Can't really wait for tomorrow for this

DAD across the way has just posted Leilani Dowding:

It Wasn’t ‘Smartphones And Online Spaces', It Was Parenting…

Under a Pink Sky is the story of two troubled kids – only one of whom survived to tell their story.

Yes, Reader, this is the news that the mother of Brianna Ghey has a book coming out, in her quest to become the new Doreen Lawrence. 'Under A Pink Sky' is the title, presumably because 'Screwing Up Your Kids For Dummies' was too on the nose...  

Ghey says there are so many parallels between her early life and Brianna’s. As a teenager, Esther Ghey was caught in a web of self-loathing. She had body dysmorphia, was desperate to be thinner, and told herself that nobody would ever love her the way she was. At times she was bullied; sometimes she picked on other children. Then she found drugs. She left school at 16 with no qualifications. “I had no self-worth because of that. I had no respect for myself, no respect for my body, no respect for my life, and that is such a sad, tragic, horrific place to be.” Brianna would go on to struggle with many of the same things: self-belief, school attendance, bullying. And while she was never hooked on drugs, Brianna was addicted to her smartphone and social media.

Incompetent screwed up parents raise incompetent screwed up kids. Is this really 'news'?

By the age of 20, Ghey was a single parent to two young children. She managed to get a house, hoped to make it a “safe haven” for her and her children, and failed miserably.

Shocker! Cue people saying she never had a chance to turn her life around. But wait! 

In her late 20s, now clean and a devoted mother, she started with a job as a cleaner at a car dealership before going back to college, initially doing an English GCSE. She did an access to health professions course, because at the time she wanted to be a nurse, completed a degree in nutrition at Liverpool Hope University, and eventually became a senior product development technologist for a food company.

But it made no difference in the end. 

For 14 years of Brianna’s life, she was Brett.

 No, he always was Brett. Allowing your son to don womanface doesn't make him your daught. Nothing will do that.

Through the book, Ghey makes a clear distinction. She refers to Brett as he, Brianna as she. Does it seem like two different people?

“It does, though that’s not necessarily because she went from Brett to Brianna, it’s just the natural stages of life. It was important for me to talk about Brett as well, because to understand where Brianna was at, you need to understand the whole life.”

I think we do. Poor child was doomed in the womb. 

What was Brett like? Her face lights up and her voice crackles with happiness. “Hyperactive, giddy, funny, always getting up to mischief. A cheeky little thing. Absolutely fearless. He taught himself gymnastics – he did backflips. I think of him bouncing around Asda, completely uncontrollable but also completely full of joy. And so kind. When he was young, he had an asthma appointment and as he was leaving he went to give the doctor a hug. He was so full of love. That kind of love started seeping away once I’d given him the phone. The impact the phone had on his mental health is stark. I believe it took my child away from me.” There’s a tremor in her voice, and Ghey starts crying.

You're blaming the technology?  Really? 

Brett had so many issues, she says – body dysmorphia and dysphoria, asthma, ADHD, appalling eyesight, autism (then undiagnosed).

Brianna was a mass of contradictions: desperate for attention in the digital world, but terrified of the real world.

Because he spent so little time in it, thanks to a mother who allowed him never to face reality. 

“My relationship with Brianna was so bad because all I wanted to do was help her, but because I wasn’t backing down, we were having lots of arguments.” Brianna became abusive and violent. When Ghey confiscated her phone, she punched holes in her bedroom walls.

“I saw how addicted she was to her phone through her behaviour,” Ghey says, “because I’ve been through it myself. Smartphones have been built to be addictive. Social media is built to keep you on there as long as possible. It’s the attention economy.”

And that's why you're writing a book. Don't decry the 'addiction of attention' while you yourself are shooting up on it. 

Women's Day

To explain my personal attitude, (Grandpa might differ, maybe not), I wrote this, mainly to post on X:

Obviously, our Julia is part of the "good but devastating" lot.

Voters of Reform at daggers drawn

This is one of those posts where the intro would lengthen it beyond reason … as the Reform split happened yesterday, I was Xing, then screenshooting what seemed the most relevant, then posting at Unherdables HQ, accessible via my link in the sidebar.

Short summary was that Farage used an expensive legal eagle to withdraw the whip from Rupert Lowe … I think Friday afternoon, that can be checked. Just as in the U.S., they found two birds to allege highhanded impropriety in order to stop Lowe’s popularity.  However, it’s far more than that …

The one alleging, sending the highhanded letter to Rupert was this Zia character who’d been parachuted into the chairmanship unelected … check out his bio on Wiki.  Rupert, being a British farmer, is of that stock … and therein lies the true issue here.

