Saturday [11 till close of play]

(1634) Been gathering movies and shorts for a few days. It takes time to sort through … there are many obstacles now, often maniacal ones.

 

15. IYE

Whilst everyone was distracted looking over there at the Zecharia and Guilfoyle debacles this one sipped under the radar

“ Longtime Trump pal fired from admin over ‘bizarre’ feud” (Paolo Zampolli)

https://archive.is/Yzn1t

Also related

https://bekahdayyy.substack.com/p/please-i-need-to-see-the-body-unraveling

Ari Emmanuel gets a mentioned – he who tried to rehabilitate Ginge and Whinge. It’s a big club etc etc…

14. Steve

Rupert Lowe and Eva Vlaar: A bold vision to Restore Britain and Save Europe:

13. Greedy eyes, eyeing your home


That does seem the type of thing they’re trying on over here. Do you have any spare rooms you don’t really need? Fit three or four guests in there, govt can.

12. Thought this an excellent piece of advice I should take onboard


11. This one’s from Quora

… remembering it’s the US workplace, though I’ve seen examples in the UK during a brief spell of jobhunting (between positions let’s say a couple of decades back). The account below is quite jaundiced but I’m thinking not without reason … it’s about HR.

Going back many decades, apart from long periods of self-employment … when I was actually looking, it was usual to go through a known agency in the field who interviewed us and decided where we best fitted what had come in. HR as a department was not around yet afa I know.

The question was “What makes HR instantly reject a candidate after an interview?”

Assuming here that the CV-resume, qualifications, personability, attire, manner, age … all that stands up … what is it at the interview, other than these, which is an immediate dealbreaker? One chap replied thus:

“The reason: HR people — the single most incompetent members of any firm or university — don’t like to be confronted with the truth. They make a point of confronting candidates with the many (arguable) mistakes the candidates come in with, but HR people never doubt their own magical analyzing powers over others — even if their own meager CV says otherwise.

Time and again, I’ver learned that HR people are in a committee to make candidates suffer — or at least, to show how much power they have (even though they lack the expertise).

  • THE DON’Ts: never claim, in your two-yearly HR follow-up, that you are doing great, and that nothing’s going wrong whatsoever: the HR person will put you to the sword, because you dared to feel fine about yourself. HR people — they come from social sciences, so what did you expect ? — will show you that this very evaluation is not about feeling fine. You have mistakes, you made them, and you will admit to them (even if none of them are true).
  • THE DOs: my own approach is very simple. I enter the room knowing very well what is good and what might not be good about me, and even if everything is perfect, I start — I do not wait: I START — listing all my shortcomings and mistakes, even if nothing in it is true. Next, I summarize my action plan to work on my many mistakes. (On the way, I mention some of my plus points.)

The HR person wants to jump me (but doesn’t just yet), because she thinks that vulnerable people are great, and confident people are bad. That’s what she learned, and still believes. (It’s social sciences after all.)

She has no idea I am playing her, because the HR philosophy does not allow for an extra layer of depth. It always works because she doesn’t understand the very mechanism in which she fails time and again.

So to be very honest, I think your question does not have any merit: the HR department is not capable to evaluate candidates, unless it boils down to ticking off simple boxes that any other member of the company should be able to do as well. With less fuss, of course —

And much more competence.”

Right … I remember being sent to an office in a nearby city worked by one HR woman and she was quite personable to be honest. We had the interview, she even asked if I had any more questions, don’t hesitate … she seemed fine. Silly me, I did have one, seconds after departing, knocked again, she came to the door and literally demanded: “What do you want?” That’s true. Her attitude had totally altered to savage. I excused myself and went.

It was the sudden change which got me, like two different people. I’m wondering what’s the best way to describe the type … I think a “Joyce Thacker” or “Anneliese Dodds” … actually, any female Labour MP would do. Very bad news, incompetent and one thing they always do is say (if with a firm) something like: “I’ve been in coding now for eighteen years,” or similar. No she has not … she’s been in HR since her waitressing or bartending.

