Life Ain’t a Bed of Roses

 

In entertainment value, to me at least, the caterwauling of so-called pop songs dials zero. My musical interests, with very, very few exceptions, are entirely within the Classical Music sphere.

But I heard this morning of the death of Liam Payne, of the One Direction pop group, and I suddenly realised I had watched a film which, I firmly believe, was certainly based around Liam Payne’s early success as a pop star.

The film was called ‘Forever My Girl’. The ending was of course different to real life, with the singer marrying his childhood sweetheart, and singing along with his newly discovered daughter.

The evidence? Possibly circumstantial, but in the film, the singer suddenly becomes super-famous, and disappears into cloud of recordings, performances, booze and drugs. In real life, after the appearance on the X-Factor show, they were literally taken over, and their families didn’t get to see them for months on end, as was stated on the radio.

Me? As I said,, very few exceptions, and that film was one of them. No Mozart, but a good story, backed up with some believable Country music.

It takes a woman of class …

… to really take down a woman without class:

No, Veronica, We Really Aren’t. We just Want You To Stay In Your Lane...

Let’s admit it: cisgender people are really curious about us trans women. They want to know things such as: what’s it like to have a surgeon rearrange your genitals? How did you know you were really a girl all along? Does it suck having to be on the downside of sexism now?

As a 'cis woman' (translation: normal, genuine female) I can honestly say I'd rather not know any of those things, any more than I'd want to know the details of any other mental patient's delusions. But since the driving force amongst so much of the trans lobby is narcissism...

For our own part, trans women are curious about cisgender folk, too. We want to know things like: do you actually think I’m female, or am I just a deluded guy in a dress to you? If I try to have a beer at your bar, will you violently assault me? Am I ever going to get to use a public bathroom again?

The answers are: the latter, probably not, as a genuine female I'm not physically aggressive, and yes, of course you can, but it should be the gents. 

This column is, of course, generated because of the 'documentary' where Will Farrell goes on a road trip with his old friend who is now believing himself to be a woman. Some friend you are, Will. If he was an alcoholic, you'd no doubt be taking him to a distillery.

... throughout the movie, she is game to answer any of the questions the cis world has for her, and she even gives Ferrell complete carte blanche to ask her anything whatsoever. She doesn’t give any indication that she feels the sense of violation that many of us do feel at such personal invasions.

Because the driving force for this trend appears to be severe narcissism; it's the thing that all 'trans men' appear to have in common. 

I understand that intense desire to make yourself comprehensible to the world, to have it hear the story of your life that has been hidden for decades, to share all the pain you’ve tucked away. When I watched Will & Harper, I really wished that Ferrell might have stopped to ask himself why his friend seemed so eager to tell him about every last personal detail of her life and why she was willing to expose herself to one dangerous situation after another during their road trip.

Because narcissism, 'Veronica', that's why. 

I was one of the fortunate ones who managed to reclaim my pass back into humankind, and now I have the immense privilege of getting to decide who exactly is safe enough to inform about my past. Those who aren’t that fortunate have to do their best to find a place in a world where we’re a widely misunderstood, stigmatized and increasingly vilified 1% of the population.

The Eternal Victim... Move over Scousers, there's a new one in town.

True history of America or far-right fiction?

There are difficulties either buying or rejecting this below:

Interesting Columbus Day thought

… from a Gab a/c called Geiger Counter … could not possibly endorse the sentiment, more than our blog’sworth …

The “stolen land” people are simply low IQ with zero understanding of history or how the world works … America was not stolen. It was conquered. The Native Americans were not skipping through a meadow when Europeans arrived … They were savages. Tribes constantly at war, taking resources (and land!) from each other. They raided, raped, tortured and literally scalped each other. They were then conquered themselves by a people far more advanced in every quantifiable metric. The natives didn’t even have a common written language, let alone any concept of an advanced civilization. They were living thousands of years behind the rest of the world. America was conquered. The Natives lost. It resulted in the greatest country in human history.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you do not buy the above … the implications are reparations forever to whichever tribe wants to try for the gravy train, plus deep guilt forever and ever for even being Caucasian or whatever in the first place.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you do buy the opener … all right, apply it to Canada, NZ and Australia. In Australia, for example, various tribes came to the land, e.g. the Negritos, Murrayans, Carpentarians, one after the other over time, pushing the previous (defeated) tribe further inland. The French, Dutch, British, in turn arrived or did not and history continued.

Now let’s apply the argument to current Britland … waves of much more battle hardened and ruthless savages arrive, slaughter the “natives”, not unlike the barbarians sacking Rome, much mass rape and muder of the women, many sold into slavery … funded by Them above.

Is that fine? Just the natural course of history?

Safeguarding Our Money...

