We shouldn’t trust them on ANY numbers, especially numbers that advance their narrative and their agenda.

For starters…

160 000 a year isn’t “cutting immigration.”

Dutton is a pyromaniac masquerading as a firefighter.

The British Army is ready to fight Russia “tonight” if it invades another European nation in addition to Ukraine, a top military official declared.

500 millions pounds cut from defence budget. Larger warships laid up in “ordinary”.

Image Dr Evil voice …. Riiiiiight

Rory Sutherland on Jaguar’s bizarre rebrand and why they’ve abandoned their British roots

Reading Antony Beevor’s account of D-Day and the battle for Normandy.

After the capture of Caen – the first major town in Normandy to be captured – the British Second Army held what was supposed to be a victory parade on the Place Saint – Martin.

A Scottish pipe band struck up, as the tricolore was raised. The bewilderment on the faces of the French crowd was plain.

They had never heard the “Marseillaise” played on bagpipes. (Page 273.)

https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2024/11/albanese-right-at-home-with-terror-leader.html

Anthony Albanese slobbering over Yasser Arafat. Words fail me, they honestly do.

Horny sheilas of my yoof, Part Trois

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbZq5idUJcI

Nice interview in the WSJ with former Soviet dissident about Ukraine and what it all means.

Mr. Yarim-Agaev, 75, was born in Russia and attended the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. In the 1970s he worked in physics, chemistry and applied mathematics at the Soviet Union’s Academy of Sciences. There, in 1976, he joined the Moscow Helsinki Group, an association of dissident scientists, writers, intellectuals and activists who openly demanded the U.S.S.R. abide by its commitments under the 1975 Helsinki Accords and guarantee its people freedom of thought, conscience and religion. (The government of Leonid Brezhnev had signed the accords in bad faith, as everybody knew.)

Proxy war against the US.

I’m barely able to explain what I want to ask him when he begins: “The main thing to understand about this war is that it is not a war between Russia and Ukraine. It’s a war between totalitarian bloc and democratic alliance. It’s proxy war.” (Mr. Yarim-Agaev speaks excellent English but with a pronounced Russian accent; articles, which don’t exist in Russian, often go missing.) Russia’s invasion had nothing to do with territorial claims or security concerns, he insists. “It is first and foremost war against America. Putin’s aggression is for one and only one reason: Ukraine shows democratic way of development and pro-Western way, pro-American way, and becoming ally with America and the West.”

That doesn’t sound to me like a situation from which lasting peace terms are likely to emerge.

It’s totalitarian ideology. So much for the “Regime” and “clergy” on our side of the totalitarian fence.

“No,” Mr. Yarim-Agaev says, “in totalitarian country, individual leaders don’t rule. Ideology rules. . . . Stalin, Mao, they never had power. They were always first priests and servants of ideology, and they couldn’t deviate from that ideology. If they did, that would be death for them. To stay in power, they must serve it.” Mr. Yarim-Agaev cites the example of Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet premier from 1958-64, whose modest attempts to soften state control of Soviet life ultimately got him ejected from power. To ask a dictator like Mr. Putin or Xi Jinping to behave in a way that contradicts his totalitarian ideology, Mr. Yarim-Agaev says, “would be to ask him to commit political suicide. He is not going to do that.” Mikhail Gorbachev was the exception that proved the rule.

The war has to be settled and won, he says:

With regard to Russia and its aims in Ukraine, he says, we aren’t dealing with an individual tyrant, Vladimir Putin. “We are dealing with ideology. And you cannot charm totalitarian ideology, you cannot have a good relationship with totalitarian ideology, you cannot make deals with it.”

So the question of Ukraine will have to be settled on the battlefield? “Yes,” he says.

It’s not Israel, it’s not Ukraine. It’s really all about the US.

In Mr. Yarim-Agaev’s view, Russian objectives in Ukraine aren’t substantively different from Iran’s designs on Israel, the Taliban’s on America, North Korea’s on South Korea and China’s on Taiwan. The vast cultural and political differences between these regimes obliges me to ask him to explain what he means by that term “totalitarian ideology.”

