[Note: some tweets reposted are still not embedding. Please click on links to read them]
Morning music
Talking point
(so much for their claims to be ancient, or to have any real connection to the Jews or Israelites mentioned in the Bible)…
“Here’s how all Zionist arguments collapse upon the slightest examination: “We were here first”: no, the Canaanites were, and many Palestinians have Canaanite DNA (& Jewish DNA as well, per Ben Gurion himself). Now prove yourself each of you is a direct descendant of someone who inhabited this land!
“We’re returning to our homeland” so said the French & Italians in Libya & Algeria “we are returning to & recovering Roman lands.” “But the West Bank is ours b/c of the bible”, that’s not how international law works, its utmost principle is a prohibition on acquisition of territory by force; i.e. you can’t just steal land by conquest & military power anymore!
“God promised it to us”; a) good luck arguing this in court. B) then why did he take it away from you for 2000 years? “We had a Jewish kingdom on this land for about 250 years”: and Muslims have been sovereign on this land for 1400 years! Does Greece have a right today to occupy Turkey’s Istanbul/Constantinople b/c it was once part of the Byzantine empire?
“The world gave us Israel in 1947”: no they didn’t & they don’t have the right to! The UN then had only 57 members out of 193 member states today. Even then, & despite intense US/Zionist lobbying & intimidation, only 33 states voted for (mostly white) the Partition Plan as a proposal. The partition resolution was never voted on at the UN Security Council.
“But we were persecuted in Europe for centuries culminating with the Holocaust”: but why should I pay the price of European savagery & antisemitism?
“We have a right to return 2,000 years later”, then why doesn’t my grandma have that right only 76 years later?
That’s why no state has a “right to exist”. Because who/what gave them that right?
Despite all this, Palestinians unrequitedly recognised Israel over 3 decades ago, accepted its existence as a fait accompli, & accepted less than 22% of our homeland; & that is called today “Palestinian maximalism/rejectionism”, while Israel offering us caged bantustans worse than apartheid South Africa is call “a generous offer”!
[Muhammad Shehada, on Twitter/X]
Also:
“New research suggests that the majority of the world’s modern Jewish population is descended mainly from people from ancient Turkey, rather than predominantly from elsewhere in the Middle East.
The new research suggests that most of the Jewish population of northern and eastern Europe – normally known as Ashkenazic Jews – are the descendants of Greeks, Iranians and others who colonized what is now northern Turkey more than 2000 years ago and were then converted to Judaism, probably in the first few centuries AD by Jews from Persia. At that stage, the Persian Empire was home to the world’s largest Jewish communities.
According to research carried out by the geneticist, Dr Eran Elhaik of the University of Sheffield, over 90 per cent of Ashkenazic ancestors come from that converted partially Greek-originating ancient community in north-east Turkey.“
[Independent]
Talking point
Tweets seen
A more sophisticated, and more lucrative, form of cannibalism.
“New Syria… Terrorist Al-Nusra gangs arrest children in Aleppo province for belonging to the Alawite sect.“
Three facts: Libya was better under Gaddafi. Iraq was better under Saddam Hussein. Syria was better under Assad.
Not that any of the three leaders mentioned was a particularly pleasant or “good” person, and all did very unpleasant or “bad” things, but we should decide matters of politics and geopolitics on the basis of what is the least-worst situation for populations and the world as a whole, not on the basis of unrealistic hopes (leading to violent chaos).
In fact, you can add Adolf Hitler and Germany to the list.
Salus populi suprema lex, the welfare of the people is the highest law [Cicero].
I could advise him on what to do…
Could Starmer’s Labour Friends of Israel Cabinet be less competent?
Box-ticking former bureaucrat lawyer Starmer himself, Rachel Reeves the fake “economist” (aka “Rachel from Accounts” and/or the customer complaints dept, Halifax Building Society), “Refugees Welcome” idiot, expenses cheat and would-be dictator, Yvette Cooper, thick-as-two-short-planks “Deputy Prime Minister” Angela Rayner (and the rest).
It has already, after 6 months, got to the point where it is glaringly obvious that this fake “Labour” government has no more competence, indeed maybe even less, than had those of Sunak, Truss, “Boris”-idiot, May, and Cameron-Levita.
Interesting. The best aspect of that, were it to happen, would be the dismay amid the “woke” rabble of new Starmer-Labour MPs, over 150 of them, as they lose their seats and are forced to contemplate having to go back to doing mundane and probably badly-paid jobs again.
“The @Moreincommon_ MRP has Lab 228 seats Con 222 Reform 72 Lib Dem 58 Green 2 Proper hung parliament with the SNP (37) holding the balance of power.” [John Rentoul].
