Wikipedia has a few of them, and thee are Qbams floating around this board with them as well.
Alternate Wikipedia Infoboxes V (Do Not Post Current Politics Here)
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It was early in the mornin', when he rode into the town
He came ridin' from the south side, slowly lookin' all around
"He's an outlaw loose and runnin'", came a whisper from each lip
"And he's here to do some business with a big iron on his hip
Big iron on his hip"
In this town there lived an outlaw by the name of Texas Red
Many men had tried to take him and that many men were dead
He was vicious and a killer, though a youth of twenty four
And the notches on his pistol numbered one and nineteen more
One and nineteen more
BlackentheBorg
Banned
For some reason I would find this much funnier if it was Jack Ruby instead of Marty Robins
Now the stranger started talkin' made it plain to folks around
Was an Arizonia ranger, wouldn't be too long in town
He was here to take an outlaw back alive or maybe dead
And he said it didn't matter that he was after Texas Red
After Texas Red
From a new TL I'm working on, but haven't posted anything for yet. Dzerzhinsky working under Piłsudski is still a hilarious idea, though.
From Desire the Right
Sir Benedict Arnold, one of the founding fathers of the Patagonian province of New Monmouthshire (then separated into the predominantly English Desire Colony and the predominantly Welsh Carnarvon Colony), who also served as governor of the Desire Colony
Sir Benedict Arnold, one of the founding fathers of the Patagonian province of New Monmouthshire (then separated into the predominantly English Desire Colony and the predominantly Welsh Carnarvon Colony), who also served as governor of the Desire Colony
1989
Heseltine’s reforms were rapid and dramatic. He quickly set into motion the tax cuts he pledged, enacted modest privatization measures that the Thatcher government had attempted and failed to pass in 1980 (knowing he had an enormous majority to cushion them), and espoused the idea that Britain was to ‘be a leader in Europe’, with the flagship deal to this end being his decision to incorporate the ailing Westland Helicopters with a European consortium that also included BAE Systems. Such policies were mostly met with approval by the public, as the economy continued to stay fairly stable throughout 1986-87.
Labour, licking their wounds from the 1985 election, quickly set about finding a new leader. It did not have an abundance of choices- many of its most prominent figures, from Tony Benn to Shirley Williams to David Owen, were out of Parliament, which left Roy Hattersley, Neil Kinnock and Eric Heffer as the main contenders, representing the right, centre and left of the party respectively. In the end Kinnock was the one to win overall, in part thanks due to his heavy union and member support giving him the edge with the electoral college the party had introduced for leadership elections.While at first he seemed like a strong orator, the divisions within the Labour Party led to fierce conflicts at the party's conferences which were utilized by right-wing news outlets to reinforce the view of Labour as divided and far-left, and of Kinnock as an ineffectual 'Welsh windbag'.
On the Liberal side, after three fairly weak performances in general elections, David Steel resigned the leadership, with two of the most colourful MPs in the party, David Penhaligon and Cyril Smith, fighting to replace him; ultimately it was Penhaligon who won out, thanks to his more progressive credentials and constituency pedigree. Despite the Liberals struggling to gain a foothold as much as ever, Penhaligon was a young, telegenic leader who was seen as on par with Heseltine and Kinnock (if not stronger than the latter).
The hands of the opposition parties were strengthened by late 1987. The economy had started to weaken considerably as inflation started to rise significantly, which was not helped by Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson’s insistence the problem was nothing more than a ‘blip’. The blip proved to last for months, and eventually Heseltine simply sacked him, replacing him with John Major, although Major ultimately contributed fairly little to the economic downturn's improvement.
A further problem facing the Tories at this point was the Factortame scandal, when it became apparent that Dutch fishing vessels wished to fish in British waters under the conditions of EU law and five right-wing Conservative MPs resigned the whip when a private member’s bill to restrict European vessels’ right to fish in British waters was rejected by Parliament. These MPs would go on to be a long-term thorn in the side of the Tories. They formed the National Liberal Party, reviving a traditional name for a Tory-allied group, and producing a manifesto based on their commitment to neoliberal economics but with a Eurosceptic, vaguely populist advocacy of British sovereignty.
Despite a high-profile start, the potential to draw protest votes away from the Tories and some high-profile supporters (most notably, and surprisingly, David Owen), the Nat Libs (as they became known) rather underperformed at first. They were embroiled in an early fiasco when Penhaligon insisted they were infringing on the ‘liberal’ name, and their chosen leader, former Cabinet minister Nicholas Ridley, was old, frail and ardently right-wing, as well as prone to criticism based on his long Commons career, such as when Heseltine mocked him for his overconfident comments about the Falklands prior to the outbreak of war. Regardless, they had some successes, coming 290 votes short of winning the Kensington by-election in late 1988 and managing a high-profile victory in the February 1989 Richmond by-election, beginning the Commons career of William Hague, a former Tory who had famously spoken to the party conference at the age of sixteen, and moved rightward and into the Nat Libs by the late 80s.
