Morning music
From the newspapers
“The toddler’s frail, malnourished body scarcely twitched as she lay helplessly in an incubator chamber in the already-decimated Gaza hospital.
Leila Jeneid, one of countless children who have passed through the doors of Kamal Adwan Hospital, in the north of the Gaza Strip, has suffered as a result of starvation and dehydration.
In a video clip, Leila can be seen quickly breathing in and out, desperate for a breath of fresh air in one of the 12 remaining hospitals in the besieged enclave.
The outline of her ribs, along with all her other bones, are visible through her pallid, paper-thin skin, which sits in stark contrast to the blue blanket underneath her that provides little comfort to the toddler, who is not old enough to comprehend the hellish suffering she is undergoing.
Her jaw is slack as she lies on her back inside the plastic cage of the incubator, barely able to move her arms and legs.
She can’t keep her eyes open as medics at the hospital, which UN official Andrea De Domenico this week said was receiving ‘about 15 malnourished children a day and is struggling to maintain services,’ run tests to understand how to help her.
But it’s food, water and proper rest she needs, all things that the whole enclave is desperately in need of, and all things that Israel has been accused of deliberately withholding from civilians in its bitter war against Hamas, which – according to a top UN human rights official – could amount to a war crime.”
[Daily Mail]
Israel, and the Jewish lobby outside Israel, can now shut up about various matters that they claim occurred during the Second World War.
The “usual suspects” constantly promote books, films etc about events and/or invented events that are said to have happened, in any event, over 80 years ago.
“A father-of-five who was jailed and handed a £475,000 court bill after a dispute with his neighbours has been ordered to sell his home to pay for the huge sum.
Mark Coates, 56, and wife Louise, 52, have been involved in a ‘bitter, aggressive and violent’ dispute with their neighbours Brian Greenwood, 69, and Janice Turner, 65, after moving in next door in the countryside near Hastings in 2015.
The row arose out of a disagreement over a fence between their homes on a quiet road in Robertsbridge, a court heard. The Coates family wanted to replace the structure with a brick wall but Mrs Taylor argued this would encroach on her land.”
[Daily Mail]
When I was at the Bar, I advised and appeared on several such cases in the County Court, both in London and the provinces. Almost all, in fact all, should have settled long before they got to court, long before any barristers were instructed.
I think that I can say that I, and other counsel in the cases known to me, did our best to achieve reasonable closure, but these are cases (often involving trivial amounts of land) where reason always seems to fly out out of the window.
In many cases, all Counsel, solicitors, and the judge in the matter, understand that the matters in question should settle before enormous costs are racked up but, often, the litigants are effectively willing to risk bringing down ruin on themselves for a chance of gaining a victory over their neighbours (with whom they will have to live —nearby— afterwards, after the case ends, whichever way it goes), unless one party sells up and moves (in which event…well, you get my point).
If you told someone to remortgage his house, take out equity of £50,000, £100,000 or more, then go to Las Vegas, and stake the entire amount, maybe in one spin, on red or black at the roulette table, the houseowner would call you crazy, but that is, often, exactly what he or she —often a couple— are willing to do in taking to the County Court (in some cases to the High Court) such cases.
I remember one case I had that was about a wedge-shaped piece of land running the length of a North London suburban garden; at one end it was only about an inch or so wide and, at the other, about a foot.
What can one say? Territorial feeling can be very powerful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonzo_Dog_Doo-Dah_Band
More from the Bonzos?
Tweets seen
Private enterprise —properly regulated for honesty, health and safety, employee rights etc— should run most commerce and industry, but there are exceptions, among which are the main structures of the economy providing services to the whole people: water supply, large-scale energy, electricity generation and supply, roads, railways.
Very true. As for me [b.1956], my memories of even the late 1950s are few, but those of the 1960s, and up to the present year, are many. Speaking very broadly, I should say that the dividing line between the UK of 2024 and an earlier and different UK lies, arguably, somewhen between the Thatcher election victory of 1979 and the fall of socialism in or about 1989. Maybe 1979 as far as the UK is concerned, domestically. Too much to cover here in a few paragraphs, though.
American urban planning history
Interesting. Britain’s town planning problems and history differ from the above American examples, in part, though there are also similarities.
Town planning is very important, as is architecture, and not forgetting the trees, bushes, creepers, and flowers that elevate all of that.
More tweets
“Reform UK” is just more “controlled opposition”, of course, and pro-Israel controlled opposition at that; still, its existence moves the “Overton window”, and that may be significant.
To call that a zoo would be unkind to zoos, and to the inherent grace and charm of most animals.
Naturally, Zelensky wants cash, not arms and ammunition. You can’t transfer arms and ammunition into an offshore account…
Not bad…
Group psychopathy.
Seems that H.M. Land Registry (or its ad agency) does not know the difference between “principle” and “principal“. On that basis, I am sceptical about anything they say they will do; it is not trivial, but a matter of both basic education and checking what is put before the public.
So much for the “military experts”, many of which (as in the case of the reporter David Axe) turn out to be not very expert at all: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Axe.
People of that sort write their rubbish for (in his case) Forbes magazine, the Daily Telegraph etc, and people believe it implicitly because it is in (albeit wrongfully) “trusted” publications, yet much of the content is unreliable. Read Axe’s Wikipedia entry. Not an ex-officer, not a military historian as such, but a writer of fiction primarily, at least until recently. His reporting on military matters has been patchy; refer to the Wikipedia entry.
There are many scribblers of that sort. He is far from being the only defaulter.
Of course, in relation to the Ukraine war, a significant factor in reportage is that most Western msm outlets are openly biased to an extent not seen since the 1940s. Anything seen in the msm relating to Ukraine, Russia, Putin etc has to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Future archaeologists may find such tanks buried under a hundred feet of chernozem, and wonder what they were.
Late tweets
Jew-Zionist argues that the numbers of civilian and other dead and wounded in Gaza are not accurate and may be, at least in part, invented.
I dare say, though, that the same Jew-Zionist (and many another) thinks that any attempt to critically examine the numbers involved, or the nature and extent, of the so-called “holocaust” of WW2, is not only “antisemitic” but evil…
https://www.givesendgo.com/sammelia
Green. Some look about 14 or 15. Obviously untrained, looking at their posture, body language etc. God help them if they are not taught how to stay alive in the field.
Ukraine (Kiev regime) cannot win this war, or even keep the front stable. Russia cannot lose, and will not lose.
Tail wags dog…again.
Absolutely right. “ABC”— Anything But “Conservative” now. Stamp on the Conservative Party; you may be able to kill it off.
The servants of the State, or the creatures of the “you know whos”?
Late music
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My appeal (to pay the costs of my recent free speech trial) remains open. If you can, please donate; if you are unable to donate, please share the link.
https://www.givesendgo.com/GC14J
Thank you.
Ian Robert Millard 