May another major war in Central and Western Europe be averted, and that already raging in Eastern Europe come to an end.
A Merry Christmas and Yuletide to all well-intentioned readers of the blog.
A reminder that our time on this Earth in any one incarnation is limited and that we must do what can be done to create the basis for a quantum leap in human and planetary evolution.
[Alternativ fur Deutschland election poster, which reads “We protect your children“]
Very amusing, but that AfD poster makes an important point, which is that the core of our political philosophy must reach out to the future, to the as-yet-unborn generations who will eventually make a quantum leap in human evolution.
[Germany 1945— “We are fighting for the future of our children!“]
“You carry in your blood the holy inheritance of your fathers and forefathers. You do not know those who have vanished in endless ranks into the darkness of the past. But they all live in you and walk in your blood upon the earth that consumed them in battle and toil and in which their bodies have long decayed.
Your blood is therefore something holy. In it your parents gave you not only a body, but your nature. To deny your blood is to deny yourself. No one can change it. But each decides to grow the good that one has inherited and suppress the bad. Each is also given will and courage.
You do not have only the right, but also the duty to pass your blood on to your children, for you are a member of the chain of generations that reaches from the past into eternity, and this link of the chain that you represent must do its part so that the chain is never broken.
But if your blood has traits that will make your children unhappy and burdens to the state, then you have the heroic duty to be the last. The blood is the carrier of life. You carry in it the secret of creation itself. Your blood is holy, for in it God’s will lives.”
[SS Verlag: material for instruction of the Hitlerjugend]
More tweets seen
While in Ukraine there are daily blackouts because of Zelensky, Moscow is shining brighter than ever.
It is always suspect to draw general conclusions from personal experience, at least without more. All the same, we have to start somewhere, like Newton and his apple.
It seems to me that there is an absence of what I recall as “Christmas feeling”. Am I wrong to believe that the feeling of Christmas as a special time has ebbed away over the past couple of decades? If so, why has it happened? It cannot simply be economic stringency etc, looking at the travails of the 20th Century— wars, the Great Depression etc.
I am not talking about religious or wider spiritual belief or adherence, but the actual feeling of Christmas-time. Do “the young”, children etc feel the same, or is the feeling of— what? Flatness? Unease?— connected to the nostalgia which is more naturally an accompaniment of greater age? I do not know.
I come to no conclusion here, but have raised the question. It worries me. I think that it goes beyond Christmas, too.
💬 President #Putin: As for the economy, as you know, despite the collapses, devastation and catastrophe predicted for us in the economic sphere, nothing like that is happening.
💪 Moreover, Russia is performing much better than many #G20 countries, and doing so confidently. pic.twitter.com/3Il9i9iSH8
.@alkenajan1 I don’t proclaim myself as anything but a jobbing scribbler who has lived long and seen much.All beliefs about the unknowable are opinions.This is mine : the universe is designed, purposeful and just. I do not deride you for disagreeing. A blessed Christmas to you. https://t.co/1uqVYSArV4
I doubt that I shall watch TV much in the next few days. Today, saw a few minutes of a religious service (Church of England) on BBC TV. It was from Blackburn Cathedral, a cathedral of which I had never heard, and in a town which I have never visited.
Instead of a traditional carol, something which sounded like the soundtrack for a black mass in a horror film; admittedly, I only saw a few minutes of the whole thing. Instead of a robed officiant such as a priest, a large black man wearing a kind of lumberjack shirt. As for the congregation (or should that be “audience”?), a relatively small crowd. The camera zoomed in on a young British-seeming couple with a tiny baby. The (?) husband and/or (?) father looked stressed or even (as it seemed to me) spiteful, somehow. No smiles seen from either. Were they actors? I suppose not; after all, actors might have simulated some happier look.
“The CIA is combining with the spy service of a NATO ally in Europe to conduct covert sabotage operations inside Russia, according to new claims.
The clandestine campaign is behind many unexplained explosions and fires that have hit strategic or prominent facilities in recent months, says US expert Jack Murphy, an eight-year Army Special Operations veteran.