Despite this setback, in March Heseltine decided to capitalize on his solid poll ratings and call his three opponents’ bluff, announcing a general election for the 11th May. Voters were fairly impressed by his confidence despite the recent by-election defeat, and the Tories ran a strong campaign, pointing to the economic recovery of the past six months or so and running on the famous Saatchi & Saatchi slogan, ‘There’s Only One Choice’, referring to the fragmented nature of the opposition.
Heseltine retained a strong majority of 104, although Labour made a considerable gain of 51 seats over their disastrous 1985 performance, a result which was less surprising than one might assume given how little they had to lose. Despite this, Kinnock had been undermined fairly badly by this point, and he resigned after the election.
Meanwhile, the Liberals gained a couple of seats and a decent amount of votes, prompting Penhaligon to remain leader, and all but one of the six Nat Lib MPs retained their seats (Ann Widdecombe, MP for the traditionally Labour seat of Burnley, lost as she was widely expected to). They also helped cost the Tories several seats, most notably Bath, where Heseltine’s ally Chris Patten lost to a Liberal.
When the next election came around, the tiny Nat Lib parliamentary group would become far more prominent.
Wasn't long before this story was relayed to Texas Red
But the outlaw didn't worry, men who tried before were dead
Twenty men had tried to take him, twenty men had made a slip
Twenty one would be the ranger with the big iron on his hip
Big iron on his hip
Comrade TruthTeller
Gone Fishin'
Now the morning passed so quickly and it was time for them to meet
It was twenty past eleven when they rode out in the street
Folks were watchin' from their windows, everybody held their breath
They knew this handsome ranger was about to meet his death
About to meet his death
There was forty feet between themhttps://genius.com/Marty-robbins-big-iron-lyrics#note-16141374
When they stopped to make their play
And the swiftness of the Ranger
Is still talked about today
Texas Red had not cleared leather
'Fore a bullet fairly ripped
And the Ranger's aim was deadly
With the big iron on his hip
Big iron on his hip
Comrade TruthTeller
Gone Fishin'
It was over in a moment and the crowd all gathered 'round
There before them lay the body of the outlaw on the ground
Oh, he might have went on livin' but he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the ranger with the big iron on his hip
Big iron on his hip
Vader Abraham, officially known as Petrus Kartner, is a Dutch cult leader, self-proclaimed messiah, political activist and author. Kartner was raised in a Dutch Reformed household and spent his childhood interested in music and worked at a chocolate factory until his early 30s [1]. In 1971, at the age of 36, he experienced what he called "the music of the Father Above" and began to formulate the creed of what would become the Brotherhood of the White and Blue Cross.
This creed contains 99 entries, with the most important ones stressing the colors of white and blue in dress (Kartner believed both colors to be heavenly ordained), the dominance of the man in the community, a rejection of Islam and Judaism, the stressing of racial purity, the rejection of socialism, and the importance of music in the worship of God.
While doing that he adopted the name of Vader Abraham, seeing himself as God's representative on Earth and as the new Abraham, who would reform the covenant between God and his people. In 1973 he set-up a small commune in the Dutch province of Gelderland, which had collected a population of 418 followers by 1976. That year is significant because it was then that Vader Abraham would first gain attention outside of the Netherlands, because that year he and one of his followers threw red paint on the "false leader" Joop den Uyl, then-Prime Minister of the Netherlands, a rejection of his left-wing policies and a protest against the moderate stance the Prime Minister took during the contemporary Oil Crisis [2].
Kartner during that time also had contacts with the anti-establishment right-wing Farmer's Party, as well as the theodemocratic Reformed Political Party, who shared comparable views to his own, and at times Vader Abraham would appear at rallies organized by the latter party between 1976 and 1994, though never outside of his designated home province of Gelderland.
At the start of the 1990s, his community had grown further, with almost 3000 adherents, most of them from the Netherlands (with some of them however coming from Flanders and Germany), however it would not be long until his community would collapse. In 1997 one of his followers, Luuk Achterhoek, attacked a Turkish city council member from Amsterdam, beating him so severely that the politician suffered severe injuries. This escalation, which was preceded by harassment of left-wing politicians and Dutch Muslims by White and Blue Cross adherents, proved to be the tipping point.
While some minor Dutch politicians defended the cult as being "generally peaceful" and "respectful of Dutch values", the movement shrank down to around 200 members in the following months. In 2002 an arrest warrant was made out for Vader Abraham after a former cult member delivered evidence showing that Kartner was aware of Achterhoek's plans for his 1997 assault, that it was intended to be an assassination, and that Kartner was condoning the attack. In response Kartner fled the country and settled down in a small community on the outskirts of Grand Rapids in the United States.
Despite Dutch calls to extradite Kartner, he has been living unmolested with a small group of around 40 followers in Michigan for 17 years now, with some suspected ties to the family of the Amway founder Richard DeVos.
[1] That is pretty much OTL, except he doesn't try getting into the music industry.
[2] Vader Abraham, together with the chairman of the Farmer's Party, actually recorded a song together criticizing den Uyl and the Arabs for the Oil Crisis IOTL.
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