Links - 25th November 2025 (2 - Climate Change: Net Zero in the UK)

Sir Keir Starmer to tell Cop30 summit that UK is ‘all in’ on net zero - "Ed Miliband, the Net Zero Secretary, has vowed to press on with his green agenda despite Treasury concerns that it could hamper growth... The Prime Minister will also challenge sceptics calling for a slowdown on climate action, telling the summit: “Can energy security wait too?  “Can billpayers wait? Can we win the race for green jobs and investment by going slow? Of course not.”"
Doubling down is the only thing they can do. Time to blame "capitalism" again

Our net-zero crusade profits competitors - "Confidence in the future has been shattered and yet we continue to import gas from Norway which taps into adjacent fields. Norway has seen 30 new exploration wells drilled so far in 2025, with up to nine more expected before year end.  Ministers continue to justify this patent insanity in the name of net zero, on the grounds that if we are not extracting the oil and gas ourselves we are somehow more virtuous than countries that are – even if we then burn it.  The COP process is not just about climate change. It also seeks to extract money from advanced economies blamed for decades of carbon emissions to transfer to poorer nations to prevent natural depredation. As this newspaper has disclosed, UK taxpayers have forked out £136m to fund a complex scheme in the Brazilian state of Para under which carbon offsets are provided to compensate companies for the environmental harm they create.  Billions of pounds have been allocated to programmes aimed at protecting and restoring nature and biodiversity yet the process is so opaque that it is impossible to see how any of this largesse is helping. Perhaps Sir Keir can enlighten us on his return from Brazil."

Questioning net zero cannot remain taboo - "Mr Topping said the alternative to moving to renewables like wind and solar was that we would still need to rely on volatile overseas carbon energy sources. But that would not be the case if we used the oil and gas under our own feet and yet the Government refuses to grant new exploration licences in new fields in the North Sea. We will need gas for the foreseeable future to back up renewables.  Mr Topping wants to hear from politicians opposed to net zero to discover “what it is they don’t understand” suggesting he has already decided that they are misguided and wrong. But this is not an honest conversation because no-one is ever allowed to question the assumptions underlying the policies.  Yet the story we carry today about how taxpayers are footing the bill for a £200m “greenwashing” aid finance scheme to help companies like Amazon achieve net zero is indicative of the problem. If there is to be an “honest” debate about net zero, as Mr Topping hopes, then the Government needs to be far more open about how our money is being spent in its pursuit."

The NHS is even wasting money on green dogma - "The pursuit of net zero and the perpetual inefficiency of the NHS constitute perhaps the two greatest money pits in British politics.   It is unsurprising then that their confluence should appear to have resulted in spectacular waste."

Inside the NHS’s ‘insane’ £1.4bn push for net zero - "The NHS has spent £1.4bn of taxpayers’ money on net zero schemes without reducing its carbon footprint at all... The service has now unveiled a series of new schemes it claims will reduce emissions, including making its plates and bowls blue, hiring net zero managers, and reducing the 63 million pieces of paper it prints each year.  Hundreds of millions of pounds will be spent on making the health service’s fleet of vehicles electric, while Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, is ploughing more than a quarter of a billion pounds into installing solar panels at 260 NHS sites, as well as schools and military sites. This week, Sir Keir Starmer attended the Cop30 climate summit in Brazil, flying more than 9,000 miles to “restore the UK as a global leader on climate action”.  Meanwhile, the NHS backlog has risen three months in a row to 7.41 million, A&E leaders are prepared for the worst winter on record, and junior doctors will stage yet another five-day walkout this month, with other staff threatening to follow suit.  Critics have questioned the priorities of NHS leaders and labelled some of the initiatives as “insane”... The pledge to become the first health service in the world to reach net zero was made while Boris Johnson was prime minister.  Last month, he admitted he had gone “far too fast” on net zero and got “carried away”. Critics say the NHS is wasting money on green schemes when reducing the need for people to be in hospital would reduce carbon emissions in itself.  Steve Barclay, the former Conservative health secretary, said the funding should be used to help patients first and foremost, rather than on “specific ideological preferences”... The NHS will roll out blue plates and bowls as part of a net zero drive to trick patients into eating more hospital food. One of the initiatives to reduce the amount of food the NHS wastes each year is “improving crockery”... the Conservatives’ cheap power plan “would cut the electricity bills of the public sector by 20 per cent instantly”.  It is not clear whether the NHS plate studies accounted for variables as simple as different patients being fed or considering other colours, raising questions about the quality of results.  The NHS has the power to bulk buy plates and other crockery, but even at costs estimated to be around 75p per plate, replacing them all would likely cost millions... The health service will also push ahead with a plan for most new vehicles to be electric by 2027, and all new ambulances to be electric by 2030.  The latter alone is set to cost more than half a billion pounds, despite waning demand for electric vehicles in the face of high costs, poor charging infrastructure, and fears about the distance they can travel... A pilot at one trust found the ambulances took up to four hours to charge and travelled an average of 70 miles between charging, which would not be enough outside of major cities... “Rather than wasting £1.4bn on net zero policies that aren’t even lowering the NHS’s carbon footprint, they should focus on urgently improving local and community treatment – as Policy Exchange called for on the back of public polling,” he said.  “This would help reduce carbon emissions associated with avoidable hospital visits and, more importantly, improve services for taxpayers at the same time.”"

Surge in rooftop blazes sparks concern over Miliband’s solar panel boom - "A surge in house fires caused by solar panels and their batteries is sparking safety concerns over Ed Miliband’s plan for millions more rooftop installations.  UK fire services faced a blaze involving a solar panel once every two days in 2024, according to data gathered by insurance company QBE, marking a 60pc increase in the past two years... fires were rising faster than the rate of installations, suggesting a rise in the number of solar panels could not explain the increase in incidents alone."

The huge sums energy firms get to not provide power - "The electricity grid was built to deliver power generated by coal and gas plants near the country's major cities and towns, and doesn't always have sufficient capacity in the wires that carry electricity around the country to get the new renewable electricity generated way out in the wild seas and rural areas.  And this has major consequences. The way the system currently works means a company like Ocean Winds gets what are effectively compensation payments if the system can't take the power its wind turbines are generating and it has to turn down its output.  It means Ocean winds was paid £72,000 not to generate power from its wind farms in the Moray Firth during a half-hour period on 3 June because the system was overloaded - one of a number of occasions output was restricted that day.  At the same time, 44 miles (70km) east of London, the Grain gas-fired power station on the Thames Estuary was paid £43,000 to provide more electricity.  Payments like that happen virtually every day. Seagreen, Scotland's largest wind farm, was paid £65 million last year to restrict its output 71% of the time, according to analysis by Octopus Energy.  Balancing the grid in this way has already cost the country more than £500 million this year alone, the company's analysis shows. The total could reach almost £8bn a year by 2030, warns the National Electricity System Operator (NESO), the body in charge of the electricity network.  It's pushing up all our energy bills and calling into question the government's promise that net zero would end up delivering cheaper electricity. Now, the government is considering a radical solution: instead of one big, national electricity market, there'll be a number of smaller regional markets, with the government gambling that this could make the system more efficient and deliver cheaper bills.  But in reality, it's not guaranteed that anyone will get cheaper bills. And even if some people do, many others elsewhere in the country could end up paying more... Reform UK has identified the policy as a major Achilles heel for the Labour government. "The next election will be fought on two issues, immigration and net stupid zero," says Reform's deputy leader Richard Tice. "And we are going to win."  Poll after poll says cost of living is a much more important for most people, and people often specifically cite concerns about rising energy prices. Miliband sold his aggressive clean energy policies in part on cutting costs. He said that ensuring 95% of the country's electricity comes from low-carbon sources by 2030 would slash the average electricity bill by £300.  But the potential for renewables to deliver lower costs just isn't coming through to consumers.  Renewables now generate more than half the country's electricity, but because of the limits to how much electricity can be moved around the system, even on windy days some gas generation is almost always needed to top the system up.  And because gas tends to be more expensive, it frequently sets the wholesale price... Glover says even a very small change in interest rates could have dramatic effects on how much renewable infrastructure is built and how much the power from it costs.  "Those additional costs could quickly overwhelm any of the benefits of regional pricing," says Stephen Woodhouse, an economist with the consultancy firm AFRY, which has studied the impact of regional pricing for the power companies."
Time to blame "capitalism" or fossil fuels for unreliable power

Britain must spend £30bn to strip CO2 from atmosphere and hit net zero, experts warn - "System that would remove up to 48m tonnes of carbon a year is touted as ‘essential’"
James Melville 🚜 on X - "£30bn of our tax money pumped out on something that won’t make a blind bit of difference."
The best part is that it won't stop climate change hystericists from looking for new nonsense demands. They'll probably pivot to going on about historic emissions or even historic per capita emissions means the only moral thing to do is to be not just net zero, but net negative Starmer bottled the sacking that would have made a real difference - "Here is a man who stabbed his brother in the front to become Labour leader, only to then lose the next election. He’s the genius who wrote his pledges on a gravestone and thought it a good idea to cosy up to Russell Brand to secure the Yoof vote. He once advocated a universal basic income of £10,000 per head. In a strange foreshadowing of Rayner’s property woes, Ed Miliband once faced accusations he avoided inheritance tax by using a deed of variation to his father’s will. And he imagines we can power a nation of nearly 70 million people on renewable energy that can completely disappear for days at a time.  Since slipping into the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Red Ed has extended the North Sea windfall tax – despite clear evidence the original Tory version prompted investment to collapse – which in time will mean less supply and higher bills. Already, his promise these would be cut by £300 lies in tatters: in August Ofgem said “policy costs” imposed by the Energy Secretary have contributed to the price cap rising at double the rate forecast by industry analysts. He announced Labour would decarbonise the entire power grid by 2030, later rowing back to an equally implausible 95 per cent. It’s not just households that are suffering: Miliband is pressing ahead with an agenda that will finish off what little remains of our manufacturing base, and guarantee we lose strategic advantage to more clear-eyed nations.  The fantasy Milibrain continues to peddle – that we can have security, affordability and net zero all at once, with known technologies – is detached from reality. No major economy has shown this to be possible.  Yet here we are, building more wind farms, deluding ourselves that renewables can provide a constant, reliable source of energy – when the reality is that we need alternative power sources to fill intermittency gaps. This means we pay twice: first for the renewables, then for the back-up. Britain may have been the first to halve its carbon emissions since the 1970s – a fact about which the hectoring eco-lobby remain oddly quiet – yet no one is following. New Zealand recently, sensibly, watered down its own targets. The US is the world’s largest oil producer. China is belching out emissions at industrial scale while exporting the solar panels and electric cars we are guilt-tripped into buying. America has energy prices that are 60 per cent lower than ours. Nearly two years ago the OECD warned that the shift will leave our economy £60bn smaller. Not even this was enough to convince our leaders to change course. Worse still, as Matt Ridley has pointed out, Miliband has been an inverse Robin Hood: net zero surely amounts to the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in history. Lower-income families, the ones Labour purport to represent, are subsidising the eco-vanity of Britain’s middle classes.  And the idea that the green economy will lead to a jobs boom ignores the redundancies in those sectors that can never ride the net-zero wave. Many new jobs are simply compliance, while thousands of existing ones are being lost. It’s no wonder the pledge to convert the UK to fossil-free power has been roundly attacked by the GMB Union, many of whose 500,000-plus members are in the oil and gas sector. Of course, their members will not be the only ones to flinch when the implications of net zero really begin to hit home. This mad project doesn’t just mean higher energy costs, but plastering our countryside and our roofs with baking trays, carving up our fields with pylons, and the prospect of paying more for electricity if you have the temerity to live in the South. The best that can be said is that, however dangerous Miliband may be, there’s always the possibility someone worse lurks on the Labour benches. A better communicator, perhaps, who is no less zealous than Miliband and will simply drive through the same agenda – when what’s really needed is an energy secretary who grasps why we must terminate this self-inflicted sabotage."

