Predictable

... plus there are lessons here for readers to see for themselves. For that reason, this is a good cautionary tale.

There are two admins at OoL ... Julia and myself.  She takes care of the overall, plus comment moderation, I look after the tech side.

As part of that, I expressly agreed with the host that there can be nothing misleading allowed to stay up ... fully agree with that. Sometimes we might run something, or a reader might, which turns out not to be initially, factually, completely so ... this happens on X a fair bit, resulting in a "community note".  However, I've seen a "community note" to a "community note", disagreeing with the first "community note".

To my mind, that's fine, however ludicrous it seems, as it enables readers to see different angles. The one exception is that if something has been thoroughly debunked over a long period, e.g. Net Zero, then it gets short shrift at sane sites such as OoL, Julia's or ours across the way ... sites where we do deep dives, do our homework before mouthing off.

Uh huh.  So what's the issue?  This is:

Now, there's zero point arguing with them as it's a bit like someone trying to get justice for DJT.  So Letitia James flags it, on the phone to Obama, the case is heard in NYC by Jack Smith, with a handpicked anti Trump jury.  Hardly justice, is it?  Zero percentage for the defamed and that's the case with all issues today, e.g. the raped girls seeking justice or the vaxx injured and dead.

So, moving past that ... that post has clearly gone forever ... the more important issue is the toerag or toerags who "flagged" it to a known-known unjust committee and once again, truth bites the dust.

Now, moving even further along, Julia is a libertarian, I am a "classical liberal" in the sense of freedom afap but if there is a clear enemy trying to harm us or in blig terms, a hostile troll ... well it's insanity to allow them. Yes, so there are two readers only on permamoderation, put there by me, plus I request you use a moniker, not Anon by itself, or Unknown. Occasionally the Blgr comments mechanism plays up with that, so it's a fluid situation.

The libertarians and classical liberals can argue this point until the cows come home. It still doesn't alter the situation that some toerag flagged the post and I was given no say, except by kangaroo court or star chamber.

On the other hand, this is a known-known, par for the course ... we makes our choices, we takes our chances.  And we can never be free of trolling.  Just one more thing ... if by some chance anything happened to OoL, you know where Julia blogs from, you know where I do. Keep your eyes open, dear sane reader.

If the people themselves are ecstatic, does that count for nothing?

Seems good reading tactics for any of us to firstly note who's saying it and give a score as to their bias ... just because it's Woke establishment Uniparty MSM ... there might be the occasional snippet which escaped others but by and large ... avoid that lot.

With unknowns, also beware of empire building "new media" types, faux "right" trying to get you to buy them a coffee. They're not involved in truth except as a commodity as part of their burgeoning media empire, as they see it unfolding on your money.

At the same time, out and out trolls abound ... they speak of "Democracy", "The People", taxing "wealth" ... dead giveaway. They want rancour, slanging matches online, bggr up any understanding by us, have us at each other's throats.

So keep eyes open for snippets, almost never delivered in organised fashion in "journo pieces" ... avoid slick "journo pieces" like the plague.

Take this one for example, via NOWP, our Steve:

Is Nick Shirley’s Somali Exposé an Astroturfed Diversion For Special Interests? | https://armageddonprose.substack.com/p/is-nick-shirleys-somali-expose-an

All right, apply all the caveats you've learnt, do due diligence on the writer(s) but by the same token ... interesting viewpoint when combined with this from X:

There's certainly a major game going on and players are keeping cards close to the chest, whilst engaged in subterfuge behind and beneath it.  Maduro?  Sure there are major questions ... bemusing when establishment types suddenly come out about "international law" ... utter bollox.

Yet what are Donny's true motives?  Oil?  Precious minerals?  I can't help thinking it might be all of those, plus his mania to make the US militarily fearsome again, economically too. Crowds of Venezuelans worldwide are an added bonus.

What should we think of the unbridled delight of Venezuelan people?  Well ... first question is ... is the footage real or like all the faux footage of Them?  Paid actors bussed in etc.?

Let's say the Venezuelans in general are delighted, let's say it does bggr up the drug trade a bit, or at least puts it under US letter agency control ... well I for one am forced to go with the Venezuelan people on this one.  Sure it's not cut and dry, sure the people have been fooled before ... look at Reform voters ... but the thing we cannot get past is that they really are the people of the land, the sovereign "owners" of the land.