A dissenting opinion is Tice’s Arab-country-residing honey:

That had been my view of it all at first … to somehow hold it all together for the sake of all the footslogging Reform soldiers … but the depth of feeling is quite intense across the membership and Farage’s and Anderson’s move, at the wormtonguing of this Zia moneybags, has disgusted much of the rank and file.

It’s true that X is but one platform but it’s the main one used by Reform members, seen by millions, inc. Donny and Elon.  Here are some other comments:

Dismay on our part? Methinks it’s better to have this out now … I’d suggest the teal colours of TBP to the light blue … the name of the new party whatever.

Now, apparently there’s also a Homeland Party, a Heritage Party and the controlled opp UKIP rump … what will they do?

More NetZero Madness

Police cars, ambulances and fire engines will be charged to enter Bath’s Clean Air Zone (CAZ) from next month. A four-year exemption for emergency service vehicles and those used by voluntary groups in support of them, in place since the scheme launched in 2021, ends on March 14. Bath & North East Somerset Council leaders insist it will affect only a limited number of vehicles because 999 organisations have had such a long time to plan for them and make changes to their fleet.

But can they afford to, these wretched things being so much more expensive, even with the current desperation to clear them from the lots? 

But a report to Avon Fire Authority committee, which meets on Friday, February 14, said more than half of the service’s vehicles were still not CAZ-compliant and it would take another six years for them all to be.

And this isn't a ULEZ-type policy - this doesn't affect private vehicles, astonishingly enough: 

Private cars and motorbikes are not charged to enter the zone, no matter how polluting they are, although higher emission taxis and private hire cars are. 

Only the Lib Dems could come up with such a half-arsed plan... 

B&NES Council deputy leader and cabinet member for climate emergency and sustainable travel Cllr Sarah Warren (Lib Dem, Bathavon North) said: “Since 2019, Bath & North East Somerset Council has worked closely alongside emergency service providers to support them in reducing the impact of the introduction of a Clean Air Zone in Bath, including a four-year exemption from charges across whole fleets. This exemption has allowed emergency service organisations four additional years to consider the steps that could be taken to prepare for the end of the exemption, including vehicle upgrade, retrofit and fleet redistribution, and we are supportive of the changes that have been made to date. 

“The council was directed by government to introduce a category C CAZ with traffic management in Queen Square following significant modelling, consultation and engagement. This was selected to achieve compliance in the shortest possible time whilst reducing the negative financial impact on low-income households, rural communities and residents living within the CAZ.”

And now you're going to penalise the very emergency services that these low-income communities rely on.  

Bend over, laddy, and take what’s coming

Rolf at Now and Next provides a wunnerful service in that he actually looks at PMQ and analyses it, something which is the last thing I’d do mesel’ … so here it is:

HERE

Right … moving along … Donny has provided the Uniparty, according to Rolf, with some form of reconciliation, pretending they’re all chums and clubby again … obviously at the expense of the indefensible Rupert … but even Lee and he were quiet on Donny’s antics across the pond.

What a convenient bete noire Donny became for the Uniparty, yes? The notion that this lot, plus Macaroni and his nukes keeping Europe “safe”, are in some sense chums for the good of Britland … we supposedly saved America’s hide in WW2 … well sorry … this is the lowest form of disingenuity and charlatanism I’ve seen in a long, long while!

No, I do not forgive and forget as the agenda is genocidal, sorry and it needs to end asap, one way or the other. I suspect many across the land feel the same but at the same time, what must be fake polls are being pumped out, esp. on X and on the MSM, showing Labour has gallantly clawed its way back into the “lead” by a widening margin and even the Tories are threatening Reform’s “previous” dominance.

Now … what if it were actually the case that today’s sunshine, the warmer temps, TDS and the spirit of British forgiveness no matter what Them are doing to you … pure public school “take your beating, laddy, and be thankful, ra ra ra” (see Tomkinson’s Schooldays in the Ripping Yarns series) … what if that’s how the Great British Unwashed really are thinking just now?

Mustn’t grumble, eh? We had worse during the Blitz … anyway, those yanks were late for the wars anyway, wot? The theme was also played out in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.

As another Rupert Lowe, I ask just what, of the things Sir Charisma Bypass (TM IYE) is doing and has planned to do to the plebs … just which of those fall into the “forgive and forget” category, ra ra ra?

For if there is anything whatever to the fake polls, what a sorry state of affairs … bend over, laddy and take what’s coming to you from your betters above. You can always tell if they’re The Betters as they’re the ones turning parliamentary salaries into seven figure value by some miracle, who fly on endless Lindsay Hoyle jollies to the Bahamas etc. … 

George Carlin said it was a big club, and you’re not in it … I’d say it’s a small, exclusive club … excluding those not willing to sell their souls and trample over the indigenous of the sceptred isles.