Fox has been, perhaps is still on, a socio-political journey, starting off as unthinking System-loyalist, then as conservative-inclined immigration sceptic (but pro-Israel, pro the Jewish lobby etc), and now seems to be moving towards a more social-national position, like many others.
[American-oriented but still relevant to British socio-political attitudes]
Europe’s largest economies, from 1961 to 2024. Interesting to see how some of the countries have improved or downgraded. Turkey, in particular, registered growth in the mid-sections of the list; East Germany/DDR was fairly high until the 1980s, when it fell like a stone. West Germany was high, and indeed at the top even before it absorbed the Eastern part in the 1990s, and has been pre-eminent since then. The Soviet Union as a whole was the largest economy overall for some time, but fell back in the 1980s, after which Russia started to climb, despite missing the other former Soviet republics, and has for some time been one of the five strongest economies (overall), in the top five. The UK has been in the top five consistently.
Of course, were that graphic to be expressed per capita rather than in gross terms, the situation would look very different.
Even after the Art Deco era, America was pre-eminent in terms of confident presentation at least, until the 1960s. Look, e.g., at a film such as North by Northwest (1959), with its ambience of, inter alia, Modern Movement architecture, as well as, later in the film, the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright.
More tweets seen
That refers to the egregiously poor, dishonest, and negligent behaviour exhibited by “Mark Lewis Lawyer”, who is now supposedly domiciled in Israel, though he seems to spend much of his time in the UK, either making money out of clients (who seem rather poorly served), or thinking up stunts to publicize “antisemitism” and at the same time make money out of possible “compensation” (as in the failed stunt at the Reginald D. Hunter show at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, when he cooked up a plot with his wife, Mandy Blumenthal, and Daily Mail junior scribbler Sabrina Miller). See
and
and
See also:
My own opinion is that, after the contrived Jew-Zionist storm that ensued after the Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal reprimanded Lewis and fined him in 2018, the SRA is running a bit scared of the Jew-Zionist lobby and their characteristic contrived “claque” behaviour.
Not again?! Simon Myerson getting the facts and the law muddled again! What a team he and “Mark Lewis Lawyer” would make! Oh, no, wait…
Well, Myerson was sacked as a Recorder (p/t judge) after not very long. As for “KC”, I have noted before on the blog how it signifies not very much these days: in 1938, the later Lord Denning took silk, with three others, I believe, but in 2024 no less than one hundred silks (KCs) were appointed. “More will mean worse“, as Kingsley Amis said once in another context.
Talking point
What about the UK? Dr. Miller says nothing (in that tweet) about the UK. Maybe afraid of the “usual” troublemakers making contrived complaints to the police etc.
Late tweets
That idiot seriously thinks that Britain was “dominant“, internationally, about 24 years ago! What planet is he on? Britain was then not only within the trammels of the EU etc, but was the “poodle” of the then Bush jnr. administration in the United States.
It really is about time that the British people demanded a lot more from the “security and intelligence” bods, or just dumped them, or most of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Younger.
What has weakened Britain has been a combination of the migration-invasion, together with the changing demographics of the UK, the sliding standards in all areas of society, cultural degeneration, and the domination of the UK’s government, political life, courts, policing and mass media, inter alia, by the Israel lobby. Oh, and the near-collapse and uselessness of our armed forces (etc).
The “CAA” cabal, effectively a volunteer arm of the Israeli Embassy in London, can be called (as blogged about in the past) a malicious little cabal. They threaten a lot, suborn police and CPS officials, are a damned nuisance, but accomplish little even by their own standards.
They should not, of course, be treated as a charity. For one thing, they are directly political; for another, the activity of the “CAA” exhibits no “public benefit”.
Is that true (about Myerson being a heavy drinker)? I have no idea, though if true it might partly explain his vituperative social media activity, which was at least part of the reason he was sacked (sub nom “resigned”) as a Recorder earlier in 2024. He certainly seems to stay up late, tweeting. Drinking too? As I say, I have no idea.
Christmas University Challenge
Saw an episode which had the former MP and Cabinet minister Justine Greening on one team. Her ignorance, though frankly unsurprising to me, should be regarded as shocking in a former Cabinet minister. She even thought that Fulham is south of the river Thames! Remarkable, in view of the fact that she lives, or lived, in Putney…
Strange woman. Once involved with the ghastly mixed-race “Conservative” activist and notorious bully, Mark Clarke (featured in the past on the blog and now, like Justine Greening herself, politically —and maybe otherwise— washed-up). I read that she is now what the Russians call a “lesbianka“, though that may or may not be the case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_Greening
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Clarke_(politician).
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 
Hello! That graphic about the largest economis of Europe is very misleading and faulty since it does not reflect the real welfare of the mass of the population. It is just a record of the amount of money traded by a country in a year. I can only say that, in general, the living standards of the majority of the Italians is far superior to the majority of the British.