HMRC has been accused of facilitating fraud by paying fictitious tax rebate claims submitted in the name of unwitting taxpayers by third-party agents. Taxpayers can apply for a rebate if they have paid too much tax. They can choose to appoint an agent to do this on their behalf, but some firms are harvesting details of individuals to make bogus claims.

But surely, if the taxpayer notices this and cries foul, HMRC will listen to them? Well, Reader, you're not going to believe this.... 

Jim Mackie, a former police officer and private investigator, says HMRC refused to investigate when his wife’s details were used by a tax refund firm to submit an invented rebate claim worth £5,000 in her name last year. HMRC sent the full payment to the Lancashire-based firm Waltonbridge, which purported to be the appointed agent for Mackie’s wife.

“The first we knew about it was when HMRC wrote and said that rebate cheques were being sent to the ‘agent’,” said Mackie. “The claim, sent in my wife’s name with a signature that was not hers, was for tax paid on interest received from PPI payments. She hasn’t claimed a PPI payment since 2012 and for that amount of tax to be due she’d have had to have received a fantastical £100,000.”

Waltonbridge passed on just over the half the money in the form of a cheque, deducting a 48% fee, but the Mackies do not intend to cash it. Instead they have reported the suspected fraud to HMRC which told them it was satisfied the claim was genuine.

Yes, you read that right. Agent says 'No, I never authorised this!' and HMRC says 'Yes you did, the agent can't be wrong'... 

“It relied solely on Waltonbridge’s word,” Mackie said. “These scammers are stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds a year from HMRC and HMRC is happy to sit back, let it happen, then blame us, the public, for making false complaints.”

Remember Ronnie's 'nine most terrifying words'? 

The shifting sands

Cityunslicker rarely goes to print himself these days on his blog which is as long in the tooth as mine was before it was stolen. Another of that vintage (2006) was Tom Paine.

He has a most interesting piece up on percentages of our household income and the last main point was:

The government needs an artificially low level of inflation to keep down pay settlements to allow for greater money supply to feed its vast spending projects at low interest rates; in effect a double tax on all of us earners who are suffering from higher inflation and lower wages at the same time.

I replied:

JH: Cityunslicker, the point two at the end I’m going to quote across the way … esp. the “artificially” bit as it seems the core, the key. There’s an element of shifting sands here to my mind … that it is as they wish it to be in order to continue the vast spending on irrelevant and wrong projects. There’s an element of “out of control” as well.  And that we’re not talking real or “sound” money either.

I’m sure crazies other than me will start with the word “fiat” in this matter … Them themselves will use the words “looming crash”, which to my mind will not be until the main players are ready and not a moment before, despite what any economic model says it must be.

Where does it leave us, personally? There’s the rub, innit?

A True Deterrent Would Include Deportation

A former PhD student has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison for arranging to send a young girl to Iraq for female genital mutilation (FGM), in the first conviction of its kind in England and Wales. Emad Kaky, 47, was found guilty of conspiring to commit FGM last month, the first time a person had been convicted of a conspiracy charge in relation to FGM.

Strangely, we aren't told what his relationship to the victim was, or how he seemingly had custody of the child in order to do it. No doubt to protect her identity, but there's a mother involved somewhere here, surely... 

A two-week trial at Nottingham crown court heard how Kaky had arranged for a child to travel from the UK to Iraq where he had organised for her to be subjected to FGM and forced into marriage. Emad Kaky described FGM as ‘normal’ in messages found on his phone. The plans were uncovered, before the crimes could be carried out, by a witness who arranged for the girl to travel back to the UK and reported Kaky to the police.

A foreign custom, planned to be carried out by a foreigner in a foreign land, caught by good old British justice? 

Sentencing Kaky, Judge Nirmal Shant KC said his plans were barbaric. “You made concerted efforts to make sure this happened. I make, nonetheless, some adjustment for the fact that no FGM took place, and importantly, thankfully, [the girl] was unaware of any of these plans,” she said.

“This offence calls for a deterrent sentence. What you did, what you had planned, was barbaric.”

Not that much of a deterrant, is it? Four and a half years being sheltered and fed at the taxpayer's expense? 

Janine McKinney, chief crown prosecutor for CPS East Midlands, said: “This has been a landmark prosecution, not just because it is the first conviction of its kind, but for the message it sends to people who may be vulnerable to this horrific form of abuse.”

It'd be a far stronger message if he was kicked out of the country at the end of it. 

The defence barrister Geraldine Kelly told the court Kaky’s academic accomplishments as a PhD student at the University of Nottingham were “respected” and “impressive”, and that losing his job was “in itself a form of punishment”.

No sweetie, those are consequences. Why in a case with three women involved - judge, prosecutor and defence - is the outcome so bloody weak? 

