Venues for the two London rallies-meets today

The anti-DID is at 1300:

The second is TR's Christian service at 1400:

We need to promote the up and comers, plus any newbies of good heart

Had a quick look at my 17 items waiting to be posted and saw that there were no real Brit items ... they usually kick in late morning. This is not strictly a Brit blog, Orphans, but it's certainly Britcentric ... I'm thinking tomorrow morning's post will cover one of the Stasi issues.

Please remember the two London rallies today ... No to Digital ID at 1 p.m. and TR's prayer meeting st 2 p.m.

Meanwhile, the only non-US issue I currently have is a "hiding to nothing post" on promoting fellow pundits, esp. Gen Zee.  On X, about two-thirds of my interaction is with females of all ages, being closest to Gen X, while Unherdables is heavily male-centric, Gen X/Boomer, though not exclusively.

Seems to me, and of course it would given my last twelve years of working life teaching, on average, 115 girls and 5 boys a year at university ... it seems to me that anyone either parent and/or teacher would be vitally interested in promoting "good" females of all ages, plus newbie males like Young Bob, plus ourselves of course ... our readers being our lifeline.

One gal downunder I try to promote is Kobie ... this below is disjointed, no thanks to X, but you might get the idea.  I'd commented on her post on the "far right":

This was that article.

By the way, that last one was our Julia having a weekend respite in York.  If you're going to venture into the gateway to God's Own Country, hope you drive out into that country ... try the North Riding and the NY Moors.

It's An Ask Now, What Will Happen When They Decline?

India’s telecoms ministry has privately asked smartphone makers to preload all new devices with a state-owned cybersecurity app that cannot be deleted, a government order showed, a move likely to antagonise Apple and privacy advocates.

And the people in the market for a smartphone, surely? Or don't they count? 

In tackling a recent surge of cybercrime and hacking, India is joining authorities worldwide, most recently in Russia, to frame rules blocking the use of stolen phones for fraud or promoting state-backed government service apps.

How long before Britain joins them?  

Apple, which has previously locked horns with the telecoms regulator over development of a government anti-spam mobile app, is among the companies, such as Samsung, Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi bound by the new order.  The 28 November order gives major smartphone companies 90 days to ensure that the government’s Sanchar Saathi app is pre-installed on new mobile phones, with a provision that users cannot disable it.

What about existing phones? Oh they have a plan for those too!  

For devices already in the supply chain, manufacturers should push the app to phones via software updates, the ministry said in its order, which was not made public and was sent privately to select companies.

Who ptromptly leaked it, shoeing just how likely they are to comply. 

A lawyer specialising in technology matters said India’s move was cause for concern, however.

“Apple has historically refused such requests from governments,” said Tarun Pathak, a research director at Counterpoint.

And they aren't about to start going along with this nonsense now... 

The eternal, conflicting schedules of antiWoke forces

There are two conflicting rallies in London this Saturday afternoon, as you'll see below.  Across the pond, there's the Erika versus Candace fight coming up on the 15th.  That latter I'll cover over at Unherdables ... the conflicting London rallies here.

All right ... I've written to both parties at X:

Unlike the forces arrayed against us, we of the anti-enemies-of-the-people are hopelessly disorganised, different groups proposing their own solutions, wanting support.  The bright among us would notice Emma's is at 1 p.m. and Tommy's at 2 p.m.  why are they not combined?

There's been a reply on X ... here tis:

That's reassuring.

Cut-Price Zebra Crossings?

A scheme that trialled the use of “unlawful” zebra crossings on side roads has been hailed a success after increasing the number of motorists who stop to let pedestrians cross the road.

But if they aren’t legal, why are they putting them in? Why aren’t they putting in legal ones? 

The initiative was launched by Westminster council on 11 side roads, at junctions with main roads such as Millbank, Horseferry Road, Pimlico Road and Wardour Steet. Typically, drivers exiting side roads – or turning in from main roads – tend not give way to pedestrians waiting to cross the road, despite being required to do so under a recent update of the Highway Code.But when “side road zebra crossings” were introduced, the trial found that drivers stopped on about 80 per cent of occasions – about double the number prior to their introduction.

So drivers aren’t recognising that they aren’t legal, clearly. Well, most of them, anyway! 

Westminster believes the results are so compelling that it is urging all 32 other London boroughs to follow its lead and introduce similar measures. Southwark is believed to be the next in line to do so.

A council urging other councils to do something illegal! Gosh, why isn’t this considered a scandal? Is it because it’s working?

Max Sullivan, Westminster’s cabinet member for streets, said the idea was “a rare unicorn… effective, popular and cheap”. He said: “I would like all boroughs to engage with it.”