Think I dodged a few bullets, the way things went in my working life … I can imagine her saying sorry, no can do, so that I can do the John Cleese thing … “Yes, well that’s the kind of blinkered, philistine pig-ignorance I’ve come to expect from you non-creative garbage …” and so on. Never had the chance. Best I could get was, “There’s a lot of hate in you, James,” from a psychology teacher who got Fromm wrong, easy slip to make. I understand she stormed into the staffroom cursing after that session. There we go. The AV man told me next day they were creasing themselves. Still, not good on my part … sorry me.

Saturday [6 to 10]

(1053)(1125)

 

10. Moosh revisited


9. A bit of childishness keeps the blues at bay


8. The doctor recommends


7. Leah

… with an impressive point numbering system further down:

Israeli spyware is confirmed on our phones. This should be headline news but none of our mainstream media is covering it, of course. So we will.

An Israeli ad company called Discover-Tech used ordinary online ads to plant spyware on people’s devices, and nobody had to click anything. The ad just had to load on a website or inside an app for you to be infected.

Citizen Lab and the ad security firm Confiant published the findings yesterday. Researchers went through roughly 4 billion ad-bidding records and found Discover-Tech ads running on more than 120,000 websites and 70,000 apps between March and June of this year. Confiant says the company was serving at least 10 million ads a day.

The platform was called Controlium. According to Citizen Lab, it let spyware companies use ad auctions to profile and unmask users, then send an infected ad to the one person they wanted to hack. The ads were also pulling cookies and login tokens from the sites they ran on. Israeli corporate records list Dekel Boni as the company’s founding director and sole shareholder.

The main spyware customer was Candiru, the Israeli firm the U.S. government blacklisted in 2021, which now goes by Integrity Labs. Five years after that blacklisting, it was still reaching devices through ad inventory on Google, Comcast-owned Beeswax and Russia’s Yandex. Google had Discover-Tech on its approved vendor list from 2020 until this week.

At least 45 Al Jazeera devices were targeted in 2024 and 2025. Candiru’s 2021 shareholder filings reportedly listed a minority investor described as a proxy for Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, and Qatar also funds Al Jazeera. If that holds up, Qatari state money was sitting inside the company whose spyware was later aimed at Qatar’s own news network.

The heaviest targeting was in the Palestinian territories, where Discover-Tech served almost 2% of all digital ads and about 10% on April 7. Traffic also reached the Armenian prime minister’s office, courts, universities and defense organizations.

Google and the other ad platforms cut Discover-Tech off after the report came out. What nobody has answered yet is who paid for the ad buys, and how a company working with a U.S.-blacklisted spyware vendor passed vendor review for six years.

I am going to look into this today to see if we can figure out who was buying the ads. Interesting timing considering my article yesterday….

Here’s what to do to protect yourself:

(1) Use an ad blocker. Citizen Lab calls ad-blocking a cybersecurity best practice and says there is no consistently safe way to be exposed to targeted ads. On iPhone, add a Safari content blocker. On Android, use Brave or Firefox with uBlock Origin. Ad blockers only work in your browser, not inside apps, so it also helps to delete free ad-supported apps you don’t need.
Kill your advertising ID.

(2) iPhone: Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking, and turn off “Allow Apps to Request to Track.” Then Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising, and turn Personalized Ads off.

(2) Android 12 or later: Settings > Privacy > Ads > Delete Advertising ID. Then in Settings > Google > All Services > Privacy & security > Ads > Ads privacy, turn off Ad topics and Ad measurement.

(3) Windows 11: Settings > Privacy & Security > General, and turn off personalized ads using your advertising ID.

(4) Update your phone and restart it often. Many zero-click exploits don’t survive a reboot, so a daily restart forces attackers to reinfect you.

Stay tuned!

