Winter fuel allowance

Brillo (AF Neil) wrote:

“Quite remarkable how the Twitter Left cavalierly dismiss the loss of the winter fuel allowance for 10m pensioners as “they can afford it”. Some can. But they have no idea how many more will be hit by it. And, of course, if the Tories had done this the very same twitterati would have been moaning about the “evil blood-sucking Tories”.”

It’s actually a mixed argument. WFA was, or maybe still is, based largely on Pension Credit, which is for “citizens” (another discussion in itself) and involves a “top up” payment to those under a certain income threshold.

That is also another discussion but if that’s what it remains, then … well let’s get onto people with higher incomes still receiving it. Last thing I’m going to do is support any move of Labour’s as it’s to find taxpayer money to fritter away on the climate bollox and on the illegal army.

Phillip Dilley, X reader, added:

“Especially when you read that they are allocating £130 million to build mosques (???) I don't think they pay for churches or synagogues to be built do they ? Even worse they are sending £3.5 billion to Zelensky to stoke up the war in that far off land + £30 billion for net 0!”

“Neil Clark added:

“Absolutely. It’s sickening. But I don’t think it’s the real left supporting this but anti-Tory Starmer-supporting ‘centrists’. Who have very loud voices in the punditocracy.”

Nicholas G added:

“But the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, published analysis wm ch he said showed almost 4,000 more pensioners' lives would be at risk throus being unable to heat their homes.”

This could go on and on and on.

Yet More Security Theatre Legislation

The inclusion of both the Hillsborough Law and Martyn’s Law in the King’s Speech is a big moment for people power. Assuming they are implemented, these measures will do very different things – the first places a duty on public officials to comply fully with inquiries and requires bereaved families to be given fair legal funding. The second will ensure that public venues cater for the threat of terrorism in their risk planning.

Those public venues being any holding 100 or more. So your local church hall hosting women’s whist drives and bake sales, plus your neighbourhood pub, must now have a terrorism risk assessment and plan. Who thinks that’s sensible, or necessary?

The Hillsborough families have been fighting for justice on various fronts since 1989 but calls for this piece of specific legislation grew out of the second coroner’s inquests into the football disaster, which ended in 2016 and established that those who died were unlawfully killed. The inquests became an adversarial battle between the families and agencies including the police, and the law was proposed to stop other bereaved families from going through the same thing. It means there will be “a duty on public authorities and servants to tell the truth and proactively assist inquiries”, says Pete Weatherby KC, one of its chief architects.

But what the Hillsborough families have been fighting for could be said to be ‘absolution’, not justice and they’ve already had it. So why the need for more kow-towing to them? 

Martyn’s Law, meanwhile, was the brainchild of Figen Murray, whose son Martyn Hett was murdered in the 2017 Manchester Arena attack. The venue had been under no legal duty to provide a plan in case of a terror attack. Figen noticed this gap in the legislation relating to safety at public venues and made it her personal mission to close it.

I don’t disagree that Martyn was failed, but can it be said that he was exclusively failed by the venue, and only by the venue? Do the police and ambulance services not bear some of that criticism?

Martyn’s Law went through two public consultation exercises, the second of which was prompted by criticism of the proposed legislation from the Home Affairs Select Committee last spring. The committee had warned that it had “serious concerns” about the financial burden that could be placed on smaller venues. It also said the aims of the bill as it stood were “unclear”.

And despite that, it was rammed home regardless. To win votes, I guess. 

Troubled times

A number of readers (not sure how many) are aware that my main blog was deleted by ggl two days ago … they’d spammed one of our main contributors, I reinstated the post … wham, that was it. 18 years of posts and comments down the gurgler. Like that.

The two current sites are:

https://jameshigham.substack.com

… and the same old:

https://nourishingobscurity.wordpress.com

On my X timeline, antiWoke regulars mysteriously disappeared as well. On the other hand, it is the Silly Season … posts from years back were about July and August being the worst months for blogging … this year’s break from boredom being the so-called Olympics which we knew would be bad.

Just on that topic, far too many of our colleagues are being played like violins by the evil muvvers organising all the mayhem these days … in this case, the IOC.  Consider these two tweets from antiWoke tweeters, two of the last ones from our side not falling prey to the con trick:

Now … reading those, what’s the self-respecting antiWoke warrior’s immediate reaction?  Well 80% of the nonWoke, I’d estimate, rushed like sheep to defy that and plastered pictures and footage of the vile “ceremony” all over the net, thereby doing the evil muvvers’ job for them … they relied on silly conservatives taking the red rag of that bull and striking a blow for perversion by inflicting the Paris ordure on everyone else.

My X timeline has … had … dozens of nature and history tweeters … not now … thanks to my antiWoke colleagues plastering filfth all over the timeline. Not the Woke left doing this, mind you … nope, these were my own colleagues and friends. Thank you very much.

Vile images

After the twentieth time I was forced to see, on my timeline, something I completely personally avoided yesterday, I broke into print on X:

I then named many I’ve muted (not blocked as they’re essentially good people) who have this fanatical need to do the vile creeps’ work for them … rushing anything to us that the creeps do, in order to ruin all our days.

There are ways to still get the point across … for example, one Xer showed footage of an angry Parisien dumping one of the vile props used in a skip. That and text are more than enough to get across to us what happened at Paris’s worst Olympics ever.

We All Know Who's Really Not Thinking Straight...

A Labour MP has hit out at a primary school for getting young children to pose with a trans-inclusive pride flag. Rosie Duffield said the 'tiny' pupils could not understand the concepts of sexuality and gender identity they were being encouraged to celebrate, and should be left alone to discover them when older.