I don't mean in tricky dicky laws ... yes, we know that Them run it all. I mean in terms of right and wrong.

Ripping Off The UK Taxpayer For Africa!

Almost £1 million of taxpayer cash is being spent on compiling an archive of African films in a ‘reparatory justice’ project. The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is paying £850,000 for scholars to explore Africa’s ‘audiovisual heritage’.

Shouldn't take long!  

A further £250,000 is being provided by Oxford, King’s College and Liverpool universities, which are leading the work.

All the virtuesignallers are there with their hands out... 

Scholars also aim to ‘repatriate’ footage currently kept in the ‘Global North’ so that it can be more easily seen by people in Africa. They will take the archives on tour in Africa to ‘sites of encounter with young African creatives’.

I hope when they get to Nigeria they opt to travel by train rather than road. 

AHRC, which hands out £70 million a year in grants, is a subsidiary of UK Research Innovation (UKRI) which is funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

No, it's funded by the poor bloody longsuffering taxpayer, actually. 

William Yarwood at the TaxPayers' Alliance added: ‘At a time when families are being squeezed from every angle, pouring almost £1 million into an academic project involving “decolonisation film archives” is staggeringly out of touch.

Which isn't a shock to anyone, but how to stop this drain of our taxes...? 

The dilemma for those Reform/Advance/Rupert inclined at the ballot box

First a bit of housekeeping. Both Julia and I, though close, are still independent to the point we run separate full-on blogs, which do take work, plus we both have a daily presence on X, exchanging banter all day. Grandpa I was in touch with recently and he's more or less retired, the moreso after what the NHS did to his late wife.

I'm not happy that comments of yours can be hours before approving and a few times I've been caught out myself, being tied up in Unherdables biz. I do come into Orphans a few times over the day as it has its own regular reader/commenter base but of course there's also overlap. We try.

...

And so to this thorny topic ... whom to vote for, assuming we'll still be voting next time, given the Fabian, WEFer, EU notion that we're now post-democracy and the blackshirts and white robes are gathering in every town and village to go door to door to slaughter, while the weaponised constabulary go door to door, even through upstairs windows, to arrest and incarcerate.

Having said that, we antiWoke, antiUniparty folk who still pay taxes do have dilemmas regarding voting, should there still be this thing called voting.

In my case, within walking distance of the polling station, there is now extant danger ... gangs of marauding cultists gathered to attack "whites" or "infidels".  They are real, I've seen them, they are marauding, we hear the horror stories as well. Govt answer? Postal vote, after doing the digital ID bit. No way for me ... never have, never will.

Let's imagine I do get to the polling station on an uncancelled polling day and have a ballot paper in my hand, knowing that whatever box I put an X in, this is is/was a solidly red rosette area. To whom should be given the single, solitary X (leaving aside all the fraud, inc. the Electoral Commission?

Well, it depends, does it not, on just who the candidates are. After skipping over any Uniparty LibLabConGreenSocialist names, we're left with the others. One or two are independent, sometimes regulars on the paper but largely unknown to me.  Then come the crucial names ... Reform, Advance, whatever Rupert's one is called. Were there a Jess Gill Women's Safety Initiative lady there, by chance, I'd certainly look at that name to vote for.

Why even turn up?  Well I feel I should, esp. given Starmer in power with 20% of the vote, everything a lie.  The dilemma is summed up by this lady, a very middle middle class taxpayer, in middle England:

Against that is that chap:

Trying to put Rupert in prison by lying and us not liking that, not trusting the cabal at the head of Reform is "smallmindedness", is it?  Just that?  Given this:

Then we need to consider other aspects, inc. Tice and bird in Qatar.

We really do have a dilemma ... and that's before the Tommy factor.

If Someone Doesn't Record A Song Called 'Pink Platypus' To The Tune Of 'Pink Pony Club'

....then I've lost my faith in humanity.

Cody Stylianou thought he saw a huge trout. But, skimming just below the surface, it was moving differently than a fish would. The creature surfaced and, amazed, the Victorian fisher reached for his phone. Swimming in front of him was a pink platypus.

