(0250) Possibly the worst time to be up and typing, awoke at 0150, things to do “in the morning” and need a second sleep. Think we need a post on sleep sometime.
ddddd
1. What’s in a generation?
There are those I know playdown generations, esp. those much younger do that … but if you have any sense of which living situation drove most people of note … yes, generation really does come into it, esp. post-war but I’d say even post Great Crash (1929).
For example, look at Roger Moore (1925) versus Sean Connery (1930), look at Adrian Rollini and Bix Beiderbecke (both 1903), F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896) from the 20s ditsy generation. The last truly creative person in tech was Steve Jobs (1955), as against people like Kurt Cobain (1967), Paul Oakenfold (1964) or Rachel Reeves (1979).
Cobain and Oakenfold were adaptors of tech and trends but not creative like a slew of artists of the 40s, peaking mid 50s and after that … the descent began … Gen X were pretty useless and dissolute, whiners and moaners, very dark. Millennials, e.g. Reeves, were just useless (mid Millennial), fault of the Boomers. Tim Berners-Lee (1955).
Also useless drones later in the Boomers … Obama (1961), David Cameron (1966). On the other hand, someone sane and useful, e.g. Kate Hoey (1946) … patterns do emerge by sheer numbers. The uselessness and cushiness started to set in in the mid 50s birthdates, even earlier … the Dr. Spock generation of unprincipled brats, politically left, student radicals etc. but you have to wait till the mid-70s to see the malaise in full swing.
Around about the start of the Millennials. So a generation of malcontents were followed by the children of the Boomers. The new lost generation are Gen Zee, children of Gen X, no prospects in 2026. None of them pre-tech and net. Millennials are in power right now in the middle ranks by age … at least they’re making the running.
I saw a talk between Piers Morgan (1965) and Tucker Carlson (1969, pure Gen X). Erika Kirk (1988) and Candace Owens (1989), both mid-Millennials. Blair was born in 1953 … the beginning of the cushy Boomers.
Where does all this get us? Well, it gets me, at 0332, looking for a second sleep so I can start the work at an earlier hour than 0800. Cheers.
“Rocket scientist (JH: A real one, not the type we know and loathe today) Professor Quatermass tracks a strange meteor shower to the remote English village of Winnerden Flats. There he find a secret government project lab which appears to be collecting the meteors, but refuses any admittance. What does it all mean ?
This rip-roaring sequel to The Quatermass Xperiment is an ominous, breathless, science-fiction/horror minor classic, primarily due to the top-notch script by Nigel Kneale and Guest, which has been copied many times, particularly by Dr Who. The clandestine aura of the invasion and the who/where-exactly-are-they nature of the aliens is tremendously suspenseful, chilling and even absurd (they have government funding !).
Donlevy is one-note in the lead but conveys well his hero’s frustration at the conspiracy and disbelief all around him, James is excellent in a rare serious part as the Fleet Street hack (his death is a profoundly shocking moment), and noted director Forbes (Whistle Down The Wind, The Stepford Wives) is interesting as a scientist-turned-zombie.
The movie’s other trump card is the ultra-creepy setting for the aliens’ base; an endless maze of enormous vats, miles of steel piping, scaffolding, control rooms and conduits (it was filmed at the gargantuan Shellhaven Refinery on the north bank of the Thames Estuary); an eerie place which adds immeasurably to the sinister atmosphere.
The pace is furious, racing through the premise and the initial investigation then carefully blending in elements of authoritarian coverups, political comment, small town drama, military action and full-blown monster movie. It’s an excellent mix of intriguing and intelligent storyline and agreeable adventure, with the next revelation, chase or scare never far away, just the way good cinema should be.
One of the great Hammer films, retitled Enemy From Space for the US release, and followed by the equally brilliant Quatermass And The Pit ten years later.”
(1108) Elevenses or Mothering Service, whatever. (1142)
15. Put II + II together and it comes out IV
14. IYE
Netanyahu is dead! That's what I get from this. It fits the dead stiffness in Scott Bessent's body and hands, and his upset voice after returning from the Situation Room.