North Sea energy would help Reeves fill her black hole - "cutting domestic production of UK oil and gas simply raises imports. The UK has some of the strongest environmental protection in the world on its production, not just in terms of carbon dioxide emissions but also more widely.  So when we import, we lose all control over production standards – and we incur additional carbon dioxide emissions as much of the oil and gas we use arrives by ship."

‘Eco-hypocrite’ Ed Miliband refuses to reveal how many domestic flights he takes - "Claire Coutinho, shadow energy secretary, said the refusal represented “one rule for him and another for everyone else” given that the Left-wing frontbencher has been a vociferous opponent of domestic air travel.  Labour has also forced through significant increases to air passenger duty that have added hundreds of pounds to some family holidays... Mr Miliband, who is in charge of net zero policies, has previously said Britons should cut down on such flights “as much as we possibly can”.  But he was embarrassed earlier this year when it emerged his department is spending more on internal flights under his watch than the Tories... Mr Miliband has previously suggested that the Government should encourage ordinary voters to take trains and buses rather than flying...   Labour repeatedly criticised the Conservatives for taking flights and pledged before the election to clamp down on ministers’ use of jets.  But since taking office, Mr Miliband has been heavily criticised for jet-setting, which has seen him spend 10 times more on foreign trips than Ms Coutinho.  The Energy Secretary spent £62,712 on overseas travel in his first six months in office, according to Taxpayers’ Alliance analysis,  In contrast, his Tory predecessor spent just £6,155 during her first half-year in the role."

Ed Miliband in hypocrisy row over gas boiler at his constituency home

Ed Miliband’s heat pump rollout costs taxpayers £700m a year - "Ed Miliband blew almost £700m of taxpayers’ cash on grants for heat pumps during his first year in office, new industry analysis reveals.  The Energy Secretary has overseen a gargantuan increase in spending on support to install heat pumps, which has more than tripled in the space of just 24 months.  Last year he spent more on pushing families to take up heat pumps than ministers will save by restricting the winter fuel payment for pensioners. Annual grants now also outstrip the projected income from the family farm tax, which Rachel Reeves has said is necessary to stabilise the economy.  The grants are required because it costs on average just over £13,000 to install an air-source heat pump, compared to just £3,000 to put in a gas boiler.  Critics accused the Energy Secretary of forcing up the bills of ordinary households to pay for the grants and achieve his net zero targets...  Unlike gas boilers, heat pumps are exempt from VAT, an effective subsidy that cost the Exchequer an estimated £156m in uncollected tax last year. A senior energy industry source said “simply throwing more money” at heat pump subsidies was not the answer given the lack of public appetite for them.  “Heat pumps have been subsidised by various governments for 14 years and the fundamental issue remains,” they told The Telegraph. “They are too expensive to fit and too costly to run compared to what UK households are used to, in most cases that’s a gas boiler. “If they were better than a boiler, heat pumps would be flying off the shelves without the need for these huge subsidies.  “What stinks is that the vast majority of households are subsidising heat pumps through their taxes and their bills while not knowing how they can afford to pay for their own heating.” Mr Miliband is trying to railroad through a wholesale switch to heat pumps, which run on electricity, at the expense of other types of technology.  In particular the Energy Secretary has been accused of trying to sideline hydrogen as a fuel source, even though it can be used to run more conventional boilers... The source said: “Industry has worked up options that can do this but the zealots running policy simply won’t engage as it does not fit their view of the world.  “The irony is, if the taxpayer keeps being fleeced like this, these zealots will find themselves out of office and replaced by those who care little for the net zero agenda.”"

‘Not clear if heat pumps will save people money’, government adviser admits - "A meeting chaired by Professor Dame Angela McLean found it was “not currently clear” if heat pumps were cheaper to run than a traditional gas boiler... Heat pumps, which can cost up to £13,000 to install, are the backbone of the Government’s green agenda, despite concerns they can negatively impact a property’s EPC score, which can make mortgages more expensive... A separate government report published last week found that public acceptance of heat pumps has slumped this year... Mike Foster, of the Energy and Utilities Alliance, said: “Apart from the high initial cost of fitting a heat pump, consumers using a standard tariff face higher running bills than a gas boiler too.  “It should not be a surprise to find that asking consumers to pay more for the same service, heating a home, is not a popular option. Something needs to change.”"
Time to ban gas boilers

The wind farm exposing Ed Miliband’s ‘dishonesty’ - "A British wind farm owned by France’s state energy company is being paid to throw away half the power it generates.  The Dorenell onshore wind farm in Scotland, owned by EDF, had 50pc of its output “curtailed” in 2024 because the UK’s national grid was too congested to accept it.  But the project was still paid for the electricity that wasn’t used, leading to revenues of nearly £68m in the year, newly published accounts show.  Around £40m of this came from payments to constrain its output, according to separate disclosures made by EDF in a court dispute. The payments, which are ultimately funded by households and businesses, are an example of the grid balancing costs that were blamed this week for driving up domestic energy bills... Constraint payments occur because most of Britain’s wind farms are located in Scotland and often generate far more electricity than can be used locally.  At the same time, the power network lacks capacity to store all the excess power or to transport it south, where most demand is located. This means grid operators often resort to curtailing the output of wind farms to keep the system balanced.  Renewable subsidies also incentivise wind farms to try to export power even when supplies are already plentiful, because they are guaranteed a fixed price under the Government’s contracts for difference (CfD) scheme...  the huge amount of curtailment meant Dorenell was effectively paid £227 per MWh for the electricity it actually supplied to the grid last year.  This compares to an average price of £77 per MWh paid to gas-fired power plants during the same period, according to energy consultancy Ember. Mr Taylor said the figures underscored the “dishonesty” of claims by Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, and other politicians that renewables would cut consumer energy bills.  He said: “I am not a net zero sceptic, but I do wish politicians would tell the truth about these issues.  “If you believe energy security is important, and that we have a responsibility to cut our carbon emissions, then you can make a good argument for renewable energy.  “But I don’t think it is right to say it will bring bills down and that is the dishonest part.”... Mr Miliband and other ministers have blamed persistently high energy bills on the price of gas, which they called the “fossil fuel penalty”... critics have also accused the Government of driving up electricity prices with green levies added to electricity bills.  They have also warned that constraint payments to wind farms are ballooning and will place an increasing burden on households.  By 2030, the National Energy System Operator (Neso), which manages the day-to-day operation of the grid, has predicted curtailment payments could reach nearly £4bn a year.  If vital grid upgrades are not finished on time, that figure could surge further to £8bn."
Damn misinformation! Everyone knows that renewables are cheaper!
Time to blame "capitalism" for the need to prevent grid collapse

Ed Miliband’s net zero crusade is adding billions to Britons’ energy bills - "But if accelerating the drive to net zero meant more levies and higher bills, why did Labour and Ed Miliband target 2030 for decarbonising the grid?  Prof Helm believes it was a deliberate political ploy.  “What the Government has done, and it seems to me, to be a deliberate policy, is to try to use net zero as a wedge between Labour and the Conservatives and everybody else, apart from perhaps the Liberal Democrats,” he said.  “It’s been deliberately designed to be divisive, to divide lines. That’s what the spin is all about. Well, that’s really bad news for investors and for the continuity of climate change policy in the UK. “Energy and climate policy is long-term. If you decide to set a new deadline of 2030 for net zero electricity because the Conservatives had 2035 as their target, then you have to pay whatever it costs to achieve that target.”  If he is right, then the levies already buried in our bills are partly the product of short-term politicking rather than long-sighted investment policies.  And it’s Britain’s consumers and businesses that will pay the price. The politicking has, however, worked up to a point. The Conservatives, only just out of a government that was firmly committed to net zero, have done a complete about-turn.  Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Opposition, has pronounced that net zero is now unachievable by 2050 and insists that cheap energy must come first. Claire Coutinho, the former energy secretary, said: “We committed to no new green levies in the Conservative manifesto. The temptation for a Labour Government trying to hide the costs of net zero is to pile all the hidden costs on to people’s energy bills.  “This is completely self-defeating, as it will just cripple British industry and slash household incomes. It’s the exact opposite of the £300 off bills that Ed Miliband promised voters at the general election. That’s why we’ve said that cheap energy must come first. And lots of it.” But what Miliband may not have expected when announcing his net zero plan less than a year ago was the rise of Reform. Nigel Farage and his deputy, Richard Tice, see energy prices and the rollout of pylons, cables, turbines and giant solar farms on England’s green shires as a key campaigning issue. Tice, energy spokesman for Reform, said its success in the recent county council elections stemmed from opposition to net zero, suggesting that Miliband may have badly miscalculated... Even so, Miliband has so far indicated he will stick with his green levies... Matthew Chadwick, at Cornwall Insight, says: “The current structure is now increasingly out of step with our net zero ambitions.  “As we move to decarbonise the energy system, we’re asking people to switch to electricity, yet the current system means those who do so often face higher bills because they’re paying policy costs on both their heating and everyday electricity use.  “This penalises those who don’t have access to the gas grid and discourages the uptake of low-carbon technologies like heat pumps and electric vehicles.”  Constable, of REF, is more blunt: “The net zero undertaking is without doubt the single largest intervention in the British economy since the Second World War, and yet no one has even a glimmering of its total costs and opportunity costs.  “We are flying blind.”"

Never apologise to an SJW

From 2022:

Never apologise to an SJW - spiked

"I participated in an academic conference, entitled ‘Politics, Policy and Panic: Governing in a Time of Crisis’, held at St Vincent College in the pleasant metropolis of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The event included as speakers, among several others, health-policy adviser Scott Atlas, the Brownstone Institute’s Jeffrey Tucker and the University of Tulsa’s Jacob Howland. It focused on, to quote Howland’s piece about the conference, ‘the atmosphere of crisis and panic that has driven the policies of government and private organisations and transformed educational and cultural institutions since March 2020’, and how these developments have ‘damaged constitutional government, the rule of law, and the wellbeing of the American people’...

Hillsdale College’s David Azerrad presented a talk entitled ‘Black Privilege and Racial Hysteria in Contemporary America’...