Here come the scientists to cast cold water on a charming concept, though: 

After Stylinaou shared footage of the monotreme, commenters online speculated that it could have been a rare albino platypus. But the biologist Jeff Williams says it is just lighter in colour than what most would expect. “Platypus do vary a lot in colour,” the director of the Australian Platypus Conservancy says. “And this one’s at the extreme end of the light ones. It’s not one that we consider should be added to the list of albino and leucistic ones.”

Oh Jeff, where's your soul...? 

Street scenes in different countries

Greetings on New Year, readers ... Julia spoke for both of us last evening.

We tend at Orphans to run mainly Britcentric fayre but do mention events in other places. Thinking what to put up this morning, what crystallised in the blurry NYD brain was why not post just a few street scenes, including those in Iran, which is the main news coming out at 7:30 a.m. GMT.

Going to post some Brit, one Amsterdam and one Tehran scene below. At Unherdables, I'll expand the Iran situation as a separate post.

Our isles over the past few days

Amsterdam overnight:

Tehran last few days:

Have a wonderful New Year, dear readers ... you are much appreciated.

New Year’s Greetings

Well, we are now into 2026, albeit only just, and James and I extend our warmest wishes for a happy New Year to all our readers, and surely, it must be a better one than 2025 turned out? 

Take it away, Carol Ann Duffy: 

I drop the dying year behind me like a shawl
and let it fall. The urgent fireworks fling themselves
against the night, flowers of desire, love’s fervency.
Out of the space around me, standing here, I shape
your absent body against mine. You touch me as the giving air.

Most far, most near, your arms are darkness, holding me,
so I lean back, lip-read the heavens talking on in light,
syllabic stars. I see, at last, they pray at us. Your breath
is midnight’s, living, on my skin, across the miles between us,
fields and motorways and towns, the million lit-up little homes.

This love we have, grief in reverse, full rhyme, wrong place,
wrong time, sweet work for hands, the heart’s vocation, flares
to guide the new year in, the days and nights far out upon the sky’s
dark sea. Your mouth is snow now on my lips, cool, intimate, first kiss,
a vow. Time falls and falls through endless space, to when we are.

Too Little, And Far, Far Too Late...

Two people have been arrested after allegedly shouting slogans calling for “intifada” during a protest by pro-Palestinian demonstrators in London, police said. Five people in total were detained outside the Ministry of Justice in Westminster on Wednesday evening, with further arrests for obstruction and public order offences.

It came after a change in approach from the Met and Greater Manchester police, who announced earlier on Wednesday they would arrest anyone chanting the words “globalise the intifada” or holding a placard with the phrase on it.

And all it took for the police to finally act was the slaughter of innocent Jewish citizens in another country. 

The chiefs of both forces said attacks against Jewish people in Manchester, where two died, and in Sydney, Australia, where 16 died, including one of the alleged killers, meant new rules now applied. In a joint statement, the Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, and GMP chief constable, Sir Stephen Watson, said: “The words and chants used, especially in protests, matter and have real-world consequences. 

“We have consistently been advised by the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] that many of the phrases causing fear in Jewish communities don’t meet prosecution thresholds. Now, in the escalating threat context, we will recalibrate to be more assertive. 

Sure, blame the CPS. Despite the fact you're well aware that the process itself can be the punishment, when you want to use it that way.

“We know communities are concerned about placards and chants such as ‘globalise the intifada’ and those using them at future protests or in a targeted way should expect the Met and GMP to take action. 

We'll see if this holds up longer than the headlines it's garnered you... 

The smart money's on 'No!'

“Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed – words have meaning and consequence. We will act decisively and make arrests.”

'Sorry about that, but we're raring to do our job now, just watch us' - I've never been so ashamed of the UK police in my life.

Somaliland

The most visible issue in Britain would be this Egyptian but truly, it's been done to death, while one is developing in Minnesota ... also highly publicised ... but less publicised is Somaliland.  You wot?

And so:

Interesting, eh?

Sounds About Right For This Government..

Crayfish, weevils and fungi are being released into the environment in order to tackle invasive species across Britain.

What? Which idiot is doing this? Didn't they learn what a bad idea it is? 