“Healthcare” in Britain

… or “one of our highly trained professionals will be with you shortly”. At TCW, the frustration of healthcare in Britain yesterday bubbled over:

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-the-gp-wont-see-you-now/

After about a month I had heard nothing so I contacted the GP surgery asking about the results. Rather than offering an appointment for me to discuss the results with my GP, the surgery sent me a (completely incomprehensible to me) three-page print-out full of medical terms and measurements I had never heard of giving the results of 28 analyses the blood-testing lab had done.

As I have no medical training, this was worse than useless to me. So I started to wonder why my GP had no desire to discuss the results with me either in person or in an on-line consultation. 

Yet, while my GP seemingly doesn’t want to engage with me about the results of my blood tests, I am constantly getting emails, SMS messages and even phone calls from the surgery encouraging me to have all sorts of wonderful vaccinations – covid booster, meningitis, shingles, pneumonia, flu and probably a couple of others I’ve forgotten about.

In fact, the day after the surgery emailed me the blood-test results without offering me a GP appointment to discuss them, the surgery phoned me to encourage me to come in for a flu vaccine and a covid booster.

My own (rare) experience of trying make contact with the surgery is to be met with some recorded commercial name, the usual press one or two, giving some long url online, saying these are highly trained switchboard operators and highly trained medical professionals but if I dared to abuse them, all calls are recorded and ae (presumably) to pass on to the nearest serious crime squad. 

That disembodied menu followed by some awful, loud noise behind, supposedly post-2000 “music” I think it’s meant to be.

The final joke is that I am 4, 3, 2, 1 or next in the “cull queue” (sic). 

Oh and yes … the constant stream of texts urging me to come in now for a vaxx … interesting but in NI now, they’re in the process of becoming mandatory, these vaxxes … a karen’s paradise.

Shouldn’t This Be A Job For The Police?

A doctor accused of wrongly discharging a boy from hospital before he died from sepsis cannot be tracked down, health chiefs have admitted. Dylan Cope, nine, suffered a burst appendix which led to a sepsis infection spreading through his body - and a coroner later ruled that had he been kept in hospital to have his appendix removed, 'his death would have been avoided'.

But a mystery medic discharged him with an advice sheet for flu after failing to read the referral note from the doctor. An inquest ruled Dylan partly died from neglect and his parents have been trying to trace the doctor who assessed him.

Why? Shouldn't the police be doing this? Isn't it their job? 

Yet almost two years following the schoolboy's death, parents Corinne and Laurence Cope say they have been told the health board are unable to identify the clinician in question. They appealed to the Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran, south Wales. to hand out anonymised portraits of staff so his father - who had accompanied Dylan to hospital - could identify him, but have been told this is not an option.

Why not? It's almost like they don't want to find him, isn't it? 

Mrs Cope has now said: 'Losing Dylan is a life sentence of pain for us, and for all we know the person who was instrumental in reassuring Laurence is carrying on in his profession as usual.

'If they can't identify all staff involved, how can they ensure that this will not happen again 

'We are concerned for future patient's safety. If they don't identify people, then there is no accountability. Accountability is a key part of learning.'

There's never any accountability.  

Mr Cope said the doctor, who was in scrubs and a facemask, was in his 30s to 40s, slim to average build, tall and with a slight 'foreign' accent.

Probably of little help in a modern NHS hospital. 

Three more looks at covid and vaxxes

First of the three, from Gab:

It is worth mentioning that political polls that break out issues by gender, have shown significant differences between men and women for decades on basically every issue, regardless of party affiliation.

No matter your opinion on millions of years of human evolution, or God creating women for men, either way leads to an inescapable genetic level preference for specific gender traits that are simultaneously different and complementary.

We may think of ourselves as removed and superior to hunter gatherer and/or agrarian societies, but in truth, humans are still fine tuned to thrive within those patriarchal and trad wife systems.

Immediately after suffrage in 1920 and 1928, women, during "The year of the woman", elected Herbert Hoover as President. He would later go on to create the dust bowl and great depression, which took alot of wind out of women's political sails. Interestingly, the main reason cited by many women for voting for him was that he ran the Food Administration during WWI, and organized the public to minimize and ration food consumption to feed Europe. Many of the rationales for the "voluntary" food restrictions were strikingly similar to Covid-19 restrictions. There are more than 100 years separating the two events, and very different women drove both through similar types of social pressure for similar reasons.

I think that people need to be mindful that men and women do view things through different lenses, and arrive at different solutions from different starting points. We need to recognize each others strengths and weaknesses and play to the strengths. Historically, men, aided by women, build great countries from nothing, women demand equality, women eventually achieve equality, the country collapses within a few generations, men read history and connect the dots, and then men, aided by women, build a new great country from nothing. Rinse and repeat in perpetuity.

That was on Gab but here are the two urls as well:

https://www.conorfitzgerald.com/p/what-covid-did-to-men

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/10/07/covid-vaccine-science-catching-up-with-conspiracy-theorists/

Hmmmmm … don’t know what to make of all that.