More, Faster, Donald!

The Trump administration can for now continue its mass firings of federal employees, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, rejecting a bid by a group of labor unions to halt Donald Trump’s dramatic downsizing of the roughly 2.3 million-strong federal workforce. The ruling by the US district judge Christopher Cooper in Washington DC federal court is temporary while the litigation plays out.

But it is a win for the Trump administration as it seeks to purge the federal workforce and slash what it deems wasteful and fraudulent government spending.

Oh, how we so desperately need a UK version of DOGE...

In a statement released last Wednesday, NTEU president Doreen Greenwald said: “We will not stand idly by while this administration takes illegal actions that will harm citizens, federal employees and the economy.”

She went on to add: “All of these orders are further evidence that this administration is motivated not by efficiency, but by cruelty and a total disregard for the government services that will be lost.”

If they can be 'lost' so easily, they weren't worth having in the first place. That's rather the point. 

Meanwhile, while our fighting men are away …

There are, at 02:50 this morning, fourteen items I’ve prepared (redacted) to post.  The seemingly most throwaway, most lightweight, by a lightweight girl, doing exactly as she’s accusing the Uke flagwavers of doing … is actually the least answerable … in fact, is the core of our issue as a society in an immediate sense … plus it’s precisely the issue our enemy within is counting on, putting all its chips on to win.

Right off the bat, I can say that this girl is one of the last you’d draft to meet the deathcult army ready to slaughter the defenceless. However much gym she does, it would still be a knife through butter.  Ditto every Woke soyboy, almost all girls, certainly the elderly, of course we must add adolescent and younger children to that, plus any importees from other countries … any Woke left of fighting age, male or female … it goes on … almost no use in a real fight, in house to house combat.

It takes Alex from Oz, I think, to lay it out:

Who then would be of use, if trained? Well obviously our armed forces … what is it … ten thousand battle ready, to face their ten million or so?  But what has the Llama Harmer just announced?  The cream of our forces is to go off to a charnel house thousands of miles away … not to be here on our soil when the word goes out to the deathcult to attack.

Who’d be still here, of realistic fighting potential? Non forces men, e.g. football lads … some clerks and similar, some businessmen of the younger sort.  Doesn’t look good, does it?  America?  Don’t forget Bondi is trying to remove guns from people, quite contrary to 2A.  Plus the Donald has gone Monroe Doctrine.

We’re on our own, mateys … with a Dad’s Army and some planes.

Leilani’s not wrong about flagwaving, demonstrations, candles, kumbaya … what does it achieve? Even the powerful farmers … how have they changed the monster Starmer? Not in the bleedin’ least.  Agenda.

Why is the middle class and skilled working not removing Starmer?

No legal mechanism, is there? The moment they leave their jobs, the homes they’re trying to keep afloat, and try … ten years in the slammer or worse.

So, there must come a time, must there not?

No Doubt This Will Be Used As 'One Of The Perils Of WFH'..?

A crooked tax officer who embezzled thousands of pounds from HMRC to pay off her mortgage has been jailed for two years. Joanne Connell took advantage of her position in the bankruptcy team to swipe £193,000 between April and September 2022.

How was someone like this ever in a position where she could manage this? 

Connell had worked for HMRC for approximately 15 years in various roles. At the time of the offence, she was an administrative officer in the bankruptcy team. The court heard that Connell created fraudulent credits while working from home using her HMRC laptop.

And it'll be seized on as a reason to stop all WFH, despite the fact that she could have done the same from behind a desk in the office, if their security is that lax that a low grade such as this can bypass any checks on her work, both managerial and system-based.  

Connell was off work with ill health in June 2022 after having been admitted to hospital. She subsequently indicated to her managers that she had difficulty understanding and following instructions.

Isn't that a requirement in her job description? 

However, an HMRC investigation revealed Connell continued to embezzle money throughout her sick leave. She will now be subject to confiscation action under Proceeds of Crime legislation to recover monies illegally obtained.

I'm only surprised they didn't commend her on her work ethic! 

Norway and sanity

Let’s start with Norway itself:

All right … now to the incident, following Zelensky’s behaviour, where the Norwegian tanker refused to refuel the US warship-sub-whatever … Mike Benz:

Not running the clip, just a shot from it.

And another post I saw in passing:

The UK, of course, has no gas industry … it has thousands of bird choppers, solar farms and Psycho Miliband.

Oh and millions of invaders plus Starmer and Rachel from Accounts.