Scientists working for the government have been breeding species in labs to set them loose into the wild to take on Japanese knotweed, signal crayfish and Himalayan balsam, and other species that choke out native plants and wildlife.

I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, then, it dseems whrn you are a scientist who works for the government, the paycheck is everything... 

They are doing this, in part, to meet tough targets set by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in its recently announced environmental improvement plan. Ministers have directed the Animal and Plant Health Agency (Apha) to reduce the establishment of invasive species by 50% by 2030.

And they immediately said: 'Cool! Let's import and release some more!' That's the calibre of 'scientist' we are talking about here.

The biosecurity minister and Labour peer Sue Hayman said: “With a changing climate we are constantly assessing for new risks and threats, including from invasive plants and animals, as well as managing the impacts of species already in this country. Invasive non-native species cost Britain’s economy nearly £2bn a year, and our environmental improvement plan sets out plans to reduce their establishment to protect native wildlife and farmers’ livelihoods.”

The idea that this wretched government cares about farmer's livelihoods is the most insane thing about this news item! 

This creep being brought back to the UK

This post is in three parts, in three places on the net ... below is a list of MPs who called for him to be brought back from an Egyptian prison ... over at Unherdables are some comments on it ... X has the creep's utterances many times over.

These signatories were attached to the request to Starmer last year to bring the terrorist back.

Post Christmas, pre New Year

This is our first feeble attempt to reconnect with the Orphans "community", such as you good folk are. Hope Christmas and Boxing were good ... they were with me and I believe so with Julia too.

Orphans is an interesting concept, the admins both having their own main sites and yet Orphans itself has its own history and life, its own readers. There are posts I'd not put up here, the more "out there" type. I'm thinking Julia has some affection for the site as well for which she's numero uno admin.

So, thinking it was time to reopen for business, suddenly there was this by Lucy C:

The "I will never throw these away" bit ... well yes. I've heard and read many a caustic comment about "online friends not being friends" ... yeah?  There are very real friends I have, e.g. in the US, Canada, Russia, the antipodes ... very real, more real than in this area and yet my immediate neighbours and I just exchanged gifts ... so that can be real too.

The obvious difficulty for us online is if Them pull the plug.  There are ways around it but most don't know them ... it involves servers etc. and requires a certain knowledge base.

And it is worth it ... much good can be done.  For example, there is an onliner originally from here, married a NZer who had a medical horror ... people from all over are praying for her ... and him:

It takes not a lot on our part to try to help sustain someone and online is peculiarly suited to such a thing. (By the way, that moniker is a reference to a fine northern ale from this fair land.)

Merry Christmas all you orphans of liberty

 

Julia and I would like to wish all readers a resoundingly good Christmas ... there does seem a resurgence and many who are not particularly religious are joining in this year. We know the issues we all face, the very survival of western nations and this is one of the first rallying cries ... there seems to be some sort of groundswell.

It just remains to wish you all a safe, illness-free Christmas Day, with lots of cheer and bonhomie. There may or may not be a short hiatus in posting ... depends how out of it we get.

The Outlets Aren't There And The Money's Not There Because Trust In Journalism's Not There Anymore

One morning last month, Seymour Hersh set off to buy a newspaper. The reporter walked for 30 minutes, covered six blocks of his neighbourhood, Georgetown in Washington DC, and didn’t see a single sign of life. No newsstands on street corners selling the glossies and the dailies. No self-service kiosk where you can slide in a dollar and pull out a paper. “Finally, I found a drugstore that had two copies of the New York Times in the back,” Hersh recalls. He bought one for himself. He can’t help but wonder whether anybody bought the second.

Probably not, they were all comfortably scrolling through their social media feeds instead.

Hersh has been a staff writer at the New York Times and the New Yorker. He’s broken stories on Vietnam, Watergate, Gaza and Ukraine. But the free press is in crisis, newspapers are in flux and investigative journalism may be facing a deadline of its own. “I don’t think I could do now what I did 30, 40, 50 years ago,” says the now 88-year-old. “The outlets aren’t there. The money’s not there. So I don’t know where we all are right now.”

You're up that well-known creek. And you don't appear to have a paddle... 