Separately other European intelligence services have allegedly been ‘running operatives into Russia to create chaos without CIA help’, as has Ukraine.“
[Daily Mail]
Insanity like that (if true, is proven) can have only one result, eventually— escalation, leading to Russian strategic nuclear attack on both North America (both cities and military bases, ports etc) and Western Europe (particularly the UK, particularly London).
More tweets
President #Putin: After confessions made by A.Merkel, Poroshenko & other politicians about the true purposes of the Minsk Agreements, it became obvious to everyone that Russia was not the source of the conflict in Ukraine; the reason was the Western-sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014 pic.twitter.com/TYi4EGTbHX
— Russian Embassy in South Africa 🇷🇺 (@EmbassyofRussia) December 22, 2022
Good to know that Little Matt Hancock’s book has failed to capture public attention, and has failed to make the freeloader even more money, depending on what was his advance, if anything.
[Girls of the BDM ride in the German forest, 1930s]
[“The Fuhrer as friend of animals“]
[“Heil Goering!“; other captions proclaimed that “even the animals vote for the Fuhrer!” after Germany was the first and only state on Earth to ban experiments on animals in 1933, a law sadly repealed by order of the Western forces after the disastrous defeat of 1945]
In fact, it was better than expected, despite having the usual suspects (loud children, louder adults). One of the former looked like becoming the “inevitable” Hollywood film Wunderkind, but in the end did not.
Well, this week brings another victory over political journalist John Rentoul; he scored 4/10, but I trumped that with 6/10. I did not know the answers to questions 4, 6, 7, and 8.
Tweets seen
MSNBC. Ukraine cannot get to conflict termination until they can conclusively defeat the Russian Army in the field. Time to relook US and NATO policy. Ukraine being battered to death by Russian drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles. pic.twitter.com/pKnRdWh9S8
Even were Ukraine (the Kiev regime) able to defeat Russian forces, decisively, in the field, which is unlikely, that result would only then lead to the use by Russia of tactical or even strategic nuclear weapons, or to the decision to use fleets of bombers to reduce Kiev to rubble. Putin cannot accept the loss of “captured” territory in the “Russian” areas of Ukraine (Crimea and the Donbass), whatever happens
This is an absolutely brilliant forensic takedown of the fraud that is Jack Monroe. Please read it and share it far and wide. I’ve been attacked on many occasions for pointing out what a charlatan she is, this document shows just how bad her behaviour is. https://t.co/JjCDITdjSj
Typical of the Church of England in 2022— slab-faced lesbian priestesses preaching the gospel of “woke”. Time to disestablish this institution.
Twitter
The layout seems to have changed overnight. No longer is there a “latest” (tweets) column, allowing one to peruse a timeline in sequence by subject. This is very poor, eroding much of the point of Twitter.
More tweets
🚨 | As more elderly end up in hospital with hypothermia ‘afraid to put the heating on’ we can never remind the public enough of political failures.
Nick Clegg in 2010 saying nuclear not an answer because it wouldn’t come online until 2022.
Clegg and his Spanish lawyer wife now live in one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in the USA, near San Francisco. He betrayed the British people before taking the Facebook shilling (in fact, millions) and fleeing to the United States.
Amazingly, supporters of Rcn leader Pat Cullen are *still* claiming she did well in this exchange with me on BBC Question Time. They tend not to link to the actuality: https://t.co/Y1dcTYhGo3
Pro-life supporter Isabel was standing silently in a public street. Approaching her, a policeman asked: "Are you inwardly praying?" When she said she might have been, he arrested her. @seatradelaw on why Public Space Protection Orders should worry us all.https://t.co/oCRWEJmJ0w
Scott Ritter on the death of negotiation due to Merkel's admission that the West cheated Putin about wanting a peaceful resolution but really wanting time to prepare Ukraine for war. 8 years of incessant bombardment by the Ukrainian gov against the people of the Donbass resulted pic.twitter.com/9rs0957Hqa
— #CeasefireNow #BDS #Yemen #Kashmir #Assange (@ChristineJameis) December 16, 2022
Scott Ritter: "The provision of the Patriot air defense system to Ukraine will not change the outcome of this conflict. Ukraine is going to lose, and it is going to lose badly." pic.twitter.com/nduWuqoWrw
The kefuffle around the crowdfunder launched by “Dr” Louise Raw to (ostensibly) sue Jeremy Clarkson continues, with people not only saying that it is doomed on its own terms (for legal reasons, and as I pointed out a few days ago on the blog), but suggesting that the whole thing is a “grift” or near-(?) fraud by Louise Raw, something which I doubted when I wrote about it (if only because it seemed to me that it would be difficult to get away with a blatant fraud of that sort). Maybe I was too kind.