While all of the speakers took a few whacks at our society’s current sacred cows, Azerrad did perhaps the most thorough job of butchering one of them and serving it up for dinner. His arguments included: that affirmative action is a measurable form of ‘black privilege’; that the much more vaunted ‘white privilege’ hardly exists at all for residents of poor, Caucasian-majority states like West Virginia; that prominent figures, from Kamala Harris to George Washington Carver, would be far less known today had they been born with less of a natural tan; and that Western culture currently seems bizarrely obsessed with securing proportional black representation in every imaginable field, from ornithology to rocket science.

Following Azerrad’s speech, a few (mostly black) students disagreed, mostly intelligently, and then everyone went to dinner. Then, however, a student activist apparently ‘leaked’ a video recording online, and the faeces hit the fan. By 10 April, as Howland’s article on the whole affair notes, ‘a letter of apology to the campus community was put out [by St Vincent]’. The letter stated that Azerrad’s lecture could, at the very least, ‘be interpreted as a form of invidious discrimination which inherently degrades the sanctity of human life’.  

St Vincent went even further over the following days. It criticised and sanctioned the Centre for Political and Economic Thought (CPET), which sponsored the event. And then it announced that St Vincent president Paul Taylor and his ‘university cabinet’ would from now on vet campus speakers for the entire college. Inside Higher Ed, the College Fix and a prominent local newspaper all wrote lengthy articles discussing the case, and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education called it ‘the most extreme example of guest-speaker censorship that FIRE has seen in its more-than-20-year history’. Several speakers – including myself – drew nasty comments on social media or questions about whether we planned to apologise for participating in the event.  

This whole situation provides a valuable case study, in the academic sense, of how cancellation works. It showcases the all-too-common patterns of taboo truths, censorious minorities (in population terms) and claims that constant hall-monitoring of adult discourse is necessary for our ‘safety’. The first of these trends was particularly prominent in this case. At no point did any critic, with the exception of one or two witty St Vincent students, address the actual veracity of what Azerrad said or attempt to debunk it...

President Joe Biden has openly said that he picked Kamala Harris as vice-president in part because of her race and sex. 

The airing of these hard truths was not seen to be dangerous because they are false, but rather because they are true, and thus capable of damaging the feelings of innocents who might learn of them.

At St Vincent, we also witnessed the tyranny of the tiny minority. Visibly and audibly, most of the students and community members who showed up for the ‘Politics, Policy and Panic’ event enjoyed the talks. My own ended with an ovation, albeit a relaxed, sitting one. Smart citizens tend to like bantering with controversial people. While multiple college men and women most certainly disagreed with Azerrad, they demonstrated this by arguing with him. No one took down his core arguments, but several students shot quite witty or moving barbs in his direction. 

The controversy arose entirely because one or two activists released a 12-minute video, broadcasting part of the Azerrad lecture to a sympathetic internet audience. Dozens of people who had not bothered to attend the event – many of whom were not affiliated with St Vincent at all – were thus able to raise their voices and drown out the consensus position of the actual students in the room.  

And what did those who were outraged by it want? The total control of all future debate by people like them. Hence virtually every press release from St Vincent included remarkably similar language about the solemn duty of professional-managerial elites to regulate speech. St Vincent’s initial mea culpa stated that ‘faculty and students are encouraged to explore, discuss and responsibly debate topics’, while the president’s letter explicitly noted that executive review of all speakers was necessary in order to ensure ‘a diversity of responsible opinion’ (my emphasis).  

Reading through these documents, I was reminded of the social-media hysteria which followed billionaire Elon Musk’s mundane statement that he intends to allow free speech on Twitter, once he has officially bought it. It seems that a shocking number of lower-elite people believe normal citizens will become barbarians if they are allowed to learn about certain facts – from the existence of affirmative action to small current differences in tested-group IQ scores. And many of them are therefore desperate to prevent any public conversations about these topics. 

More positively, however, the St Vincent incident illustrated how best to respond to cancel culture. Despite the initial hysteria, not one speaker apologised for the content of her or his lecture. In a courageous move, CPET bossman Brad Watson uploaded all videos from the conference online – as had been planned from the beginning – to allow viewers to make up their own minds. Furthermore, multiple speakers went on the offensive, reaching out to free-speech organisations like FIRE, which wrote to St Vincent on 22 April, objecting to its response to the Azerrad speech and noting that the new vetting policy could jeopardise the accreditation of the college.  

Other organisations, from the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism to 1776 Unites, also came out in support of those who had taken part in the conference. Quite probably as a result of this coherent, immediate response, none of the speakers has been censured by his or her institution, or faced other professional consequences. 

The only way this could have been handled better, in my opinion, would have been for St Vincent itself to do nothing at all and wait for the affair to blow over. Censorious social-justice warriors represent only a small and angry minority. We shouldn’t indulge them. And we should never, ever apologise to them." 

Links - 25th November 2025 (1)

Fentanyl, stolen Canadian cars funding terror groups: report - "A new Department of Finance report warns that Canada remains a hub for terrorist financing, with extremist groups capitalizing on everything from charitable fraud to spiking rates of drug trafficking and auto theft... In addition to Hezbollah, the report also notes that Canadian money had ended up in the hands of the Palestinian terror group Hamas, as well as the extremist Sikh groups Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation... As to where the money is coming from, the Department of Finance cited everything from “crowdfunding,” to cryptocurrencies to “abuse of non-profit organizations.”... Toronto resident Khalilullah Yousuf was handed a 12-year sentence for organizing GoFundMe campaigns that were ostensibly raising money for humanitarian purposes in Gaza, but were actually being funnelled to Islami State affiliates... Canada listed the Vancouver-based anti-Israel group Samidoun as a terror entity. Although Samidoun had long been active in promoting terrorist ideology both in Canada and abroad, its status as a fundraiser for terror groups was cited as one of the primary reasons it was listed as a terror entity. In a joint announcement with Canada, the U.S. Department of the Treasury called Samidoun a “sham charity” that had served as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an active terror group."

Calvin Cheng | Facebook - "The huge military parade celebrating China’s victory in WW2 is truly ironic.China would never have been so easily liberated from Japanese occupation if not for the Americans.  Before Japan’s unconditional surrender after the US dropped 2 atomic bombs , this was the situation in China: Japan controlled all the major city cities and coastal areas ; the Chinese resistance fought them to a stalemate in the countryside.  The KMT was making some slow gains in Guangxi and Hunan.  Without American being drawn into the war against Japan, China would have been occupied for a much longer time.   But America was not invited to this massive victory parade.  Worse , the parade was used as a chance to gather America’s rivals. And showcase military equipment that could possibly be used to challenge America.  What an irony.""

Hundreds of children poisoned by free school meals in blow to Indonesia's plan to end hunger - "In the largest mass-poisoning since the scheme launched in January, 400 people fell ill in Bengkulu, a province on the south-west coast of Sumatra island, with children as young as 12 being rushed to hospital.  The incident is the latest blow to the flagship policy of President Prabawo Subianto, a former general who was sworn into power last October with an ambitious plan to fight stunting and malnutrition by feeding more than 80 million people this year.  Mr Prabawo has said the initiative will turn the sprawling archipelago into a country “free from poverty, free from hunger”.  But the policy, which has a hefty price tag of 121 trillion rupiah (£5.5bn) in 2025 alone, has been beset by controversy.  Sarah Newey Global Health Security Correspondent, in Bangkok Related Topics      Indonesia, Malnutrition   04 September 2025 2:28pm BST  Food poisoning cases have been reported across the country, affecting over 1,000 people Food poisoning cases have been reported across the country, affecting over 1,000 people Credit: BAGUS INDAHONO/EPA/Shutterstock  Hundreds of children have been poisoned in Indonesia after consuming free school meals, pushing some parents to avoid a flagship scheme intended to eliminate hunger.  In the largest mass-poisoning since the scheme launched in January, 400 people fell ill in Bengkulu, a province on the south-west coast of Sumatra island, with children as young as 12 being rushed to hospital.  The incident is the latest blow to the flagship policy of President Prabawo Subianto, a former general who was sworn into power last October with an ambitious plan to fight stunting and malnutrition by feeding more than 80 million people this year.  Mr Prabawo has said the initiative will turn the sprawling archipelago into a country “free from poverty, free from hunger”.  But the policy, which has a hefty price tag of 121 trillion rupiah (£5.5bn) in 2025 alone, has been beset by controversy.  Demonstrations first erupted in February after it emerged ministries, including health and education, would suffer cuts of some £14bn to fund the meals. Protesters took to the streets with slogans like “children eat for free, parents are laid off” – the lavish budget reinforced a sense of irresponsible government spending, despite high unemployment and a persistent wealth gap.  The quality of the programme itself is also under scrutiny. Photos show school meals stuffed with ultra-processed foods, including biscuits and burgers, while food poisoning has been such a major problem that some parents have started telling their children not to eat the free food... There has been a spate of mass poisonings since the programme launched in January... In March, Indonesia’s anti-graft bureau flagged a “real possibility” of fraud, and there have already been investigations into embezzlement."

Jellyfish shut nuclear r

eactor in France - "The latest jellyfish incident comes less than a month after the Gravelines nuclear plant was shuttered in mid-August, after a separate “massive and unpredictable” swarm of jellyfish entered its cooling systems... This is not the first time that jellyfish have disrupted nuclear plants in general. Scotland’s Torness faced similar problems in 2011, while Gravelines itself was disrupted in 1993."

PLA armored vehicles destroyed during the Tiananmen Square prote

sts, 3rd and 4th of June 1989 : r/TankPorn

f="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/how-india-became-the-diabetes-capital-of-the-world/?recomm_id=5bc7eb5a-fdfa-45c8-8b79-c27fbce41afe">How India became the diabetes capital of the world

Jewellery boss ‘made staff pose as customers in £170m scam’ - "A jewellery boss who allegedly scammed investors out of £170m reportedly had his staff pose as customers to make his shops look busy to keep up the ruse.  In what could be the UK’s biggest diamond scam, Vashi Dominguez is also alleged to have had shop workers sit at work benches and pretend to be goldsmithing when business was faltering.  Investors claim that when the facade was exposed, they still hoped they could be bailed out by the £157m worth of diamonds they were told were held in stock.  However, the remaining gemstones were valued at just £100,000, a BBC Panorama investigation claims."