He then talks about his teenager's life being safe in Trump's hands. 🤡 Because he knows Iran is going to… https://t.co/IyURqiQgPD
She goes on a pilgrimage in order to avoid voting on abortion, instead of attending to her responsibilities and speaking out.
11. At TDS, a psychologist or therapist (a woman)
… speaks on British women, particularly the Wokeleft. She mentions inner circles, outer circles and “the others”. I see it as inner, second circle, outer acquaintance-friends, then the unknown outliers:
“The Rest are the people who are not connected to our life and bear no importance on it. We do not spend any resources on them and say ‘no’ without needing to justify ourselves. Those people knocking on your door asking to talk to you about their charity? No thanks. No need to let them give you a whole lecture on a cause of their choice with the inevitable push for your donations. No need to explain you are completely capable of choosing whom to support with your finances without their help. Just no and be done with it. It doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with them as people, it means that they hold no value specifically in your life and you have better things to do with your time and resources.
Why can this differentiation not be applied to those people coming in this country? Why are we assigning more resources to The Outer Circle and even more to The Rest, such as illegal migrants?”
Coming back to my three concentric circles … you have yours too … the inner has maybe four or five, where all is known. The second are our core patrons here and just a few on X, people like Julia … very close but necessarily keeping some distance to that outliers don’t get to penetrate the perimeter and get at you.
The acquaintance-friends are many out there, day to day and I could talk with them for hours if we wanted … usually we just say hello, goodnight.
The outliers are of three kinds … hostile or potentially hostile, none of their business and potential friends, were circumstances different.
There is, however, another layer … those not in our orbit but we care for them, even pray for them. The Persian girls were this layer, difficult to know where they fit in.
“The spy connections didn’t start with Maxwell. They were there from the very beginning. Before Pergamon Press existed, a company called Butterworth-Springer1was established after the Second World War as a platform for Paul Rosbaud — an Austrian scientist who had worked as an editor at the German publishing company, Springer Verlag. What most people didn’t know was that Rosbaud was also one of Britain’s most important spies during the war, known by the codename ‘The Griffin’”
b. “ Remember on September 11 in 2016, Hillary Clinton appeared to have a seizure at a 9/11 memorial and her security team proceeded to toss her in a van like a piece of meat?….”
Remember on September 11 in 2016, Hillary Clinton appeared to have a seizure at a 9/11 memorial and her security team proceeded to toss her in a van like a piece of meat?
Later she reappeared from Chelsea Clinton’s apartment magically looking younger, several pounds slimmer and… pic.twitter.com/JGkHv5BCQs
(0628) Morning all … not completely dull, poisonous grey out there. Say hello to your mothers today and maybe learn what Mothering Sunday originally was. (0722)
5. Steve at 1322
Trump Calls Out Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum – “The Cartels Are Running Mexico. We Can’t Have That!”
Netherlands: Bomb Blast Targets Jewish School in Amsterdam Neighborhood
Israel Preparing ‘Massive’ Ground Invasion of Lebanon to Wipe Out Hezbollah: ‘We Are Going to Do What We Did in Gaza’
Capitol Hill Standoff: Up to 50 House Republicans Say Senate Bills Are Dead on Arrival Until SAVE America Act Passes
Ukraine Devastated. Russia Benefits Greatly from USA Iran Conflict. Front Update | Ukraine Devastated. Russia Benefits Greatly from USA Iran Conflict.
Finland Announces Possible Deployment Of Nuclear Weapons, Directly Threatening Russia
Medical professionals call on UK Health Secretary to investigate serious bias from the GMC and the MPTS
Negotiations Underway”: Cuban President Acknowledges U.S. Talks Amid Fuel Supply Crisis
Much more.
4. As in the screenshot
3. DAD at 1322
a) The gesture seems so simple: press “off” when the far-right channel is playing in cafes, bars, and other betting shops, thanks to a universal remote, an app, or a hacked mobile phone. A handful of activists do it every day, seeing it as “a mix of fun and activism” that they consider beneficial in these times….
b) Honda Projects First Loss Since 1957 – $15.7 Billion – Thanks To EV Strategy Fail….
c) Canadian Government ‘Celebrates’ Euthanizing 100,000 Citizens….
d) Want to cancel your BBC TV licience. You face a difficulty….