I have a friend who lives in Rome and we exchange information weekly. He was appalled by the price of gas and electricity in the UK, as well as the prices of the most common food items. Last week he send me a photo from a grocer´s shop near his house. EVERY item (fruit & vegetables) was at 1.00 euro per kilo. The average retail price of a kilo of apples in London is 3.00 pounds. The average retail price of a kilo of tomatoes in London is 3.95 pounds (Data of this month from a global fruit & veggies trader)
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Claudius:
Yes. I did make the point that *per capita*, the situation shown by the graphic would be very different. After all, in Soviet days, even the Poles had a standard of living generally higher than that of Soviet citizens.
Hard for me to say what the levels (standards of living) now are vis a vis the UK, Italy etc.
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Hello again! Last week I did some research on the history of the title or appointment of King´s Counsel (KC). The article (Wikipedia) describes the title as:
“A King’s Counsel (post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a “Counsel learned in the law”. When the reigning monarch is a woman, the title is Queen’s Counsel (QC).”
I (silly me) used to believe that KCs or QCs were appointed directly by the sovereign (as it is described in the above paragraph) after a long and distinguished career; however the article later contradicts the original definition stating that:
“Appointments are made from within the legal profession on the basis of merit and not a particular level of experience. Successful applicants are normally barristers, or in Scotland, advocates, with at least 15 years of experience.”
This clearly indicates that the sovereign does not appoint the KCs or QCs making the title a bit of a sham. I know I am not telling you anything you did not know but I am quoting these texts for the readers of the blog because they confirm what you have said many times (i.e.: Nowadays, traditional titles and honnours are meaningless)
All this was brought to my attention by your posts of today regarding that obnoxious character called Simon Myerson. Ironically, the main requierment for an aspiring KC is “to have made an outstanding contribution to the practice of law with high professional standards and good character and repute.” Obviously, this no longer applies. The fact that Myerson has not been disbarred says everything…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Counsel
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Claudius:
Almost all honorific ranks, titles, and honours are now made *notionally only* by the Monarch, i.e. “on the advice of” others, either the Prime Minister or (in reality) by committees (in most non-political cases).
There are exceptions, eg the Royal Victorian Order and the Order of the Garter, in the sole grant and discretion of the Monarch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Garter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Victorian_Order
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“The Soviet Union as a whole was the largest economy overall for some time, but fell back in the 1980s”
Interesting. The 1980s was the time that a certain globalist sock puppet inveigled himself into the position of Soviet leader, after the convenient deaths of his two predecessors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev
Having attained leadership of the Soviet Union, the globalist sock puppet proceeded to implement (((neoliberal))) economic reforms, and run the Soviet economy straight into the ground. Intentionally, one might suspect.
After successfully destroying his own country, the globalist sock puppet then proceeded to whore himself out and appear in corporate advertisements for Pizza Hut, Apple Computers, Louis Vuitton, etc, in exchange for money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev_Pizza_Hut_commercial
You couldn’t make this up.
Meanwhile, the even worse globalist sock puppet who replaced him allowed the (((REDACTEDS))) to rape and strip-mine the country for a decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin
One wonders what Iosif Vissarionovich would have done with these two traitors.
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Friend of Britain:
Stalin was a Very Bad Man, of course, and his regime did terrible things, but one thing he was not was a traitor…
The rot in the Soviet Union went deep, very deep. Gorbachev was merely someone who came to power when the Soviet system could no longer throw up any candidate with any real background. What was Gorbachev’s background? The sort of joke “law degree” which existed back then in that country, then an internship at the Lubyanka for, I think, a year, followed by provincial bureaucrat administration in south Russia. Nothing more and, as far as I know, no Russian cultural depth.
By the 1980s, the Soviet system was incapable of producing real thinkers (within the system) or real leaders. It only produced people such as Gorbachev, or Yeltsin, main-chance freeloaders and bureaucrats. The better people were not in the political sphere but elsewhere.
Oddly enough, you can see a similar trend in the UK today. Anyone with real thought or motivation simply *cannot* be promoted in key areas such as politics, the legal professions, the Army and Navy, the police, academia, or journalism and the mass media. The system in the UK has become, as in the 1980s Soviet system, sclerotic.
The Soviet system collapsed, without even any real pressure, either from inside or from without, having been directly exerted at time of collapse (just general pressure of existence and events). It may be that the UK (and maybe the EU) will go the same way.
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Excellent analysis. I agree with you 100%. Over the last three years I read several articles and comments by Russian nationalists/patriots about Gorbachev, and they all hate him (and quite rightly so) Yes, he was a vile traitor playing the pathetic role of “the good Russian” while licking the boots of Reagan and Thatcher.