She spoke out after campaigners spotted that the London school had posted publicly on social media a photograph of an infant school class marking 'Pride Day' last month.

I wonder if - given schools are very wary about pictures of their pupils appearing on social media - they sought the approval of all the parents before hitting 'post'? I suspect they didn't, which is even more of a safeguarding issue than the genderwoo nonsense.  

One young boy held a sign stating: 'I can't even think straight.'

Too young to have the slightest clue what that means. But of course, schools consider children mere props for empty-headed virtuesignalling these days. They need to be reminded that they are not. By a court case, if necessary.   

The school put it on Twitter/X last Friday with the caption: 'Being proud of who we are and celebrating pride values.'

But amid a backlash yesterday [tues] the photo, along with several others showing older children with rainbow flags, was deleted from social media and the school's website. In previous years the school had asked pupils to wear bright colours on Pride Day and donate £1 which would go to controversial lobbying group Stonewall as well as to 'buy more inclusive resources'.

And the school have now turned a bit shy... 

The school did not respond to requests to comment.

I wonder why.  

Housekeeping note

Some OoL readers will be aware of this, regarding N.O. across the way:

I’ll make no comment during the risible “review” and ask that no one comment below this post … should you like to comment, please use NOWP or a blog I’ll soon publicise, called Jstack. Asking Julia here not to put through any comments under this post as it may threaten OoL itself. Thank you.

The joke of course was that they decided to do this today, the blog’s coming of age 18th birthday.

https://jameshigham.substack.com/p/the-main-site-for-nourishing-obscurity

This is one way it might be done

In my stories I wrote, a device used for women in particular to get themselves out of danger was a small gun firing a tranquillizer dart. There’d be obvious issues of how fast acting, whether the dart was retrievable etc. Also, it could be used by bad people on us.

Still, let’s say one existed, non-lethal, then there are a couple of options for officers … if the culprit is armed … gun, machete, knife … then he’s simply taken out by gunshot.

If there’s no obvious weapon but there was a crime in flagrante delicto, the non-lethal dart seems the humane way, esp. criminal twerps like students, brainwashed and egged on by professors. Determine which university and department … arrest the academic involved.

Why Is Science Bowing To Superstition?

'We know very little, practically nothing' about the creatures, Hannah Hendriks, marine technical adviser for the Department of Conservation, said. 'This is going to lead to some amazing science and world-first information.'

If the cetacean is confirmed to be the elusive spade-toothed whale, it would be the first specimen found in a state that would permit scientists to dissect it, allowing them to map the relationship of the whale to the few others of the species found, learn what it eats and perhaps lead to clues about where they live.

Some good news on the science front, at la...

Oh. Wait.  

This time, the beached whale was quickly transported to cold storage and researchers will work with local Maori iwi (tribes) to plan how it will be examined, the conservation agency said. New Zealand's Indigenous people consider whales a taonga - a sacred treasure - of cultural significance.

/facepalm 

In April, Pacific Indigenous leaders signed a treaty recognizing whales as 'legal persons,' although such a declaration is not reflected in the laws of participating nations.

Then why on earth is anyone consulting them on anything? What can they usefully add to this debate?  

Nothing is currently known about the whales' habitat.

And if science bows to superstition, we never will... 

Nothing whatever to do with Science

Take a quick shoofty at this:

Not wanting to colour this post blue, I'm just going to add that, on the grounds of most unsettled Science, the person who followed advice years ago and put in the Aga or whatever to do the right thing, just as people bought diesel cars, are at the whim of those knowing all this fully, who are grinning in their suits and yet still persist with armed state backing.

Perfect example in the States is this non-comp Stage Stooge Cheatle before the House.

Just as in Paris today with those ridiculous QR codes to go anywhere ... although, to be fair, it's the Olympics ... and the PTB currently need a black flag event, an atrocity, to distract and restart the Reset.

As we all really do know ... it's nothing to do with Science, it's all to do with pushing sgenda and guess who suffers first?

Their What? Are You Sure?

Doctors should use their status as a 'trusted member of the community' to warn patients about the dangers of climate change, health leaders say.

Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, wait, you're serious?

The Royal College of Physicians today issued new guidance that tells doctors to raise the topic during consultations and 'repeat it often'.

That's if you can actually get a consultation....

It calls on doctors to reduce carbon footprints by considering working from home - reducing their already-limited time with patients - and cutting back on prescriptions and tests.

They are also told to look out for people suffering 'eco-distress' - the name given to anxiety and depression caused by climate change.

One commenter, on a forum designed for GPs to share their views, described it as 'virtue signalling' with 'zero danger of any blame for the stuff that might be missed'. Another described the advice as 'no use to anyone and down right dangerous' warning it could possibly end the career of a doctor if they did not carry out a vital test or issue a prescription.

The document bills climate change as 'one of the biggest threats to human health' and stresses it will 'undoubtedly cause significant additional pressure for the NHS'. It warns that those working in the health service will be some of the first to see the health effects of climate change - 'if they have not done so already' - and calls on them to take action to reduce its impact.

Professor Ramesh Arasaradnam, academic vice president at the RCP, said: 'The need to act has never been more urgent and we hope that our Green Physician Toolkit will support the physician community with small steps that can make a difference.

'It can of course be challenging to prioritise sustainability at a time when there is very high demand for clinical care, but we have to keep in mind that reducing climate change and its health impacts is part of reduced pressure on the NHS in the long-term.'