As to why gofundme was used instead of The crowdjustice platform, I also believe that refunds are possible via crowdjustice to the campaign donors
You’re quite right that the money will be paid out to Louise Raw, unless she has nominated a Beneficiary in accordance with GFM’s terms and conditions. If she had, that would appear on the crowdfunding page. Once in her control, she has no contractual obligation to account for it
Oh and this claim about “every single penny” isn’t strictly true, as GFM charge platform fees for using their service. Also, donation of a surplus fund in this form deprives charities of Gift Aid that UK taxpayer donors might otherwise lawfully claim on their donations pic.twitter.com/uRBiGdXIbV
I had thought that Louise Raw would not want to taint her “militant” or pseudo-revolutionary image to her mug followers on Twitter by keeping some of the money for her own use. On the other hand, the said “woke” mug Twitter followers are usually pretty dim, as can be seen in some of their responses to the legal critique of this doomed attempt to sue Clarkson.
Come to that, look at the fundraiser promoted by Roanna Carleton-Taylor on behalf of “grifting” fake “historian” and “journalist”, Mike Stuchbery (along with some Paki-stani solicitor whose name I forget). They raised about £12,000, which as far as I know has never since seen the light of day.
Unless I discover otherwise, I shall believe that, on the balance of probabilities, those monies were split between “Roanna” and Stuchbery, with the solicitor getting a bit by way of “professional fees” (for doing almost nothing but sending one letter to Tommy Robinson). Certainly, no legal action was ever launched. About 800 “woke” mugs donated to that crowdfunder.
Stuchbery still has over 88,000 Twitter followers, though Roanna Carleton-Taylor has apparently withdrawn from online activism (I have no idea whether or not the police took an interest in her and/or her husband’s other activities, as claimed by some people). Anyway, there it is.
Then, of course, we have —what increasingly looks like— a continuing and outright “grift” by the so-called “Bootstrap Cook”, who calls herself “Jack Monroe”.
As of today, 643 mugs, donating regularly via Patreon, are closing their eyes to the very telling exposures of “Jack Monroe” which have appeared since, especially, August 2022; they are supplying her, in aggregate, with monies amounting to some sum between £2,300 and £30,000 each month. Maybe, at a pure guess, about £6,000 or so, monthly. Probably taxfree, too.
“Jack Monroe” also had a crowdfund appeal going from May 2022, ostensibly in order that she could sue MP Lee Anderson and political activist/commentator Martin Daubney. People donated, but (quelle surprise) the “defamation case” has never been initiated, and the monies donated have disappeared into what might be called the “Jack Monroe” lifestyle fund…
“Jack Monroe”, despite everything, not only still has that cadre of 643 utter mugs sending her money every month, but also has no fewer than 563,000 “followers” on Twitter.
Even that ridiculous West Indian woman who caused a fuss recently at Buckingham Palace, and who literally “cosplays” as a tribal African, not only managed to rip off £170,000 before people started to look into the affairs of her blacks-only “charity”, but also, tellingly, has since then managed to get hundreds of mugs to donate another £36,000 in order to help to buy “her charity” a house. Unglaublich!
In other words, those “grifters” have not at all been damaged by what some have been calling outright theft of donated monies, because they make the right sort of “politically correct” or “woke” noises.
Perhaps that is what will happen to Louise Raw’s crowdfunder, i.e. a small amount will go to a solicitor, and Counsel, in return for a nicely-written Advice advising that legal action against Clarkson is impossible, after which Louise Raw will (I speculate, of course) keep whatever is left, perhaps donating a thousand or so to a domestic violence charity (on the publicized record, for public show).