You forgot ‘legal’, Max! Why isn’t it legal then? 

Mr Sullivan said that traditional zebra crossings cost £60,000 to £120,000 each to install, due to the electrical connections required. By comparison, the “side road zebras” can be installed for £20,000 to £25,000, a “fraction of the cost”, including the cost of monitoring, he said.

And when someone's eventually run down on one of them, what are the CPS going to charge the driver with? What is the victim going to sue the council for, for encouraging a belief that this was a safe road crossing? 

A tale of our beloved NHS

 

And today:

The NHS Is On It's Knees, Yet Has Time For This?

The HIV action plan, to be unveiled on World Aids Day on Monday, aims to re-engage the thousands of people who have left HIV care, bringing them back to lifesaving treatment. The £170m package also includes funding for opt-out HIV testing at A&Es during routine blood tests in areas with the highest rates, including London and Manchester.

I thought the NHS was struggling to treat the people that WANT to be treated, without worrying about the ones that don't want to be treated? 

A steady decrease in HIV diagnoses was recorded in England from 2005, but progress faltered during the pandemic, with testing disrupted and an increase in the number of new cases. As a result of new treatments, HIV is now a manageable condition.

Given the plethora of evidence around to show how to avoid infection, why is it rising? New ‘Britons’, perhaps. 

There are also as many as one in 10 people living with diagnosed HIV who are not under medical care, according to a National AIDS Trust report published in September. The latest action plan aims to renew efforts to re-engage people with treatment and boost testing to ensure that transmissions continue to be pushed down.

Why do they need to be reengaged?

The Department for Health and Social Care said it would target its support towards the approximately 5,000 people living with HIV who had fallen out of medical care, for reasons including mental health issues, addiction, poverty and fear of judgment. Hospital staff in trusts where the opt-out scheme is in place will receive anti-stigma training, so patients can access care without fear of being judged for their HIV status.

So what demographic area are we focussing on here? 

Prof Susan Hopkins, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said the latest figures showed progress towards the 2030 target, with about 95% of those living with HIV now knowing they have the virus. “But about 4,700 people remain undiagnosed, including one in three in Black African communities and higher rates of late diagnosis in older age groups,” she said. “People need testing that meets them where they are, in ways that feel safe and accessible.”

I say we cut them loose, if they don't want to benefit from modern medical advances, that's their choicw. 

Probably need to address the allegedly inveterate liars

It's all been said in the MSM and across soc-med ... I can't imagine anything more boring right now ... so why not just quote The Taxpayers' Alliance newsletter? As they do not grace subscribers with a url ... no url ... you can find it easily enough elsewhere.

It’s fair to say Rachel Reeves’ second budget has been about as controversial as her first one. The chaos in advance of the budget has continued after with blame games and briefings, the head of the OBR resigning, an emergency press conference from the prime minister and the PM’s chief secretary blowing apart their previous claims of a £22 billion black hole. While the optics and politics might be bad for ministers, the budget itself is unravelling before our eyes.

While the chancellor and her team have stressed the £21.7 billion of headroom, as Adam Smith explained in the Telegraph, this figure is “built on sand”. In order to maintain this headroom, Reeves is now committed to cutting departmental spending, increasing energy bills, and reining in welfare spending (not really, just slowing its increase).

While we’d certainly cheer on two of those - you can guess which ones - does anyone really think Labour backbenchers would tolerate any of it, beyond the reimposition of green levies on energy bills that is… And that’s before her back-loaded tax rises kick in.

Elsewhere, Reeves delighted in cutting business rates for pubs by 5 pence, but as ever it was just more smoke and mirrors. The loss of rate relief combined with new rateable values mean pubs will see their tax bills sky rocket. Throw in minimum wage increases and bigger national insurance bills and you get 90 per cent of pubs now expecting to hike the price of a pint while the hospitality sector could lose 100,000 jobs. Not forgetting that taxes already account for 28 per cent of your pint!

Just a quick word about fair usage ... ordinarily, I go with up to half the post from the source but in this case, as it's a newsletter with no url, it seemed to be a reasonable way to get it to readers. 

Poor document issued by the White House ... misses so much of the danger

Many pundits, from majors to us minors, have been virally spreading the NSS document issued by the White House.

As Laura Loomer said about this near worthless document: "I have read the entire 29 page NSS that was just released ... ZERO MENTIONS about the threat Islamic terrorism poses, ZERO MENTIONS about the threat the CCP and Communism poses to our national security."

