserves better material than this.

Be afraid, be very afraid

The Nut Party, sorry, the Tea Party conference was closed by looney mooosey tunes Sarah Palin, putting disgrace to the good name of Palin (oh, Michael, what are we going to do?) The collection of the disgruntled right, who would have preferred a full-blown depression than a banking bail-out from their rigid ideology, chanted "run, Sarah, run," which brought memories of that Oscar-winner with a right-wing subtext Forrest Gump, with one of its famous lines being "run, Forrest, run." Gump is a near retard, but everything falls in his lap, while the tree-hugging liberal love of his life suffers a malingering death. People thought George H W Bush was bad, but then there was George W Bush. If Palin gets elected to the presidency, Dubaya will look like George McGovern. And people wonder how fanatics can take over countries like Iran. Obama, you've just got to win in 2012.

Out of body experience

With James Cameron's Avatar conquering the world and threatening to be the most successful film of all time to date, I was dragged to the cinema by the wife and I was glad I went in the end, to see it 3D especially (watching it 2D, as a few clips I've seen from TV, might just appear to be an elaborate moving comic-book). We went with a Mongolian colleague of Altaa's and her friend's Polish husband (who said in Poland, according to his sister, some cinemas are showing it '5D' - although beyond smell, not really explaining how it can be that you view time). It is typical Cameron - very crowd-pleasing, with a blockbuster finale , though I can see how an american friend Xander Piper could say "Oh Avatar, you silly silly film." Essentially it is Pocahuntas in space with ecological New Age spiritual guff bound up with an anti-war allegory of the recent Iraq conflict - which makes its sound more clever than - with the exception of CGI - it really is. The populism, however, is infectious and encourages repeat viewing, hence its towering box office. It doesn't feel like almost three hours at all. Having watched all this protect the planet message, I wonder how many people then climbed into SUVs to go home afterwards. Intriguingly, the action takes place on a moon, which despite its fictional name of Pandora doesn't say that it is beyond our solar system. With moons around Jupiter and Saturn possibly harbouring water, Avatar is encouraging us to take a closer look at the bodies orbiting our own sun.