Editors and management might claim they want good stories, but in practice they fear them, because scoops tend to cause trouble and involve a big fight. Tellingly, the film includes an archive clip of Hersh speaking on stage in the 1970s. He says: “What we have here in America is not so much censorship as self-censorship by the press.”

That 'self-censorship' - is it in the room with you right now, Seymour?  

If that was true then, Poitras says, it’s doubly so today. She’s alarmed not just by Trump’s authoritarian push to stifle a free press but by the alacrity with which several media giants have already rolled over.

The situation is parlous, Poitras says. “What we’re seeing in the US is the preemptive capitulation of institutions to avoid a legal battle they would have won. That’s shameful. I don’t know how they explain that to themselves. It’s the worst precedent you can possibly set.”

They clearly don't have your certainty that they'd have won. 

“There are no gatekeepers on information any more,” says Obenhaus. “The so-called legacy media is so dispersed. And without that centre – that base – it’s hard for good journalism to break through, which means people are increasingly relying on unreliable sources. It troubles me tremendously that the Sy Hersh of today might be writing on Substack or some other platform – and you’d never even hear of them unless the algorithm connected you to their work.”

Times have changed, maybe you should change with them, because when I want the truth about a story in the headlines, I no longer look to the legacy media for it... 

The greenhouse effect bollox

Peter Clack here is the author ... seems to be expat Brit in Oz ... this is not the AC/DC drummer.

Starmer The Puppy Killer...

The Government has “fired the starting gun” on its pledge to ban trail-hunting as it confirms that a consultation will be launched early next year – and the community is ready to fight. Defra minister Angela Eagle reiterated Labour’s manifesto promise of a ban, in parliament on 30 October, and stated that the consultation will be on “how to deliver a full ban” – not whether or not a ban should be imposed. 

I guess he's figured out nothing he could do will improve his ratings, so he may as well go full 'Cruella DeVille'.

Ed Swales, chair of campaign group Hunting Kind, told H&H the news is “further misguided and prejudiced rhetoric from a Government so out of touch with its rural and farming electorate that it would be laughable if it wasn’t so damaging to people’s lives”.

Not to mention the lives of the unwanted hounds and horses that will be culled as a result of any ban, plus the loss of rural jobs tied to the sport... 

“This is an election loser for Labour when balanced against today’s real-life priorities,” he said. “This latest attack is not about animal welfare nor ever has been. It’s a wilfully ignorant and discriminatory attempt at a human versus human conflict couched around an ill-informed and anthropomorphic view of how we coexist with nature. “To conflate the unquestionably legal equine and canine sport of following trails with the scientific, ethical and cultural basis of wildlife management is to highlight a complete lack of understanding, again. This rides roughshod over the protectable beliefs of a community cultural minority and tramples diversity into the ground.”

It's an unedifying sight, that of unthinking instinctive killers salivating at the prtospect of sinking their teeth inro a long-standing enemy, isn't it?  Especially when they avoid the prey the nation would rather they pursued....

A bleak midwinter post

Usually, your humble pundit does not do personals at Orphans but I just had to today, once I saw Yorkshire Wolds Weather's magnifipic at his X site, gained his permission:

Think my time in Russia reinforced the mindset on the magnificence of winter, when nature takes her rest, everything becomes calmer, quieter, the hush of introspection usually sets in, not even the politicians can overcome the festive, yet soft mood.

Of late, I've been going back over last century, plus this one ... when events happened, what generation was in control at the time, what age I was, what music and film was popular ... for example, I have a 1941 B film up at the blog just now ... and one thing quite clear is that from 1946, the generations do go in 17 year cycles, give or take ... 1946, 63, 80, 97, 2014.

But it's only today that I realised just how much Midwinter's Day or the Solstice or whatever you call it ... through to the day after Orthodox Christmas/Pascha, which is also the day after our Twelfth Night, maybe even the following weekend which is Orthodox New Year ... just how much it means in my heart and soul ... and it all kicks off today. I feel I'm at winter's gate today, with so many festive things still to follow.

In Russia, we used to drive to the forest, get out the BBQ and have prepared, marinaded shasliki and salads, plenty of imbibing going on as well ... even in minus 12C, it did not feel cold with the winter sun on the carpet of glistening snow, little creatures poking their noses out to see what the commotion was about ... miles of silver birch trees in each direction. I do miss that.