“It’s very simple,” he begins. “There is such a thing as totalitarian socialism. Now, all those countries are forms of totalitarian socialism. Totalitarian socialism can exist in three forms: international totalitarian socialism, which we also call communism; national totalitarian socialism, which we call Nazism, and religious totalitarian socialism, which we know in form of Islamism.” What these forms of tyranny have in common is an absolute commitment to destroy democratic capitalist nations, especially America.

Accordingly, Mr. Yarim-Agaev puts forward the provocative thesis that Iran wants to destroy Israel not because it’s a Jewish state. “Iran itself claims that Israel is little satan and big satan is the United States,” he points out. “So it always aims at America, and it does it through Israel. It’s not antisemitism, although the mullahs are antisemites. It’s because Israel is democratic country and American ally.”

Those of us who grew up during the Cold War aren’t accustomed to thinking of post-1991 Russia as a totalitarian country in the way Soviet Russia was. But Mr. Yarim-Agaev thinks Mr. Putin’s regime has combined some nationalistic elements of Nazism with the symbols and tactics of unreconstructed communism—“Lenin’s tomb still sits in the middle of Red Square,” he notes—to form a kind of hybrid totalitarianism.

The hotel balcony solution.

Today’s Kremlin doesn’t repress and control Russian citizens the way it did under Soviet communism. Yet critics of the regime have a nasty habit of dying in unnatural ways. Two years ago the renowned ballet dancer Vladimir Shklyarov was quoted on Facebook as expressing opposition to the Ukraine invasion. On the day I spoke to Mr. Yarim-Agaev, Shklyarov “fell” from the balcony of his fifth-floor apartment in St. Petersburg. Police ruled it an accident. He was 39.

How do unlikely partnerships end up working?

Mr. Yarim-Agaev moves around the globe to reinforce his point that totalitarian ideologies of all kinds are undergirded by anti-Americanism. Wars and conflicts are happening all over the globe, but North Korea sends 10,000 troops only to Ukraine to aid Russia, and Iran sends drone technology to Russia in its war with an American ally. Iran, he says, isn’t a theocratic country, although it is ruled in part by mullahs. “It is also, and maybe more so, ruled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which is a military and not a religious force.” If Iran considered the Islamic creed the most important thing, Mr. Yarim Agaev says, “it couldn’t have good relationship with China, which persecutes its Uyghurs population. It couldn’t have a good relationship with Russia, which twice made war on Chechnya,” a mostly Muslim region. “Anti-American totalitarian ideology is the important thing.”

Reckons the nuclear threat is just bullshit.

What about the fear of provoking Mr. Putin into the use of tactical nuclear weapons? “It’s blackmail, and nothing but that,” Mr. Yarim-Agaev says. “And first of all, all military experts say that tactical nuclear weapon doesn’t work. It is senseless—you cannot conquer with it because you shoot it in front of you and then you cannot enter the territory.” Never mind the assurance of counterattack, in which case “there would be no more Russia, and Russia knows that.”

The larger point, he says, is that Russia, Iran, China, North Korea and lesser totalitarian states—Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua—will do anything to avoid direct confrontation with the U.S. “They fight against America,” he says, “but they always fight through somebody else. They attack Israel, they attack Ukraine. China may attack Taiwan at any moment, maybe even the Philippines. But they don’t want confrontation with United States because they know that’s suicide.”

WATCH: Pro-Hamas Simps Destroy Montreal While Justin Trudeau Dances at a Taylor Swift Concert

I don’t know if anyone linked to this earlier, but here’s a really good account of the hole the UK has dug for itself.

The UK Is a Window to Our Dystopian Future

• By Poppy Coburn

Global boiling advocates are nuts: example 1:

Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos Pour Millions into a ‘Climate Vaccine’ for Cows to Stop Farts and Burps in the Name of Fighting Climate Change | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim H?ft

Liberty Squandered: The English Tradition from Magna Carta to Empire

Vibhu Vikramaditya, Mises Wire, 23rd November 2024

The identity of a people often shapes the nature and trajectory of their government. In England, a deep-rooted belief in individual liberty has profoundly influenced the nation’s legal and cultural institutions, shaping English society from the early Middle Ages through the Industrial Revolution. This identity—forged through centuries of struggle and self-definition—established a legacy of individual rights, due process, and a balanced approach to law and order. The Magna Carta of 1215, for instance, set a groundbreaking precedent by binding even the king to the rule of law and affirming that Englishmen were “free-born.” This commitment was further solidified by the development of English common law, which emphasized justice and protection for all citizens, regardless of rank, including the monarch.