A body in concrete, a warped landlord and a kitchen turned into a ‘kill room’

‘I’ve had the name longer than him’: Mark Zuckerberg sued by Mark Zuckerberg - "A lawyer called Mark Zuckerberg is suing Facebook after the social network repeatedly took down his page, claiming he was impersonating the company’s boss.  Mark Stephen Zuckerberg, a bankruptcy lawyer in the US state of Indiana, says he has spent thousands of dollars promoting his services on Facebook but his page has been repeatedly blocked by the site.  Mr Zuckerberg says his life has been turned upside down by sharing a name with the world’s third-richest man, including receiving death threats and incessant tech support phone calls... He said he had had the name Mark Zuckerberg “way longer than he has” and was suing after years of having his account unfairly removed.  He said he had spent more than $11,000 (£8,000) on Facebook adverts to promote his law practice, but that both his business and personal pages had been repeatedly removed for “impersonating a celebrity”.  Mr Zuckerberg said it often takes months to restore his account, leading to lost business, and that the company had broken “fair dealing” laws. “I’d rather not pick a fight with them, but I don’t know how to make them stop,” he said. “I don’t know how else to get their attention.” Mr Zuckerberg has a website where he chronicles cases in which sharing a name has affected his life.  This includes being sued by the state of Washington because of mistaken identity, turning off his phone at night because of a torrent of notifications, receiving more than 100 friend requests daily, and having to use a fake name when booking restaurants, which otherwise assume it is a prank. In one case, a limo driver holding a sign bearing his name in Las Vegas was surrounded by fans eagerly awaiting the Meta billionaire.  Mr Zuckerberg has been practising law for 38 years, when the younger and richer Mr Zuckerberg was three years old. Meta said: “We know there’s more than one Mark Zuckerberg in the world, and we are getting to the bottom of this.”  Mr Zuckerberg said he would be satisfied if the Meta billionaire offered him a week on his superyacht. “[If he] let me spend a week on his boat to say I’m sorry, I’d probably take him up on that,” he said."

‘Smart water’ spray reduces domestic attacks by a fifth - "Domestic abuse attacks have been cut by more than a fifth by spraying the homes of victims with smart water to deter perpetrators, police have revealed.  Officers have deployed the water in devices hidden in the victims’ homes that spray or tag the abuser with the liquid if they try to attack, harass or contact them in breach of court orders."

New Zealand rips up Jacinda Ardern’s ban on wealthy foreigners - "restrictions introduced by the Ardern government – which famously shut off the country from the world during the Covid-19 pandemic – backfired.  The country slipped into a recession last year, with weak growth in 2025. A Right-wing coalition government is now trying to revive its economic fortunes"

Its biggest champion Lord Hermer has just demolished the case for the ECHR - "Appearing before the Lords Constitution Committee, he could not find a single legal reason why we should remain members of the ECHR. He claimed that leaving would have adverse diplomatic and political consequences (not his responsibility) – not that it would threaten our freedoms. Pressed by the crossbench peer, Lord Anderson, he admitted that if we left, Britain would be in the same “club” as Canada, Australia and New Zealand – who maintain exemplary rights without submitting to an international court. He admitted that the Human Rights Act, which was supposed to “bring rights home” by letting our courts interpret the Convention before cases reached Strasbourg, has backfired. Our immigration tribunals give even greater rights to foreign nationals than do Continental courts. So, he promised to give courts “guidance” on interpreting Convention rights, if need be, by Act of Parliament.  That destroys the whole rationale of the ECHR. The central tenet of the human rights religion is that human rights are too important to be entrusted to elected politicians. Hence, the task of creating law defining each right and deciding how rights may be balanced against other legitimate objectives must be removed from Parliament and given to judges – unaccountable and therefore immune to political pressures. For Hermer to admit that British judges have been getting it wrong, and Parliament should tell them how to do it better, is sheer heresy.  Hermer may have lost faith in the superiority of British courts, but his belief in the infallibility of the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights is unshakeable.. The Strasbourg Court recently overruled a Swiss referendum, declaring that “Democracy cannot be reduced to the will of the majority of the electorate and elected representatives in disregard of the requirements of the rule of law” – as interpreted by the Court. None of his arguments for remaining in the ECHR related to our rights. If we left, he asserted, “it is inconceivable” that our European neighbours would enter into agreements with us on extradition. But France has mutual extradition treaties with Algeria, Morocco, the UAE and China.  He repeated the fatuous claim that leaving would bracket us with Russia and Belarus. In fact, it would bracket us with the EU which, despite the Lisbon Treaty obligation to join the ECHR, refuses to accept any court as superior to its own.  Once again, he asserted that “from its inception” Britain has been a “key promoter” of the ECHR. In fact, Attlee, Churchill and his Conservative successors refused to accept the authority of the Strasbourg court precisely because they foresaw it would transfer the power to make law from Parliament to the courts. The inexorable effect of which is to emasculate Parliament and politicise the judiciary – threatening the rule of law which is the the Lords Committee’s concern."

Landeur 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 on X - "Just watched a Labour MP on GB News say that the ECHR gives us the right to trial by Jury... We had this for 700 years before the ECHR btw."

Leaving ECHR ‘would not threaten peace in Northern Ireland’ - "Leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) would not threaten peace in Northern Ireland, leading lawyers have claimed.  They said suggestions the UK could not withdraw because of commitments made in the Good Friday Agreement were “entirely groundless”,  in a report backed by Jack Straw, the former Labour home secretary.  Prof Richard Ekins of Oxford University was one authors of the report, for Policy Exchange, the think tank.  He said public debate about human rights law reform had been “distorted” by the repeated assertion that withdrawal from the ECHR would breach the historic peace deal."
We were told that Brexit would lead to civil war in Northern Ireland, so

Healey's ridiculous gaffe on the ECHR and Nato is worrying for soldiers like me - "The Defence secretary, John Healey, who hitherto appeared to be one of the few reasonably safe pairs of hands in the Cabinet, has now said on television that if we left the ridiculously inflexible and ill-conceived European Convention on Human Rights, we would be the only nation in Nato to be outside it!  Of course the United States of America – without which Nato would be a pale shadow of itself – and Canada, both Nato members, are both outside the ECHR and lucky to be so. The ECHR is profoundly damaging to military morale, as our membership of it is a primary reason for many damaging prosecutions and judgements against our service people. This is not even to mention the swarming young men, mostly economic migrants, who cross the Channel illegally in small boats and the many other migrants who gain the right to live here against the will of the British people – in large part because we are signed up to the ECHR. We soldiers also smile wryly at the news that illegal immigrants will no longer be housed in comfortable hotels but in military bases – which were always, of course, good enough for us!  Perhaps the Defence secretary and the rest of this Government should reset the way they look at our military folk. Perhaps this nation should take a more American style “thank you for your service” approach rather than the traditional “Tommy this, and Tommy that”. Left-wingers in this country seem to support Hamas terrorists more than the people who keep them safe in their beds at night. This was made especially clear by the recent decision in Northern Ireland by councillors in Derry and Strabane not to allow the British Army to come to the local jobs fair. At a time when once again an evil tyrant is threatening war across Europe, we need a few good men and women from both sides of the Irish border in our forces – as we have always needed them. Though the Republic of Ireland is not a Nato member, it relies totally on the UK and Nato to protect it against the current Russian aggression – as incidents involving Russian submarines in Irish waters have lately shown... John Healey and so many of the current crop of MPs have never served in the military.  We have seldom been more reliant on our armed forces than we are today. Our leaders, among them Mr Healey, must ensure that the woke, the hard left and the ambulance-chasing lawyers are kept well away from our fighting men and women. Those who would do us harm will strike without hesitation if we show any weakness or lack of commitment to our Armed Forces and the defence of these isles."

Labour plans to remove our ancient British right to trial by jury are despicable - " This Labour Government claims to be utterly beholden to international law, human rights and the latest faddish and woke interpretations of the European courts. But when it comes to the rights of the individual in this country Sir Keir Starmer’s record is an international embarrassment, as we can see with the creeping infringement of the right to free speech and the way our military veterans are being hounded decades after their service. Now this Government has announced plans to abolish the right to trial by jury for a wide range of cases. Trials by jury have existed in England literally since “time immemorial”. The legal definition of time immemorial was originally taken as a custom which had been in existence since before the year 1189."
Of course, the UK can't leave the ECHR, because all of Britons' fundamental human rights dating back to Magna Carta depend on being in the ECHR. Since the right to a jury trial isn't in the ECHR, the UK doesn't need it

‘Shadow system’ of Sharia courts challenges British justice - "A job posting for a Sharia Law Administrator on the Department for Work and Pensions’ careers board was like a red rag to a bull for Nigel Farage.  To the Reform UK leader, the advert for the £23,500 a year job in the suburb of Didsbury, Manchester, showed “our country and its values are being destroyed.”  The listing itself said any potential candidates should have previous experience in “Shariah law-related fields and/or Shariah courts in Muslim countries,” alongside expertise in British law.  But Farage was not the only politician outraged. Senior Tories also lined up to criticise the posting, which briefly emerged in July before being deleted...  Maryam Namazie, an Iranian-born human rights campaigner from the One Law for All campaign, says: “The problem with Sharia or any religious court is that it relies on laws perceived as divine, which cannot be challenged or questioned.”  Above all, opponents fear Sharia courts effectively operate as a parallel legal system that diverges from British legal norms. Critics cite the fact that, unlike the Beth Din courts used in Jewish communities, the vast majority of Britain’s Sharia councils are not signed up to the Arbitration Act of 1996 – meaning there’s little oversight over the way they operate or recourse for when things go wrong... “The reason why they’re controversial is twofold,” says Prof Samia Bano, of the School of Oriental and African Studies, who specialises in Islamic family law. “First of all, there is a concern that they are parallel legal systems. Is this Islamic law being practised through the back door in a way which usurps and undermines English family law?  “The second concern is about what is going on in these privatised spaces. Are women who go to these bodies experiencing undue pressures or coercion to potentially reconcile with their husbands, who may be problematic? Are there other family law disputes that are being discussed in these spaces, without any knowledge of the state law?” Submissions to a 2018 Home Office report on the Muslim courts included testimony from women who said Imams tried to force them to return to their husbands in cases of serious domestic violence.  One woman, referred to as Maryam, said Imams repeatedly telephoned her to persuade her to meet a husband who had violently abused and sexually assaulted her. “These Imams just don’t listen – they try and force you back to your husband no matter what, and feel they have the right to disturb your life,” she said. Another woman, Ayesha, said a Sharia council repeatedly refused to let her divorce her husband even after he attacked her while she was pregnant and attempted to throw her daughter out the window.  A separate letter from Southall Black Sisters, a domestic abuse charity, was signed by 300 abused women and voiced concerns that “hard line” clerics presided over Sharia councils in Britain... Southall Black Sisters also claimed in its submission to the 2018 Home Office review that Imams on Sharia law courts were “often corrupt, primarily interested in making money and abusing their positions of power.”  Bano says high fees charged by some had led to allegations they were little more than “money-making schemes”."