Unbelievably poor in scope, a usually sound Xer, Islander, posted:

The White House just published what Brussels has spent a decade censoring: Europe has shrunk from 25% of global GDP to 14%, is drifting toward “civilizational erasure,” and on its current course “will be unrecognizable in 20 years.” Not Russian intelligence. Not dissident analysts. Washington, in its own national strategy, marking the time of death. Europe’s tragedy isn’t that it was defeated by an external force. Its tragedy is that it volunteered for collapse, mistaking moral vanity for strategy, self-harm for principle, and neocon applause for sovereignty. 19 rounds of sanctions meant to cripple Russia instead detonated inside Europe’s own chest cavity; industries fleeing, energy gutted, borders unmoored, farmers revolting, wages eroding, dissent criminalized under “values” crafted by technocrats who have never worked a real job, with utter contempt for Europeans. And while Europe recited slogans, Russia built substance, built an economic juggernaut. The “gas station with nukes” they mocked is now the 4th largest economy on Earth by PPP, expanding faster than the entire European Union since the SMO began, reindustrializing, reorienting, rewiring Eurasia. The target of Europe’s crusade grew stronger, the crusaders grew poorer. This wasn’t irony. This was inevitability. Now comes the most brutal line in the US strategy: the warning that some European states soon “may not be strong enough to remain reliable allies.” This is Washington stepping back from a burning house with the calm of an arsonist writing the incident report. The very patron that pushed Europe toward confrontation, long before Trump, is now drafting its alibi, framing Europe’s collapse as an unfortunate accident rather than the predictable consequence of policies its Deepstate encouraged and Brussels enforced with missionary zeal. The EU won’t recognize the downloading of humiliation, because it arrived disguised as loyalty, and because the script being used to abandon the continent is the same script Europe still insists on performing. A continent that once birthed Western civilization now prosecutes its citizens for speech, crushes its own farmers under riot shields, torches its industry for green dogma, and markets the whole spectacle as enlightenment. It surrendered its energy to ideology, its industry to Davos hallucinations, its security to America's whims, and its future to compound interest. A civilization cannot live on abstractions, but its elites can, because they have engineered a system where the costs fall on the people and the graft float upward to those who never bear the consequences. The NSS isn’t a strategy. It’s a confession in plain sight; Russia absorbed the blow, recalibrated, and rose; Europe dissolved into the very illusions it mistook for strength, while Washington, already preparing the next chapter, quietly wipes its hands of the consequences. Continental Europe once held 25% of global GDP. Today it clings to 14%, nearly half its global weight erased in a single generation. Not by invasion. Not by Putin. By decisions its own elites made freely. Europe was no prisoner. It was not dragged into this. It chose ideology over energy security, fantasy over industry, obdience over sovereignty. It had the power to act like a civilization, and acted instead like a petulant, arrogant vassal. They swore Russia would disappear.

Yet she stands rooted, sovereign, expanding, the Eurasian pole they insisted could never exist. Its economy rises into the world’s top four while Europe implodes. Its industrial base grows while Europe’s corrodes.

And it is Europe that dims: censored, exhausted, directionless, governed by elites who call obedience maturity and dependency enlightenment. A continent once central to world history now drifts unrecognizable even by the ally that encouraged its self-destruction and now drafts the alibi from afar. The EU tried to erase Russia. In reality, Europe erased itself. And Washington just wrote the obituary.

It was obviously aimed at the EU and yes, the sooner their honchos are behind bars the better but it also missed key, core threats, plus let's add male-female relations between generational westerners, muddying of the gene pool, the overrunning by the hordes, let alone the evil western honchos at the top pushing it ... the quislings, the Benedict Arnolds.

If There's No Stigma Why Are You 'Working To Break The Cycle'?

The Princess of Wales has called for an end to the "stigma" surrounding addiction, and urged people to offer "empathy and support" to those dependent on alcohol, drugs or gambling.

Another mistake, abolishing shame as the Left wanted us to do hasn’t ushered in a paradise on earth, has it? 

Catherine, who sent the message to mark Addiction Awareness Week, said "significant progress" has been made to better understand addiction, but warned more needs to be done. The princess is the patron of The Forward Trust, a charity that tries to break the cycle of addiction and is behind the campaign running from 23-30 November.

Ah, a mouthpiece and figurehead, like her long lost mother-in-law-who-never-was. Just another modern example of why the Monarchy is no longer something we can be proud of.  

She said addiction was "not a choice or a personal failing, but a complex mental health condition that should be met with empathy and support".

We have enough of those going untreated and their sufferers free to spread misery already, don’t we? Why add more? 

She added: "But still, even now in 2025, people's experience of addiction is shaped by fear, shame and judgement. This needs to change. 

"The stigma surrounding those who face addiction allows it to thrive behind closed doors, impacting families and communities, and ultimately ruining lives."

Are the progressives determined to strip every last vestige of personal choice from everything? Sorry, rhetorical question, I guess…