But Britain also has fine walks, views, food and drink ... I'm thinking British winter cuisine is unsurpassed. Of course, North America is the goods too, esp. the leaf-peeping. Plus the Antipodes when their turn comes around.

The downside for me is that this is the shortest day and I do not welcome the lengthening ... sun going down before 4 p.m. is magic. Of course spring alleviates that ... new life, new shoots ... everyone likes that after the slush, but not everyone lives for the winter. I do.  My season ... maybe yours?

Our Steve across the way ran this song yesterday:

Of false flags and the inability of the antiWoke to combine

Let's open with a comment on X by a grandmother and former model, with dogs she walks morning and evening, what you'd call a typical antiWoke, "fatigued with it all in Britain right now" type, not in the least  Bully type, just dismayed with how Britain has gone down.

I used the term "false flag right", e.g. Boris Johnson, Theresa May but of late, they've refined it and there are some of the Reform "brass" just as much what would be called RINO in the States ... Yusuf-Farage-Tice are three:

... but there's another one they've just taken into their steering "committee":

Why can't the right unite?  Because we are not "the right" for a start, we against the Uniparty are a big tent, with everyone from slightly upper middle to working class on zero hours contracts ... how could we possibly agree on all matters?

Plus there is that false flagger in there at all times ... paid to be in there, stirring it up.  One of them wrote yesterday about the "Woke right" ... no such thing ... "right" is being used by the PTB as anti Fabian govt but actually, there are many on the anti-war Old Left also in with us.  The whole thing confuses and confounds.

All right, let's go to this by-election result from yesterday:

It was already Reform, yes, but still ... observe the Labour support.  And there's something else many might be unaware of ... one of the Reform councillors has called on the six dissidents from Reform to resign and force byelections.

Why?  Because they resigned over Yusuf-Farage's stunt of trying to jail Rupert Lowe and badmouth Tommy Robinson who has considerable support in Britain, not just within the working class.  Remember September 13th?  Whether 1m or 3m ... it was still many people.

So ... Reform looks good in Cornwall among the retired writing up their memoirs and what do the dissidents then do ... the dissidents being "the fatigued" who quite like Rupert Lowe but have not actually joined Advance?

Invidious situation because so many of our own lot, our own type, vote Reform at the moment, whether adoring "Nige" or else knowing his track record of betrayal and overlooking it ... or just not knowing at all.  And one such lady just followed me on X and I followed back.

Why?  Because we agree on issues facing Britain. As many of us here do. Bizarre situation.  Personally, I'd be delighted if there was a party which could shut the Uniparty out.

Only to be sold out by the Uniparty false flaggers on the steering committee. Already Sarah Pochin has had the rough end of that.

Was She Discovered Because She Was More Sensible Than The Adults?

Or just because she didn't have an OnlyFans account, unlike all the other female prison officer candidates?

A child was accidentally recruited by bungling prison bosses to look after murderers and terrorists, the Daily Mail can reveal. Emily Frith worked as a prison officer at HMP Erlestoke in Devizes, Wiltshire, while still aged just 17.

And she has the nerve to blame them for being conned by her! 

Speaking to the Daily Mail, she said: 'It's shocking, prisons are supposed to be secure but nobody even did basic checks on me. Where was the safeguarding? I was a child placed in a dangerous environment and I could easily have been seriously hurt 

So you knew that and didn't mention it at any point? Why not? 

'At the time I thought it was a great job, I was earning a fortune for a 17-year-old. I was shadowing another officer but I was still out there chatting with inmates, helping with bang up, helping with counting. I was doing everything a trained prison officer would do 

Ah. Of course. Too busy enjoying the money! 

'It's embarrassing from the government. No wonder prisons are in the state they are in.'

With David Lamentable MP in charge, could they be anything else? 

Her age was only discovered by accident more than two weeks after she joined when she applied for mileage expenses for driving to training and a colleague noticed the date of birth on her driver's licence.

The implication being, if not for this, she'd still be there.... 

Sickening, destructive legislation

... knowingly, deliberately, dishonestly designed to destroy.  How to stop them?

Deliberately designed to distress and infuriate the people of the land ... it's more than psycho, it's sicko. And it must end.