In 1707, however, a significant shift occurred with the Act of Union, which joined England and Scotland under a single British identity. This transformation required England’s traditions of liberty and local governance to adapt to a centralized imperial authority, reconfiguring individual freedoms within a larger imperial framework. Although these ideals persisted, they began to reflect the needs of an expanding empire, aligning liberty with broader, centralized control.

The legacy of English liberty stands at a precarious threshold. The recent UK government advisory, “Think before you post,” cloaked in public welfare, quietly undermines the freedoms that once defined English identity. Once a steadfast guardian of individual rights, the government now leans toward surveillance and constraint, drifting alarmingly from its founding principles of liberty and due process. This subtle shift suggests a future where the very freedoms that shaped English society are at risk of being quietly surrendered.

Evolving Traditions of English Liberty

The Magna Carta was originally a series of rebellious victories that compelled the English monarchy to state rights formally that had previously been assumed. First issued in 1215 by King John under pressure from rebellious barons, the document marked a significant shift by formally acknowledging several protections like the right to fair trial and justice. Although annulled shortly after by Pope Innocent III, it was reissued in 1216, 1217, and 1225 under King Henry III, each version reinforcing the principle that the monarchy was bound by law and individual rights were inviolable. Over time, the Magna Carta became a lasting symbol of accountable governance and the protection of fundamental rights, invoked repeatedly by the English against tyranny.

The Levellers adopted and expanded upon the ideas of natural law in England during the Wars of Three Kingdoms (1639 -1653), Lilburne particularly argued that government must be based on a contract with the people, one that exists to protect the “freeborn rights” of every individual. John Lilburne, a prominent Leveller, asserted that “every man by nature was born with as much freedom as any other man.” Furthermore, Richard Overton, another key Leveller, linked the concept of freeborn rights to the ancient liberties of England, arguing that these liberties were the birthright of every Englishman and were to be upheld by the rational law of nature. He argued that every person should be judged by the law of nature or rule of reason. He advocated for the inherent rights of self-ownership and freedom from aggression, which he believed belonged to all individuals by their humanity.

The Levellers’ manifesto, An Agreement of the People, advocated for constitutional reforms to establish a government that truly represented and protected citizens’ rights, including freedom of religion, the press, and conscience. It called for equality before the law, the rule of law, protection of private property, and a democratically-elected parliament. It inspired the Radical Whigs and, subsequently, the Liberal Party. In the 19th century, the Whigs and the Liberal Party championed these principles, promoting greater suffrage, the removal of trade barriers, and the elimination of price and wage controls to foster economic freedom and market competition.

The Levellers’ vision resonated with common law’s principles of due process, reason, and communal judgment. Due process mandated transparency and adherence to procedures, safeguarding against arbitrary rule. Trial by jury empowered peers to judge, highlighting fairness and public accountability. Guided by precedent, common law ensured consistency and restrained the whims of those in power, emphasizing rational adjudication and judicial independence to ground justice in enduring principles over fleeting policies.

In the early 17th century, Sir Edward Coke’s interpretation of common law reshaped English legal principles by establishing a framework of liberty that bound even the monarch. His ruling in Dr. Bonham’s Case (1610) argued that “the common law will control Acts of Parliament, and sometimes adjudge them utterly void” if they contravene basic principles of “common right and reason.” This marked a foundational assertion that courts could nullify laws infringing on individual rights, prefiguring the principle of judicial review that would later become central to constitutional law.

Coke’s landmark work, The Institutes of the Lawes of England, expanded on this philosophy, asserting that “the king himself ought not to be under man, but under God and the law.” This statement directly opposed the doctrine of the divine right of kings, asserting that the monarch was also bound by common law, a revolutionary stance in his era. Coke’s interpretation insisted that law was supreme over all authority, positioning the judiciary as a crucial check on both royal and parliamentary overreach.