Why the middle class are fleeing Paris - "The middle classes are fleeing Paris amid complaints that the City of Light is turning into a shiny “showcase” for tourists, singles and the super-rich rather than welcoming families. Over the past decade, Paris has shed more than 120,000 residents – an average of 12,200 people per year, despite births outnumbering deaths.  While the wealthy prosper and the poor are offered social housing, critics say those stuck in the middle are being squeezed out by high property prices, limited availability of larger apartments, and the spread of short-term tourist rentals, such as Airbnb.  Dirt, rats, ugly urban architecture, rising local taxes and chaotic urban planning are also frequent complaints against Anne Hidalgo, the capital’s socialist mayor.  Her war on motorists, who last year were hit with a double whammy of speed cuts on the capital’s ring road and the tripling of parking fees for heavy vehicles, such as SUVs, has also sparked fury among families. The city’s remaining population is disproportionately composed of single-person households, older adults, and affluent professionals who can afford high rents. Half of all households in Paris are now single-person, a figured predicted to rise to 55 per cent by 2050... Showcase projects like the Olympics and bathing in the Seine mask this underlying problem.  Local education academy figures point to a 20 per cent decline in the number of children in state schools in the capital since 2010... Jacques Baudrier, Paris’s communist deputy mayor for housing, insisted that the city had not lost its pull. “On the contrary, people want to live here more than ever,” he said, pointing to a record number of applications for social housing (around 308,000) as well as private rentals.  He argued the population decrease was “solely down to the increase in the number of vacant dwellings and second homes”.   There are currently 300,000 of these, “representing 28 per cent of the private housing stock”. To remedy this, the Left-wing municipality is campaigning to triple the taxes on these flats. “If the government finally allows taxes to be increased, we will be able to house 200,000 more people,” he told Le Parisien.  He also insisted Paris was “winning the battle against Airbnb” by forcing owners wishing to rent out their second homes to apply to the local council for authorisation to change the use of the property to a commercial activity. Primary residences can only be rented out for 90 days per year.  But such arguments don’t wash with those who have already left... Experts temper talk of exodus by saying it is a long-term trend that started in the 1960s with a few blips. Some suggest Paris’s small-sized flats mean the city has always been more a place to study and work than to start a family.  Others argue that losing inhabitants isn’t all bad. With 20,000 inhabitants per square kilometre, Paris is the densest city in Europe, not far off Calcutta.  And while the city inside the ring road is losing inhabitants, the population in towns and suburbs outside the ring road is rising as transport improves around Greater Paris improves... “We cannot talk about a happy demographic decline when, between a very wealthy Paris and a very subsidised Paris, the middle classes are forced to leave,” retorted Mr Boulard."

The reality of being an ex-expat: ‘People don’t talk about how difficult it is to come home’

Online shopping for 45 minutes a day at work ‘not grounds for dismissal’ - "Spending 45 minutes a day at work online shopping is not “excessive”, an employment judge has ruled. If your boss does the same, then browsing Amazon or Rightmove during office hours does not amount to “misconduct”, a tribunal said. The ruling was made in the case of an accountant who was sacked for shopping on her work computer after her employer put “spyware software” on it. A tribunal found the amount of time Anna Lanuszka, 34, “devoted to personal matters” during work hours – almost an hour and a half over two days – was not “shown to be excessive”. It awarded her £14,120 for unfair dismissal after finding her employer installed the spyware because it wanted an excuse to sack her... The tribunal heard Ms Lanuszka’s defence was “that she was allowed to use the computer for personal matters if she had no other work to do”. She said her boss Ms Krauze also used her computer “for personal matters in the office”, which was accepted by the tribunal."

How the highest criminal court in the world is facing its gravest crisis yet - "Red-carpet treatment from Xi Jinping; a bear-hug from Narendra Modi. The indictment of Vladimir Putin for war crimes did not prevent the leaders of the world’s most populous countries from giving him an effusive welcome at this week’s summit in China.  The cheery greetings from China’s president and India’s prime minister demonstrated how Putin’s indictment for kidnapping tens of thousands of Ukrainian children has failed to turn him into a global pariah.  That is a telling commentary on the reputation of the institution that brought the charge: the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague... the court is now enmeshed in its gravest crisis. Last week, it emerged that a second woman has accused Karim Khan KC, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, of sexual misconduct... And the institution’s troubles go well beyond the personal difficulties of its chief prosecutor. The court is now pursuing bigger and more formidable targets than ever before: its latest indictments are not levelled at obscure rebel leaders or military commanders, or even the ministers of overthrown regimes, but the sitting presidents and prime ministers of powerful states... The conclusion of this case leaves the ICC with just one current trial – that of a militia leader from the Central African Republic called Mahamat Said. This saves the institution, which has an annual budget exceeding £160m, from being a court without a trial."

Fire chief sacked after ‘throwing disabled YouTuber’s phone over hedge’ - "A senior firefighter was sacked for allegedly throwing away a disabled YouTuber’s phone at the scene of a fire, a tribunal has heard.  John Linden, who was a station manager at Norfolk Fire Service, has claimed unfair dismissal and accused his former employer of discriminating against him on account of his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosis."

Thread by @oldbooksguy on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "After the French revolutionaries beheaded their king, they had another bright idea:  "Let's make the day 10 hours long"  This is NOT a joke. Left-wing "experts" actually changed the length of minutes, hours, and weeks in the name of science...  This is the story of that disaster:
The French revolutionaries adopted a new calendar for three reasons:
- To eliminate religious consciousness from the French society
- To make time more “rational”
- To announce the birth of an egalitarian era
In their zeal they forgot an important factor: human nature
This is a story of political arrogance.  The revolutionaries overestimated the power of science. And underestimated the stickiness of religion.  One hour = 100 minutes. One min = 100 seconds. New year shifted from 1st Jan to 22nd Sept..  A radical attempt to redefine time itself. In France, from 1793 to 1805, one week had 10 days.  The 7th day, traditionally a holiday - “holy day” - became a typical week day. An attempt at secularization.  Every 10th day was made the rest day. John Adams called this change "superficially frivolous" and "coarsely vulgar".  Sociologist Zerubavel notes that the 10-day week was meant to disrupt the “traditional, sacred seven-day cycle”.  Purpose was to disorient people and make them lose track of “Sunday”.  That is, the day for going to Church.  And having a weekly sitdown with the divine
The French Revolutionary Calendar was designed by the top experts of the day. The chief designer: CG Romme (Physics professor). Mathematicians & astronomers chipped in. Tradition/old habits didn’t matter. The designers answered “solely to the principles of Reason and Science”
Sociologist Zerubavel: “The Revolutionary Calendar was introduced in an age which advocated the total obliteration of the old order in the name of progress & modernity: the beginning of the new Republican Era marked the total discontinuity between past & present” Ring a bell?
Every calendar has “critical dates” which are suffused with a symbolic importance.  The Revolutionaries changed the first day of the year from January 1 to 22nd September - the day of the “foundation of the French Republic”.  Society was to spin not around religion but politics. Days which had a unique flavor due to their religious significance like “the saints' days, Sunday and the Church's religious holidays” were abolished. Each day became mathematically and symbolically alike. Differences were to be erased - whether among people or on the calendar
By adopting calendrical rhythms alien to the rest of the world.  The French created artificial barriers to communication, understanding, and ultimately trade.  How would you fix delivery schedules with a country whose calendar is untranslatable into yours?... By denouncing all authority as arbitrary, the revolutionary finally harms himself.  On what grounds will HE govern once the king is gone?  In hindsight we can see the “boomerang effect” of the Calendar redesign.  If the old dogmas were random.  Why are the new ones any better?
The people HATED the new Calendar.  It made them work for 9 days straight instead of 6.  Plus it was confusing.  Special clocks were made to translate the Revolutionary calendar into the Gregorian calendar and back.  People’s age-long habits were redesigned without their consent
STALIN imposed a new calendar too.  The week was cut to 5 days to eliminate the holiday of Sunday.  Days were assigned colors, and workers were given colors.  When it was your colored day, you took a day off.  Families and friends had different colors and so they never hung out"

Links - 24th November 2025 (2 - Hamas Attack Oct 2023)

Eyal Yakoby on X - "At a pro-Palestinian rally in Australia, they reveal their true intentions. “Just like Israel, Australia does not have a right to exist.” It’s never been about Israel, it’s been about destroying Western civilization."

dahlia kurtz ✡︎ דליה קורץ on X - "Congratulations on the deletion of Jewish history by the Toronto District School Board! So, now, if students say Jews are indigenous to Israel, it will not only be wrong, but racist too! And that ONE act of racism will count as 3 forms: Anti-Palestinian Islamophobia Anti-Arab"

habibi on X - "What would happen to creeps in Blackburn shouting "Muslims are not welcome here!"? Well, here's the town's latest on "Zionists". They're well represented by the Islamist MP Adnan Hussain, that's for sure. Israel hatred is his mission in life. He'll say nothing about this."

Greta Thunberg deletes post mistakenly including Israeli hostage in Gaza prisoner plea - "Greta Thunberg included a photo of an Israeli man taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th, 2023, in a post on Instagram made on Monday seeking to highlight the "suffering" of Palestinian prisoners captured by Israel during the Gaza War."

Hamas weapons cache for ‘possible terrorist attacks in Europe’ found in Vienna - "German authorities had already arrested three individuals in connection with an alleged plot to attack Jewish targets in Germany. The men were identified as German citizens, Abed Al G and Ahmad I, and Lebanese-born Wael F M. Germany only identifies suspects by their first name and last initial because of privacy laws. The arrests in Germany came on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, and the day before the terror attack on the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester."
Terrorism supporters want to globalise the intifada, after all
Time to crack down on the "far right" to keep Jews safe

Avi Benlolo: From Chow to Mamdani, the far left is obsessed with Jews - "four windows were smashed at Kehillat Shaarie Torah in Toronto for the 10th time... Kristallnacht is no longer a distant memory. It’s happening here today as synagogue windows are smashed and Jews are chased down by mobs of Islamists. Days earlier, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow shamelessly and irresponsibly said that what is happening in Gaza is a “genocide” at a charity gala hosted by the National Council of Canadian Muslims. Incendiary, unfounded and contested remarks serve to embolden extremists resulting in the violence and the growth of antisemitism we are now seeing in Toronto and across the country. Now with the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York’s mayor, antisemitism is headed toward a new path of acceptance, if not normalization. If Mamdani’s far left views are accepted, what’s to stop Chow and other political leaders around the world from normalizing views that before October 7 were ludicrous, distorted and fringe? The answer is nothing. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels is often credited with saying that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth."

Ottawa cancels noise fines for pro-Palestinian protesters : r/canada - "They'll have their bank accounts frozen soon right? Right?"
Weird. We were told that one reason the Freedom Convoy was so awful and its actions were so unforgiveable was the noise they created through honking. But turns out making noise is good if it pushes the left wing agenda

London theatre reported for ‘ban on Jews’ - "Jewish community leaders have accused an East End music venue of discrimination following claims it has imposed a ban on Jewish-related events. Campaigners have written to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) calling for an investigation into accusations that since the Oct 7 attacks The Troxy theatre has adopted an anti-Jewish policy... Rabbi Schapiro accused one of the Troxy’s management staff of telling him directly during a phone conversation that they “do not accept Jewish bookings”, before abruptly ending the call when the Rabbi challenged them about “this discriminatory stance”. The JCC also claims that since Oct 7 several orthodox Jewish event organisers have claimed to have received hostile treatment from some Troxy staff... Jewish community groups point out that there is a disturbing irony in The Troxy’s alleged refusal to book Jewish events, as the venue was founded in 1933 by Maurice Cheepen, a Jewish immigrant from Nazi Germany. The cinema was opened in the Limehouse area of London’s East End, which had long been home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in London, and the venue was a central feature of its cultural life."