2. Coming back to the Net the Yahoo rumours
… Dearieme saw them too, maybe we all have now … on X, the battle is raging and one who is getting amazing flak is Liz Crokin, high traffic “conspiracist” (not said in a negative way). She agrees with Candace and goes further … is sure that the Israelis (Shapiro, EK et al) were the killers of CK:
1. Steve posted a polit analyst which I have too before
I looked at his hidden background this time, then wrote this:
Thus, I post the analysis below with huge caveats, given that we don’t know who or what he is:
“The organisation that Iran armed, funded, trained, and deployed as the southern blade of the Axis of Resistance has issued a public statement calling on “our brothers in Iran not to target neighboring countries” and urging “all countries in the region to cooperate to stop this aggression and preserve the bonds of brotherhood.” Al Jazeera Arabic and Palestinian media confirmed the statement. Hamas has not denied it. No Axis member has contradicted it. The most important fracture of the 2026 war was not caused by a bunker buster. It was caused by a press release.
Hamas is Iran’s creature. The IRGC-Quds Force has provided $100 to $350 million annually since 2007 through cash smuggling via Sinai tunnels, Hezbollah intermediaries, cryptocurrency transfers, and direct Quds Force payments. The funding survived the Syria civil war split in 2012, the reconciliation that followed, and the October 7 operation that Hamas coordinated with Iranian strategic guidance. For seventeen years, the money flowed in one direction and the loyalty flowed in the other.
The statement breaks that symmetry. Not completely. Not irreversibly. But publicly. Hamas affirmed Iran’s right to respond to American and Israeli aggression “by all available means in accordance with international norms and laws.” That is the loyalty clause. Then it asked Iran to stop hitting the countries that Hamas needs to survive.
That is the survival clause. The two clauses are incompatible, and Hamas knows it. You cannot affirm a nation’s right to fire missiles at Saudi Arabia and simultaneously ask it to stop firing missiles at Saudi Arabia.
The statement is not diplomacy. It is a distress signal dressed in diplomatic language.
The distress is real. Iran has struck the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and fired toward Oman and Qatar since 28 February. Every one of those countries hosts Palestinian communities. Qatar mediates Hamas’s ceasefire negotiations. The UAE processes Hamas-linked financial transfers. Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic weight shapes the Arab League position on Gaza. When Iran fires missiles at these countries, it is not attacking Israel’s allies. It is attacking Hamas’s lifelines.
Hamas depends on $100 to $350 million from Iran for weapons and military infrastructure. It depends on Qatar for diplomatic survival and political legitimacy. It depends on Gulf states for the financial channels that keep Gaza’s economy from total collapse. Iran’s war is destroying the second and third dependencies to prosecute the first. Hamas just told its patron that the price of resistance has become the destruction of the support network resistance requires.
The IRGC will not respond publicly. Axis discipline demands silence on internal disagreements. But the statement will be read in Tehran as what it is: the first public acknowledgement by an Iranian proxy that Iran’s war strategy is damaging Iran’s own alliance architecture. Hezbollah cannot issue this statement because it is fighting in Lebanon at Iran’s direction. The Houthis cannot issue it because they are firing missiles at Gulf shipping at Iran’s direction.
Only Hamas, the proxy furthest from the current battlefield and most dependent on Gulf mediation, has the strategic distance to say what the others cannot. The Axis of Resistance was built on a simple proposition: Iran funds, Iran arms, Iran directs, and the proxies fight Israel on five fronts simultaneously. The proposition assumed Iran would never attack the countries the proxies need to survive. That assumption died when Iranian missiles hit Dubai, Riyadh, and Bahrain.
Hamas’s statement is the death certificate. The organisation that started the war Iran is now fighting just asked Iran to stop fighting it the way Iran chose to fight it. The Axis is not broken. But for the first time in seventeen years, it is arguing in public. And the argument is about whether the war is destroying the alliance the war was designed to defend.”