Through his legal writings and judgments, Coke codified the view of common law as a protector of inherent rights and a constraint on sovereign power. His ideas set the stage for modern constitutionalism particularly in the United States and the rest of the world, cementing judicial oversight as a safeguard against the erosion of civil liberties by any governing power.

From English Liberty to Imperial Subject: The Quiet Conquest of England

In his 1899 critique, The Conquest of the United States by Spain, William Graham Sumner warned with biting clarity that while the United States had vanquished Spain militarily, it stood on the precipice of an internal defeat by adopting Spain’s authoritarian practices. Sumner’s words cut to imperialism’s core: in subjugating others, a nation risks eroding its own fundamental values, reshaped by the oppressive systems it enforces abroad. His warning is a clear caution against the lure of empire, where the conqueror risks self-loss in conquest.

As England’s empire expanded in the 17th and 18th centuries, local English identity gave way to an imperial British identity, dismantling centuries-old liberties. Acts like the Navigation Acts (1651), Stamp Act (1765), and Declaratory Act (1766) ravaged colonial rights, restricting trade, undermining due process, and asserting Britain’s absolute control. The 1707 Act of Union suppressed Scottish autonomy, centralizing power for imperial cohesion. This legal onslaught sacrificed the “free-born Englishman” ideal, replacing local justice with exploitation and deepening colonial resentment.

The Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767 imposed taxes without colonial representation, violating the English constitutional principle that taxation required consent—rooted in the Magna Carta and reaffirmed by the 1689 Bill of Rights. These measures sowed resentment that ultimately led to the loss of the American colonies, as they fought to affirm their natural rights. The establishment of Vice-Admiralty Courts in the colonies marked a stark departure from English legal traditions. These courts, operating without juries and presided over by Crown-appointed judges, denied colonists the right to a fair trial—a bedrock of English justice. The Sugar Act of 1764 further empowered these courts to try smuggling cases that, in England, would have been heard in common law courts with juries. This denial of basic legal protections signaled Britain’s disregard for its own principles in favor of enforcing imperial dominance.

The British Empire’s expansion necessitated an increasingly centralized government that directly interfered with local governance, diminishing the English tradition of decentralized authority. The Declaratory Act of 1766, for instance, unequivocally imposed Parliament’s supremacy, stripping colonial assemblies of any legislative power by allowing British lawmakers to legislate for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” This act nullified the longstanding colonial self-governance system, effectively rendering local legislative bodies powerless and consolidating control in London.

Moreover, the arbitrary expansion of executive power in both Britain and its colonies severely eroded the rule of law, enabling unchecked governmental authority. The Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act of 1794, enacted in response to perceived revolutionary threats, allowed indefinite detention without trial, a direct violation of the 1679 Habeas Corpus Act that had protected citizens from arbitrary imprisonment. This suspension prioritized state security over individual rights, marking a stark departure from English legal principles. In American colonies, governors wielded vast authority under the King’s commission, bypassing colonial assemblies and enacting laws or raising taxes without local consent, fueling resentment and ultimately rebellion. Such unilateral executive actions highlighted the extent to which the British Empire prioritized imperial control over the adherence to fair governance and legal integrity.

In conclusion, while much of the foundational principles of English liberty has been eroded through imperial expansion and centralized authority, there is hope for a revival—a new renaissance of the ideals that once defined the nation. By reawakening the commitment to individual rights, due process, and accountable governance, society can reclaim its identity rooted in freedom and justice.

Vibhu Vikramaditya is an economist with research interests in capital theory, monetary theory, and business cycles. He writes about events in the economy from a legal and economic standpoint with a proliberty outlook and believes that safeguarding the liberty and rights of each individual is the most important act toward peace, prosperity and growth. His other works can be found at the Austrian Economics Center, the Libertarian Institute, and beinglibetarian.com.

Natasha Hausdorff on the ICC arrest warrants.

Temperatures in Palestine are increasing faster than the global average, and it is highly vulnerable to floods, heatwaves, droughts, and storms. But environmental work is complicated because of the ongoing war, Thaher said.

Perhaps Palestinians should have been planting trees instead of building terrorist tunnels. And perhaps if they didn’t smash all the greenhouses Israelis left them in 2005, and even built new ones, they wouldn’t be in their current predicament.