The Persian Jewess on X - "Subhi, a jihadist Jew Hating TikTok influencer with nearly 900K followers, laments: “Did we have to give all the hostages back? Couldn’t we keep a couple? On hand. On retainer. Just as an insurance policy?” He then calls the hostages who were tortured and starved “bargaining chips” and insists the hostages should not be viewed as human beings. There are no words for this level of evil."

Michael Dickson on X - "Imagine being held hostage for two years, taken from your bed, buried alive underground far from your family, chained in darkness, abused and starved - only to be told by CNN’s Chief International Anchor that it wasn’t that bad. Her bias played out live, again. @CNN: Fire her."

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib on X - "US Central Command is confirming what everyone in Gaza has known, but was denied for two years by international journalists, activists, politicians, NGOs, and supposed "experts": Hamas has been systematically stealing, looting & siphoning aid meant for suffering Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Footage from an American surveillance drone monitoring the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel captured footage of a specific example that shows Hamas in the act. What makes the conclusion of the video 100% is the presence of a pick-up truck full of Hamas operatives, passing by the truck as the knocked-out driver is being thrown in the median divider of the road. These are the pick-up trucks that Hamas's "police" and enforcers use to roam around Gaza, execute, murder, kidnap, torture, and disappear people. Stuffing Gaza full of aid and goods, only for Hamas's terrorists to steal, sell, or tax such items as a means of making money and staying a relevant fighting force, is never going to work as a long-term strategy. The issue isn't about a shortage of aid; it's about who will access this aid. There is no lasting stability or peace until Hamas is removed from Gaza, a step that will require the use of force against this fascist militia."

Hundreds raid Hamas warehouses in Gaza, steal flour; 5 reportedly shot dead - "Hundreds of Gazans broke into Hamas warehouses near the entrance to Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza Strip and took large quantities of flour"
How ignorant. Don't they know there's no proof that Hamas stole aid?

Meme - ""Innocent Gazan" Halloween costume
Includes: 1 victim card, UNRWA paycheck, Hamas membership, Press Vest
*Fat man's t-shirt*: "Famine Survivor"
Sold separately:
Land
Accountability
Human shield
ADULT Size Costume
ONE SIZE FITS MOST"

Ryan Saavedra on X - "Former hostage Omer Shem Tov says Hamas was "very scared of" Trump: "They wanted Kamala to be elected." "As soon as Donald Trump was elected, they understood that he wanted to bring us back home," he added. "So immediately, the way they treated me changed""
So many reasons the left hates Trump

Richard Hanania on X - "Jared Kushner proved the foreign policy experts wrong in the first administration by working out the Abraham Accords. He's done it again with the peace deal. Trump may literally just solve the Middle East by the end of his second term. We have to give him that accomplishment."
Saul Sadka on X - "Trump and Kushner were able to succeed where Obama and Kerry failed, simply because they weren’t badly intentioned—not because they were smarter. The latter wanted to use Arab–Israeli peace as a “carrot” to motivate Israel to make more concessions to their beloved “Palestinian state” cause, just as they engineered the Iran deal to ensure that the permanent prospect of a nuclear Iran would serve as a “stick.” Imagine—Obama and Kerry so loved the cause that they were willing to risk global nuclear war for it. Obama and Kerry recognised that Israel and the PLO were too far apart in their red lines to make a deal possible, so they worked to ensure that Israel would be weakened and forced to soften those red lines, giving the West Bank and Gazan Arabs enough to allow a deal to be signed one day—on their terms. This fit neatly with their anti-nation, post-nationalist philosophy, in which the world must be “fixed” by weakening the strong and strengthening the weak. Some form of Arab autonomy in Gaza and the West Bank may yet emerge, but it won’t be on the terms Obama and Kerry dreamed of—it will be on terms within Israel’s red lines, red lines that hardened two years ago. Israelis—from right to left—have no interest in the kind of statehood previously envisioned, and there is no carrot or stick that will weaken that resolve. If the US and the Arab world explain this with a united voice, as they did in finally bringing Hamas to understand that surrender was its only option, that might finally persuade Abbas and company to accept far worse deals than those they already rejected: autonomy, self-governance, civilian administration, demilitarisation. They have no cards left to play."
Melissa Chen on X - "What’s the difference between the Obama/Kerry approach vs. Trump/Kushner? Obama / Kerry are technocrats in the geopolitical realm, just like they are on domestic issues. What they pursued was a values driven foreign policy, believing they can shape their desired outcome given carrots and sticks. What Trump / Kushner pursued was a pragmatic foreign policy based on interests, rather than values. This is the key because it’s the difference between working with what you have (reality) over what ought to be (idealism)"
Trust the Experts! "Qualifications" are what matter, not Results

Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ on X - "I remember taking classes from high-flying diplomats and professors at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service and feeling so impressed with all of their sophistication and academic knowledge. But in retrospect, these were the same people, or at least the same kind of people, who oversaw foreign policy disaster after foreign policy disaster. By contrast, Trump brings in real estate dealers and his own thirtysomething son-in-law as negotiators, and they achieve unprecedented peace deals. In the end, results are the only thing that matter. There's a lesson in there."
Charles O'Casey on X - "Remember? It was the FS industrial complex/ mafia that chaffed at Ronald Reagan’s “Tear down this wall” speech. That refused GWBush’s order to change HizbAllah’s name. That lost winnable wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. (note: NOT a judgement about starting the war. A judgement in how to lose the war after winning major combat operations."
MCBlair on X - "The permanent State is motivated by performative theater, process, not results. Perhaps because a conflict is what keeps the paychecks coming."

Pro-Palestine protest turns violent during Paris concert by Israeli orchestra - "The Philharmonie de Paris concert hall descended into chaos after pro-Palestine activists let off smoke bombs during a concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Four people were arrested on Thursday night after the concert was interrupted three times. Red flares enveloped the hall in clouds of smoke during a performance of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. Appalled concertgoers tackled the protesters while punches rained down and objects were thrown. Security eventually expelled the troublemakers, and the orchestra, led by Israeli conductor Lahav Shani, was able to resume and received a standing ovation at the end... With the concert held days before the tenth anniversary of the Paris terror attacks on Nov 13, many expressed their outrage at the security failures at the venue... This is not the first incident faced by Israeli conductor Lahav Shani. In September, he was removed from the programme of the Ghent Festival in Belgium, where he was to conduct the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra at the opening of the event. In a statement, the maestro accused the Belgian festival’s management of bowing to “political pressure”. Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor, then issued a statement condemning “the poison of anti-Semitism”. Tensions surrounding concerts by Israeli artists have been mounting in France since the start of the conflict in Gaza. On the same Thursday evening, Franco-Israeli singer Amir was targeted by a call for a boycott by France Unbowed, the Leftist party, in Brest, which denounced “his proximity to the Israeli colonial far right”."
Why are Zionists so violent?!

Max 📟 on X - ""I call for a demilitarized State of Palestine in which Hamas plays NO PART." Cool, so who's going to enforce that? France? No wait, it's only ever going to be Israel, and you'll just vote for UN resolutions to condemn Israel whenever they act to enforce it. The demilitarized State of Palestine will find some excuse to remilitarize, start a war, and tons of people will die. All because Macron wanted to feel important."

Vivid.🇮🇱 on X - "Palestinians: "We want you to cut off the heads of the Jews with knives with your hands. A knife costs five shekels. Go buy a knife and just cut off their heads." France, the UK, and Canada want them to have a state."
Terrorism supporters love to fixate on what random Israeli politicians say now and then but ignore what Palestinians say and do all the time

Hen Mazzig on X - "Yoni, from Kibbutz Mefalsim, survived Hamas storming his home and kidnapping his friends and family. When he shared his story at Pomona College in California, students thought it would be a good idea to dress like Hamas members and storm his talk."

Harris Sultan on X - "Fun fact: The Israel–Hamas war has the lowest casualty count of any war this century. Every other war has had far more casualties than this so-called “genocide.” The whole pro-Pally crowd is a scam."

Casey Babb on X - "Hamas — “we tortured the hostages.”
The hostages —“they tortured us.”
Palestinian activists — “no they didn’t.”"

AG on X - "Former Israeli hostage Tal Shoham says he was held captive by a first grade teacher, a University lecturer, and a doctor in Gaza. He describes how he was intentionally starved despite there being plenty of food for his captors, who bragged about stealing aid."
Noah Pollak on X - "The idea that Hamas and Palestinian society are distinct entities is a self-serving western delusion."

נדב איל Nadav Eyal on X - "A few weeks ago, I heard the Philharmonic perform in New York, and outside there was a demonstration. It was after the ceasefire, and the people there weren’t protesting Gaza. The signs we saw weren’t about Gaza at all. They were about Israel - about the existence of Israel. The charade is over. It’s now completely clear that to protest the Philharmonic in Paris by lighting torches, at a moment when Hamas and Israel have already agreed to a ceasefire, is not about stopping the bloodshed. It has nothing to do with humanitarian concerns. It is about hatred. It is about inciting the destruction of Israel. It is about trying to delegitimize anything connected to Israel. What we are seeing is one of the most ambitious and radical projects of our time: an effort to indict Israel in a way that makes its very existence impossible, and any violence against it - against its citizens or its institutions - morally acceptable and even justified across intellectual and political life. This is a project to incite a new war."
Eylon Levy on X - "Nadav is right. The anti-Israel protests around the world are intended to "incite a new war": a global assault on all Jews. The purpose of calling us "genocidal" is to make killing us a moral act. They are trying to get us killed, and we need to accept that this is what's happening."

Eyal Yakoby on X - "BREAKING: Islamists are outside the UN in NYC screaming “Shame” after the Security Council approved the Gaza ceasefire. They were never “pro-ceasefire.” They were always pro-Hamas — and now they’re furious Hamas will finally be forced to disarm."