Louise Raw is notably reticent with some information, e.g. as to her own background, including where she studied for her “doctorate” (if any) and her first and Master’s degrees (if any). It may be that she never will give information as to where the bulk of the monies raised went (or shall we say “disappeared”?). All she would have to do, on that hypothesis, is to say that the monies went to suitable “good causes” and that the “good causes” “requested no publicity” or some such. “Jack Monroe” has tried that one in the past, and the mug donors just accepted it as true, so…
More tweets seen
Legal grift. It has the added bonus of getting you the approbation of the Good People who think Good Things.
The first tweet above of course refers to 1. The absurd Marlene-something-posing-as-African; 2. “Jack Monroe” (and her dog’s dinner “cooking”); 3. Dr. Julia Grace Patterson (was very briefly an NHS doctor, now lives off “grifting” and/or selling useless facemasks etc); 4. Either Louise Raw, or notorious fox-batterer Jolyon Maugham, the narcissistic New Zealand-educated barrister and “activist”, and his largely pointless “Good Law Project” (anyone who saw his lamentable ignorance on Christmas University Challenge recently might prefer to keep their money).
Incidentally, I just saw a few tweets by “Jack Monroe” about how hard it was for her (supposedly a recovering alcoholic) to find mince pies in the supermarket made without alcohol. Surely a quasi-professional cook would make her own, especially at Christmas? Oh, well, there it is.
She is attempting not only to crowdfund but to crowdsource the victims of the proposed harassment claim, as if that would be effective in any way, given the wording of the statute
Those refer to Louise Raw and her stupid (or maybe not so stupid, if indeed it is a “grift”) crowdfunder.
I was just trying to remember what were the best fees I myself ever got for one-off written Advices when I was at the Bar. I do not include advice given when I was a salaried lawyer overseas in the late 1990s (Kazakhstan, Caribbean, elsewhere), and provided to large companies such as Raytheon, because I was then charged out at about USD $400 an hour, but that money went to the law firm(s), not me personally.
I think that the best fees for basic written Advices that I myself ever had were somewhere in the region of (in the money of 15-30 years ago) somewhat short of a thousand pounds (you could/might double that to put it in the money of 2022), so fairly modest compared to Counsel in the best —or best-padded— chambers.
I do recall, when working in Charleston (South Carolina) in 2002, telephoning to London to ask the Clerk of one of the top company law chambers in Gray’s Inn as to how much a written Advice from one of their QCs would cost. The document in question was 17pp long, but the only important bit consisted of only two paragraphs, and on only one page. A few alternatives were offered, but the bottom line was— £4,000 to £5,000. Again, maybe you would have to increase that by 50% or even 100% today, but even so, the £15,000 appealed for by Louise Raw seems high, particularly in view of the non-commercial subject-matter.
Twitter’s new feature comes into its own as it shows that Louise’s tweet is heading towards 100,000 views with 0.01 percent positive engagement pic.twitter.com/sAfUZWI9Ss
“Wokes” such as “Dr” Louise Raw always claim to be speaking up etc for the people, but the said “wokes” seem to forget that they chose the losing side re. Brexit, in the 2017 and 2019 General Elections, the 2016 US Election etc. Not that I myself favour Trump or the “British” Conservative Party, or even mishandled Brexit, as such, but the “wokes” are in a Twitter (etc) echo chamber where they refuse to even listen to, or see, any views contrary to their own; indeed, they try to “deplatform” people, as do the Jew-Zionists. Louise Raw is a prime example of an “I’m not listening” “woke”. No wonder they always get things wrong.
Incidentally, Louise Raw is on Twitter as “@LouiseRawAuthor”. “Author“?Technically so, because she has had one (non-fiction) book published, a decade or so ago. Is that really enough, though, to validate a self-description as an “author“? Maybe in her world, just as it seems to be OK, in her world, or mind, to call herself “Doctor” based on a “doctorate” granted (if indeed she has one) on the basis of the same subject-matter as her sole book, a strike of match-factory girls in London in 1888.
Ian Robert Millard 