I shall never forget how he was hailed as a hero by a group of very famous Spanish homosexuals who dedicated him a song. That tells you everything. “Gorby” was the idol of all those morons who believe evreything the media tells them.
Yeltsin was just a fool and a drunkard who did not have a clue of what he was doing, but Gorbachev knew VERY WELL what he was doing.
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Claudius:
One interesting aspect, though, is that, among the top leadership, in the Politburo, there was a consensus of sorts that something had to change, in order to keep the Soviet Union viable. Not under Brezhnev so much, but by the early/mid 1980s.
A joke from the early 1980s: a man goes to Staraya Ploshchad (Old Square), where the Central Committee was based, i.e. the centre of government. He walks in, approaches a reception desk, and says loudly that he thinks that he should be elevated to the Politburo, and that he has all necessary qualifications. The receptionist stares at him and demands “Are you mad?!”, to which he replies in turn, “Well, no, but I *am* over 80 years old, not very well-educated, not very clever, and in poor health!”
You get the point. Extreme sclerosis at the heart of government, and running through the whole system. I myself sensed it from a distance (I only visited Moscow in 1993, *after* Sovietism fell). For example, the masthead of “Pravda”, with its insignia of Lenin and the cruiser Aurora, somehow gave me that impression of stasis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda#/media/File:%D0%93%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B0_%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B4%D0%B0.svg
The differences at the top, once Brezhnev died, lay in what to do. Abandon socialism (mooted impliedly by some), try to reform it, including the idea of opening up discussion and some economic areas to competition (preferred by some, including Gorbachev), “double down” on socialism and *force* it (and the population) to work harder (Andropov etc), or just keep things as they were and refuse to accept that there was a problem (Chernenko etc).
Of course, things were not so clearly divided. Andropov himself nominated Gorbachev as his successor.
At the time, there were 21 full members of the Politburo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_of_the_26th_Congress_of_the_Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union
You have to bear in mind that the top leadership had access to information about the country and the world which the average Joe did not have (or even suspect), such as the “White Tass” and other uncensored news from the West, and access to foreign publications.
“In addition to producing reports for general consumption, TASS produced packages of content for non-public use. Western news reports and potentially embarrassing domestic news would be compiled daily into a collection known as “White Tass”, and particularly sensitive news would be compiled into a smaller collection known as “Red Tass”. These collections were made available only to Soviet journalistic and political leaders, respectively.”
[Wikipedia]
What the “pro-Western” modernizers such as Gorbachev failed to see was that Sovietism had grown organically since about 1921. It was one unit, ultimately. Take away a piece here, a piece there, and the whole caboodle would fall to pieces. As it did.
Give enterprises the right to bargain openly for raw materials, and to sell at prices of choice, and the whole system of state planning (GOSPLAN) and strategic planning direction falls to pieces. Allow almost unlimited freedom to criticize and to suggest new ideological direction(s), and State control over the wider political sphere falters. As both did.
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The Russian joke about the Politburó is excellent. Who said the Russians do not have a sense of humour? (LOL)
In a video available on YT (originally made about 14 years ago) Dugin said that Gorbachev (according to one of his closest advisors) really believed that what he was doing was the right thing to do. If that is true, it proves what an ignorant fool he was. The Americans and the British must have been laughing behind his back. In fact, Dugin said that Brzezinski admited to have deceived Gorbachev to whom he described as “very naive”.
I do not like Dugin, although he has said/written some good things, but I am inclined to believe him. It would not be the first time someone in a position of great power or responsability makes a very bad decision.
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Claudius:
To my mind, Gorbachev was brought up without really having had to struggle much (as his long but underwhelming memoirs show). He never really thought much about the society which enveloped him from birth and raised him to the heights. He seems to have believed that he could democratize a society which had never known any form of democracy (save for a few months in 1917 and, arguably, a few years prior to 1914, but both of those predated Sovietism).
Gorbachev also seems to have believed that the rigid GOSPLAN economic system could be loosened without having happen what did happen (mostly in the early 1990s, after Gorbachev had gone), meaning factories closed, whole towns without employment, workers paid in their own factories’ products (which they themselves then had to —try to—sell) etc. Chaotic.
Yet he must have known that the Soviet Union was of a piece. Take away any significant parts, and it would all disintegrate. I recall that, even in 1996-97, when I lived in Almaty, Kazakhstan, there were whole towns in that newly-independent country (in the oil-fields close to the Caspian Sea, and elsewhere) where the enterprise (oil extraction enterprise, or mining company etc) not only extracted oil, or mined minerals, but also ran *and funded* the local community’s services, from hospitals and schools to road repair, sanitation, the whole lot. Take away the economic enterprise, and the whole society was running on empty. Which is what happened in that vast country (the former Soviet Union generally) in the 1990s.
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