Thread by @Aizenberg55 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "🧵FACT: The WHO vaccinated this year 603,000 children under age 10 in Gaza—more children this age than existed pre-war. UN reports 60,000 births in Gaza in 2024—same as pre-war. These are fatal flaws in the Gaza "massive fatality undercount" studies and "genocide" claims:
How many children under 10 lived in Gaza before the war? Using 10 years of actual birth data from Palestinian Authority we can estimate very closely. They report ~58,000 births/year in Gaza from 2007–2022 so that's about 580,000 children up to age 10. UNFPA reported 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza in both late-2023 and Dec 2024—equal to about 60,000 annual births, consistent with the historical average. Image from Jan 2025 UNFPA situation report. And it even increased in 2025 with the latest May 2025 issued UNFPA report showing 55,000 pregnant women in Gaza: The Palestinian Ministry of Health notes there are 60,000 pregnancies in Gaza as of late-2024.
To be clear: Thousands of children have been tragically killed in Gaza, due to Hamas starting a war on 10/7, human shield strategy, refusal to release the hostages & surrender. But recent studies claiming massive casualty undercounts are undermined by WHO's vaccination data."
The most incompetent genocide in history

Pro-Palestine protests: The vandalism seen on Britain's streets shows the rot is deep... and the world is watching - Colin Brazier - "a picture of a war memorial in London, obscured by Palestine stickers. Above the photograph, I wrote: "This statue reminds us that 55,000 airmen in Bomber Command perished in WW2. Their odds of dying (not being injured or captured; but dying) were about 50/50. They cannot have conceived of a Britain that would, within a generation or two, be so contemptuous of their sacrifices." I owe Joey Barton, and the million other X users who viewed my post, a minor apology. The monument in question was not actually - as I thought - the Bomber Command statue on Piccadilly. It was, in fact, the Battle of Britain memorial on the Embankment. Same war, different wings of the Royal Air Force. The point, however, holds. And, judging by the response my post got, people are furious with protesters who see some of our most revered statuary as nothing more than a backdrop for students’ union-grade agitprop. The pro-Palestine mob have form on this. The huge bronze of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square needs a police guard whenever their protests pass beneath him. And such acts of desecration - actual or intended - are not limited to London. The great Edwardian architect Edwin Lutyens made seven versions of the Cenotaph in Whitehall. One of them is in Rochdale, built to memorialise the deaths of thousands of young men drawn from the Lancashire mill-town and its neighbouring villages. Days after the October 7 attacks - far, far away in Israel - the cenotaph was vandalised and sprayed with ‘free Palestine’ slogans. For the patriotic Britons who raised money to build this monolith, many of whom personally knew the teenagers and 20-somethings who formed close-knit (and often doomed) battalions of ‘pals’, the idea that it would one day be so little respected, would have been utterly bewildering. Almost as bewildering as finding that their once-proud town could become a byword for the vile activities of grooming gangs. And yet, sad to say, we live in an age of forgetting. And, while I find it galling to see - for instance - the magnificent Royal Artillery memorial at Hyde Park Corner covered in Free Palestine stickers, there are more insidious examples of sacred spaces violated by activism... this is a worldview set at Year Zero. Where all that matters is today and now. And where the values of those who have died long ago (in other words, before the beginning of this diverse century) count for little."
Weird. Left wingers like to claim World War II veterans were the original antifa. But such is the progressive stack

Jordan Schachtel on X - "Average Israeli hostage: Family man, engineer at tech firm, wants to make the world a better place. Average Palestinian prisoner: Jihadist, wishes death upon all infidels, has contributed nothing to society, pledges to go back to terror the second he gets out."

Daniel Lambert on X - "Palestinian hostages cannot be visited by the Red Cross. This is the same reason journalists are prevented from entering Gaza. The occupiers crimes are too extreme to be revealed. Israel is demonic"
Dr. Brian L. Cox on X - "First off, Palestinian detainees are not "hostages." Look up the definition & you'll see why. Palestinian DETAINEES are not entitled to be visited by the Red Cross. Look up Common Article 3 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions & you'll see why. Journalists are prevented from entering Gaza because Hamas still maintains an armed presence there. Look up "Hamas intimidates journalists" & you'll see why. (Hint, start here: https://cpj.org/2025/05/gaza-journalists-speak-out-about-hamas-intimidation-threats-assaults/) Now, you can call @Israel whatever you want. But spinning disinformation in public just to denigrate an entire country (and, in this case, all Jews by proxy) is actually "demonic.""

Manchester synagogue terror attack - GOV.UK
£10 million boost to protect Muslim communities - GOV.UK

Chris Rose on X - "If a white working class student ‘threatened to behead’ a Muslim lecturer, sectarian Muslim MPs would have condemned them already. Complete silence from all of them now. These students need to be expelled and if possible, deported."
On Michael Ben-Gad

Handmaid's Tale vs Muslim Niqabs / Male Fantasy as Feminist Protest

The Conservative Alternative @OldeWorldOrder: "The same radical feminists who gasp with horror at The Handmaid's Tale are literally mass importing that kind of culture as quickly as possible. It is cognitive dissonance on a massive scale."
"Isn't it kinda wild how the same radical feminists who screech about The Handmaid's Tale are now voting to mass import a culture that actually behaves like that?" *Women in Handmaid's Tale costumes* *Women in Niqabs*

*Femen protest with topless women mopping the ground while yelling about fascism*
Carl Benjamin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @Sargon_of_Akkad: "French feminists have somehow manage to engineer becoming the archetypal male fantasy as a form of empowering protest."

Links - 24th November 2025 (1 - Indigenous Peoples: Canada)

Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸 on X - "🚨🚨BREAKING - BC LEGISLATURE DECENDS INTO ABSOLUTE CHAOS AS MP ARMSTRONG REVEALS U.S. BASED TRIBES ARE NOW PLACING LAND CLAIMS IN BC AS WELL "You voted UNDRIP into law! This act of betrayal is selling BC for $0!" Eby: "I hope you get recalled!""

Ford says he treats First Nations like gold but they keep coming hat in hand : r/CanadianConservative - "This isn’t wrong though. I live 12 minutes from a reserve so they carry about in our community. Most of my communities social disruptions are straight from the Rez. They’ve been taught they don’t need to work, they don’t have any aspirations to do better. They bother folks just trying to get groceries pandering for handouts. They are visibly drunk and passed out in public spaces. They dedicate and carry on sexual acts in public… They pop out babies and the reserve cuts POs to buy stuff at Walmart. The reserve constantly hosts handout days, they get upgrade playgrounds built on the governments dime, our community has to fundraise to make a new one happen. On and on and on.  At some point… the bandaid has to be ripped and they HAVE to learn how to fly on their own and fend for themselves. The government has created this very issue by the constant pandering. Why would someone try to reach for their own success when they know they’ll just be provided for? But at the same time what kind of quality of life is it to sit on your ass at home? It’s a vicious cycle. A hundred years from now if nothing changes, you think reserves will look ANY different when you drive through??"
The chiefs said this was "dangerous" - because it would cut off their grift

NELSON: Ottawa’s indigenous appeasement is bankrupting Canada - "There will come a day when a brave politician in this country will tell the truth about the endless shakedown indigenous leaders are engaged upon under the guise of protecting the land.  Sadly, chances are that day is a long way off.  So, until such a moment arrives, we’ll have to suffer through yet more pious platitudes about promoting diversity and recognizing the unique stewardship indigenous folk bring to the very heart and soul of Canada.  It is total poppycock, of course. Do we see roving bands of Natives busily picking up litter in our national parks or resolutely bagging trash that lazy and ignorant drivers threw away along our highways, as a practical way to keep Canada pristine?  Or are the various reserves across the country on par with Switzerland for being wonderfully neat and tidy?  The answer is no. But what we do see is an immediate rush to the nearest microphone if any level of government intends building anything, anywhere in Canada. Simply suggesting this is cause for uproar. This is coming to a head again following the passing of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s much-ballyhooed Bill C-5, a piece of legislation supposed to kick-start development across Canada and strengthen our economy so we’re less of a rollover when talking tariffs with the United States and its endlessly belligerent president.  Whether it’s building roads, pipelines, docks or mines is immaterial. It is simply deemed wrong to do so because such projects are, by their very nature, a threat to the Indigenous way of life.  (It certainly doesn’t threaten lawyers’ way of life — they can make a killing on the resulting fees charged as courts deal with the inevitable challenges that arise as soon as the word ‘build’ is uttered.)   The latest legal challenge to Carney’s attempt to fast-track development was filed in Ontario Superior Court of Justice this week, claiming Bill C-5 represents a ‘clear and present danger’ to First Nations' self-determination on their territories. After all — we were informed in an emotional press conference that followed the lawsuit’s launch — First Nation communities have a ‘sacred responsibility’ to protect the land.  In response the prime minister trotted out the usual mouthings about consultation and respect, while probably wondering why he ever left banking to get involved in this charade.  What he should have said is that Canada’s rapidly going broke; that we’re borrowing close to $100 billion this year alone and desperately need to boost our economy if we’re to continue spending such huge amounts of money.  And then he could have pointed out the annual federal budget for Indigenous Affairs almost tripled between 2015 and 2025, growing from about $11 billion to more than $32 billion allocated this year.  Oh, and the fire hose of spending didn’t end there.  The Fraser Institute recently tallied up all the legal class actions involving First Nations settled without litigation. The estimated liabilities had reached $76 billion by 2023, as specific claims were settled at a rate four times higher by the Justin Trudeau regime than they had been under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. Not surprisingly this has led to a significant transfer of land and money to First Nations.  So, is it any wonder anything changing the status quo, no matter how vital to this country’s future, is therefore fair game for a legal challenge, because the end result will be more taxpayer cash doled out in compensation? It works every time. This wouldn’t be so bad if at least this continual shakedown subsequently improved the life of average indigenous people. But it hasn’t. Far from it: Natives are dying younger than ever, for Heavens sake.  Take Alberta, for example. Between 2015 and 2021 the life expectancy dropped a shocking seven years for First Nations men and women. For males it fell from 67 to 60 years and for females 73 to 66 years. (For the rest of Canada it was 79 and 84 years respectively.)  This is wrong at every level. But yet it continues because no politician has the guts to stand up and tell the truth: continue to cripple Canada’s economy by tying up all proposed development in legal knots and the money tap will be turned off.  Some day someone will say this. But it won’t be this day."

Indigenous man caught with ‘killing machine’ rifle gets time served - " Jesse Garlow, a convicted drug trafficker who was under a firearms prohibition, had been in custody since June 7, 2024 when he was sentenced. Police initially pulled him over because the car he was driving was weaving.  “I have determined that systemic and background factors have affected the degree of responsibility of this offender. Mr. Garlow is the personification of intergenerational trauma. I cannot imagine more sympathetic circumstances or mitigating factors that cry out for some compassion. Punishing him with a further period of incarceration for the sake of the common good would be unjust,” wrote Justice Brenda Green, who recently handed Garlow a suspended sentence and three years of probation... The judge saw a “clear, causal nexus between his father’s brutalization in residential schools and the trail of damage and devastation that slammed like a wrecking ball through the next generation. I cannot imagine a case with a more shocking example of the detrimental impact of colonialism, intergenerational trauma and the attempted cultural genocide by seizing children from their communities only to be placed in horribly abusive environments.”  Garlow is Mohawk and a member of Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation...  “A sentence reduction is not a reflection of a judge being ‘soft on crime.’ It is our obligation as the gatekeepers of justice to address, redress and hopefully ameliorate institutionalized abuse.”"
If he kills anyone in the future, this will be due to intergenerational trauma, racism and residential schools

Indigenous man caught with ‘killing machine’ of a rifle gets time served due to intergenerational trauma : r/canada - "As a FN person myself, this has gotten out of hand. Dude is younger than I am, and while he can claim some intergenerational trauma since the last IRS in Ontario closed in June 1970, it was more so a failure of the Six Nations community that failed him.  We need to better focus on healing and providing support for our own communities, and that falls squarely on our own FN governments and the AFN.  Many of us are educated, successful, and stable despite intergenerational trauma. Our leaders need to get their shit together, and stop sucking on the teet of trauma for their own gain."

Cowichan Tribes member handed pollution prevention order over huge dumping site - "A member of the Cowichan Tribes has been handed a pollution prevention order over a huge dumping site near Duncan, B.C., on Vancouver Island.  James Anthony Peter is ordered to immediately stop dumping waste at the site, which is just above the Cowichan River.  The dump is situated on Cowichan Tribes Reserve land near the city of Duncan.  The amount of waste is estimated to exceed 290,000 cubic metres, according to provincial documents, and includes construction and demolition debris, residential waste, derelict RV trailers, plastics and metals.  “It’s a huge, toxic soup of tires, ties, plastic… demolition debris,” community advocate Peter Rusland told Global News."
Such racism and contempt towards the traditional stewards of the land!

Cowichan Tribes member handed pollution prevention order over huge dumping site : r/ilovebc - "One thing I've learned since landing to live in BC is that for a people always talking about being one with nature, stewards of the land.... they treat the nature like shit."
"The whole "stewards of nature/one with the land" BS is only because they weren't technologically advanced enough to exploit resources, and didn't have the population to make it necessary.  Like look at some of the larger nomadic tribes, they just completely stripped areas of resources then moved on."
"careful you, I got put in reddit jail for making mention of this on the canada sub."
"And when Bill C9 gets passed, this will probably be considered hate speech and get you thrown in prison."
"Anyone who hunts or spends any sort of significant amount of time outdoors will tell you that the “stewards of the land” are some of the most egregious offenders against it.  When most of us set up a hunting camp, we leave absolutely no trace that we were there. Go check a native’s hunting camp after they leave. Bottles, cans, tarps, ropes, trash and bullet casings everywhere.  Not only that, but they kill anything and everything, while blocking public roads with their vehicles.  Also, just look at just about any Rez. These people are not stewards of the land."
It's all the fault of colonialism, of course

  Crime has spiked since treaty settlement money was released, First Nations police say - "According to statistics gathered by Wikwemikong police, crime has increased substantially in the community since the summer of 2024, when money from a major treaty settlement was disbursed to residents.  In his fall newsletter, Wikwemikong Police Chief Ron Gignac said statistics show a substantial increase in calls for service, arrests and charged persons since the Robinson Huron Treaty per capita distributions were issued in late summer of 2024... Since last summer, the number of people charged with crimes is up more than 70 per cent, motor vehicle crashes are up 69 per cent and drug possession cases and traffic complaints increased by 81 per cent."
Proof that they need even more money

Prince George healing centre helps Indigenous offenders avoid charges | Vancouver Sun - "Indigenous offenders in Prince George are able to avoid criminal charges for minor offences if they’re willing to enter into a new restorative justice program, the first of its kind in Canada, according to the B.C. First Nations Justice Council. Indigenous people who commit a non-violent crime can, instead of being charged by the RCMP, opt to stay at the Indigenous Diversion Centre for 90 days of treatment, at which point the charges will be dropped, according to council chairperson Kory Wilson. She and Prince George RCMP Supt. Darin Rappel signed a letter of agreement that would allow the diversion of offenders into the centre, where they would complete a program designed to help them address the root cause of their criminal behaviour, such as trauma or addiction, and heal and recover through an Indigenous cultural path that includes spirituality... Yung said the centre will help reintegrate people who commit crimes back into the community. “We can’t arrest our way out of homelessness” and mental-health issues. “It might not be the whole solution, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction,” Rappel said. He said diverting individuals at the point of police contact aims to reduce repeat-offending and improve safety because “enforcement alone does not solve complex social issues.”"
If this is so great and saves so much money, why not open this to non-indigenous people too?

Ottawa’s indigenous appeasement is bankrupting Canada : r/WildRoseCountry - "The sad part is that any political party that gets the balls to call it out is immediately attacked by the other (Liberals/NDP) for votes. This should be a bi-partisan issue but it’ll never be tackled. The last time it was by Harper there was such an uproar from Liberals etc that they lost an election in part because of it.  The Hamilton Spectator ran a multi-part expose about the corruption amongst the chiefs and outright thievery and it didn’t matter at all. Canadians are fools"

Ottawa’s indigenous appeasement is bankrupting Canada : r/WildRoseCountry - "Hindering economic development and hitting people's bank accounts hard. We spend about $32B last year on FN. CRA collected around $660B revenue in total. That is a massive chunk of tax revenue.  Fine if it actually breaks the cycle of poverty on reservations, but it isn't."
"AFAIK a lot of it is legal settlements. It seems like it’s getting FNs absolutely nowhere, though. >40% live on reserves, most of which are so ridiculously remote they might as well be separate countries altogether with very small populations. There’s no viable way to get any meaningful amount of infrastructure or economic activity to these places.  Take a place like Fort Severn. Up on the Hudson’s Bay. How is there going to be any amount of development there? There’s a couple hundred people there, it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to connect it in any meaningful fashion to the rest of Canada. Very few reserves are more than a couple thousand people. It’s just the unfortunate reality of living in these extremely remote, sparsely populated areas.  Beyond some Native Siberian settlements in Russia, which are similarly disadvantaged and underdeveloped, there’s really no other comparison in the rest of the world in terms of the sheer isolation many of these reserves have.  We sure can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on what amounts to a moral panic hoax on mass graves, though. That was a smart move."
"A closer to home example would be Shoal Lake Manitoba. The boil water advisory on that reserve basically helped Trudumb get elected the first time. And what ends up happening? The bands said, give us the money and we'll build it. Money disappeared, Again, give us the money and we'll build it. Money disappeared. Third time, give us the money and we'll build it. This time the government said, no, we're building it. And now they have a multi million dollar water treatment plant for a population of 652 people  And it's somewhere ironic that Shoal Lake is where Winnipeg gets it's drinking water from"

Specific Claims: An Out-of-Control Program - "The federal government began to entertain such claims in 1974. The number and value of claims increased gradually until 2017, when both started to rise at an extraordinary rate. In fiscal year 2024/25, the government settled 69 claims for an astonishing total of $7.1 billion dollars. The evidence suggests at least two causes for this sudden acceleration. One was the new approach of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government toward settling Indigenous claims, an approach adopted in 2015 and formalized by Minister of Justice Jodi Wilson-Raybould’s 2019 practice directive. Under the new policy, the Department of Justice was instructed to negotiate rather than litigate claims. Another factor was the recognition, beginning around 2017, of “cows and plows” claims based on the allegation that agricultural assistance promised in early treaties—seed grain, cattle, agricultural implements—never arrived or was of poor quality. The specific-claims process should be terminated. Fifty years is long enough to discover legitimate grievances... The government should also require more transparency about what happens to these settlements. At present, much of the revenue paid out disappears into First Nations’ “settlement trusts”, for which there is no public disclosure."

Jim McMurtry on X - "Chief Rebecca Knockwood of the Fort Folly FN, with a population of just 36, manages millions annually in taxpayer support and lives in a nice house. I bet she doesn’t want decolonization."
Andy Lee on X - "Fort Folly First Nation is only 0.56 square km in size, but it receives millions per year in federal transfers. To give you an idea, it’s about the size of a large shopping mall. In 2022, it received almost $5 million. In 2023, close to $4 million - over $100,000 per resident."

Jim McMurtry on X - "• 400-member band is given agricultural land by BC government
• turns land into billion-dollar mall
• sells mall to Chinese
• leases remaining agricultural land to tech giants like Amazon
• gets fabulously wealthy
Moral of the story—they don’t want their old culture back."

Norway House Chief and Council’s Remuneration and Expenses Over $1.65 Million in 2023/24 for an On Reserve Population of 6883 : r/Manitoba - "Yea this is nothing new unfortunately.  Then all you hear is that they're houses are falling down and everything is in disrepair (like water and sewage treatment plants) and all they gotta do is cry to the media about racism and colonialism, and then wave their empty hat at the government.  The sums of money that get squandered by Chief and Council while the people in the community go without is ridiculous."
"Friend of mine used to call us racist for saying that. Then she moved back to the reserve, instantly cried foul, and then tried to run for council but soon realized it's just whoever has the biggest family.   My grandfather spent a lot of his career checking structures. Nicest cars and biggest houses for chief and council, nothing for everyone else."
"More people need to see what goes on in some of those communities. Some really nice structures and facilities get built that go to absolute waste due to mismanagement. Brand new machinery ruined frequently due to lack of training and oversight. The kind of stuff a person would normally not get away with elsewhere.  But no just buy new stuff again and repeat."
"You should see the valet line ups for native conventions at nice hotels. It looks like a head of state is arriving there are so many $100K black SUVs."

Norway House Chief and Council’s Remuneration and Expenses Over $1.65 Million in 2023/24 for an On Reserve Population of 6883 : r/Manitoba - "Attawapiskat chief Theresa Spence went on hungerstrike in Ottawa last time there was an audit.. (she gained weight..) The audit stopped...."
"The fake hunger strike where people spotted people bringing her KFC buckets?  She's also the same chief who payed herself more than the Prime Minister of Canada, and cried about improper housing in her community right after declining some housing trailers from a nearby mine.  I remember this one well."

Indigenous leaders hopeful for Carney-led government on economy, reconciliation : r/canada - "I work on reserves building infrastructure, we are simply keeping them reliant on us so we can do what we want. All the chiefs care about is getting their 3rd cottage, 7th snowmobile, and 5th Ford raptor..while all the meth heads ask us workers for money/smokes"
"any time anyone tries to build any oversight from the government into the system they get called racist.  Some bands have protections built in to stop it from happening with councils and whatnot that act as checks and balances, Others just have a king. And kings famously can become very corrupt very easily."
"The largest reserve by population in Canada currently has the local mafia family head as chief.  Like it's pretty well known fact and everyone just plays along with it."

Indigenous leaders hopeful for Carney-led government on economy, reconciliation : r/canada - "It's crazy when you compare them to the Seminole or Cherokee tribes in the US. They were not given handouts and so they used their closeknit community, shared culture, and legal advantages to build paradise for themselves."
"The seminoles own the Hard Rock Cafe, and I believe own one of the largest cattle ranches in the state. They have done extremely well."

Indigenous leaders hopeful for Carney-led government on economy, reconciliation : r/canada - "My husband’s company donated 2 fire trucks to our local reserve and they sold them!"

Indigenous People of Canada, how do you feel about Canada Day, especially this year? : r/AskACanadian - "Fyi as someone who's Metis and lived on a reserve for a while it's really only the vocal minority of indigenous people who hate Canada and refuse to celebrate Canada Day. There are way more white liberals who hate Canada than indigenous people."
"I am Metis too, and we wouldn't exist without the fur trade and collaboration between the indigenous tribes, and the people who came here to earn a living. Our culture is such a beautiful mixture of many."

Indigenous People of Canada, how do you feel about Canada Day, especially this year? : r/AskACanadian - "Never really celebrated it but I will this year. I have a lot of issues with this country but I'm able to recognise the good things and that it's overwhelmingly better than the mess that is the US."
"lol remember 6 months ago when Reddit thought being patriotic was racist?  Elbows up!"
Left wing patriotism in Canada is about hating the US