6. Britain during rationing

Screenshot

Saturday [3 to 5]

(0920) Went back to bed for awhile. (0939)

 

5. Steve at 1517

  • Victor Davis Hanson Talks About Shifting Midterms and GOP Momentum: ‘Something’s Definitely Going On’
  • Florida: 1,827 Noncitizens Removed from Voter Rolls Allegedly Cast 7,035 Ballots — Thousands More Removed as Election Integrity Groups Demand Answers
  • California: Trump DOJ Officially Sues Far-Left California After State Refuses to Review More Than 20,000 Suspected Noncitizens Sent Mail-In Ballots
  • Hollywood Mega Producer Admits to Joe Rogan That Once Societies Abandon God, They Turn To Tyranny
  • Few Massive Bunker-Busters Left in US for Future Iran Strikes
  • Ukraine Runs Out of Patriot Missiles as Trump Turns on Zelensky
  • Morning Exercise Associated With Lower Cardiometabolic Risk, Study Finds
  • Scary and astonishing truths about the toxic COVID vaccine
  • Soros’ puppet files lawsuit against CDC for not recommending childhood vaccines
  • Much more.

4. Running this as a discussion point rather than as fact


3. DAD at 1517

a) Retour des Gilets jaunes. {Return of the Yellow Vests.} November 2018: the Gilets Jaunes movement began, just eighteen months after the election of President Emmanuel Macron. Even then, fuel prices were the driving force behind this popular mobilisation, which brought together millions of people across the country. October 2026: the situation remains just as explosive, and Petrol is still just as expensive—with another presidential election now only seven months away.

b) French Student Protesters chant “Bismillah, c’est les ténèbres” — roughly translating to “In the name of God, it’s the darkness”.
A slogan mixing Islamic invocation “Bismillah” with French street slang has become a controversial rallying cry for high school protests….[One asks oneself, Why?]

c) National Security Adviser’s wife appears to back Palestine Action. Author Sarah Helm, married to NSA Jonathan Powell, tweeted in support of Sally Rooney in the wake of Adam Boulton’s criticism:… “God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action”. Reform’s Danny Kruger has written to Andy Burnham after Sarah Helm, wife of National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell, appeared to support Palestine Action in a post on X yesterday. Palestine Action is a proscribed organisation.

d) Calling migrants ‘illegal’, criticising political Islam, holding party socials centred around alcohol or highlighting Islamic hostility towards homosexuality could all fall under the Muslim Greens’ proposed guidance on Islamophobia. The recently published document comes as the party itself battles extremism and Islamist influence from within.

e) Kiran Kaur, the mother of Henry Nowak’s murderer, who was imprisoned for hiding the dagger used in the killing, could be released after serving just one-third of her three-year sentence under Labour’s new Earned Progression Scheme. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called the move an ‘insult to decency’ and said she should serve the full term before being deported. (JH: Typical Farage full steam on the easy ones to improve his cred while avoiding the tough questions.)

Saturday [2]

(0621) Straight to the Katie Zacharia saga. (0642)

 

Just wondering if body shape might have influenced the set-up or decision in some way:


There were more sensible takes on it all but let’s start with enemy territory, CNN:


And the “sensible” ones?


🍿🍿🍿🍿

Saturday [1]

Three possible topics this Saturday morning with much incoming on them:

  • The Katie Zacharia ousting, Susan Wiles etc. (goes on nearly forever)
  • The food additive tale in the UK (we discussed at UHC yesterday)
  • Doctors’ appointments through NHS now (only one item)

I’m thinking the most useful for Orphans and Jstack readers might be the food additive avoidance ideas, assuming you know about the December 13th mandatory adding of folic acid, not folate, to non wholemeal flour in the UK, though I note it’s already in breads I saw in the US.

Contra-indications, medically, are a few, inc. those with stents (inc. moi) and those it’s meant to help are apparently pregnant women. There’s the aspect of the govt messing with our food of course, plus major commercial industrialising of food, inc. seed oils, palm oil … ain’t good.

Steve suggested this:

The petition: End the mandatory fortification of white flour with folic acid immediately | https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/769589

Also:

Automatic Mini Breadmaker SD-PN100 | https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/home-appliances/breadmakers/sd-pn100.html

My own (came from Rossa) is still operational:


However, I’ve been examing the Jason line at Morrisons:


IYE suggests: Flour of the unfortified type. 🍞🥖

They also sell French flour which is unfortified. Ooh la la! If we make bread for the freezer we cut it into toaster sized slices first then it is always ready for breakfast or snacking. Nothing worse than fancying a piece of toast and having to wait to defrost the whole loaf.

Andy wrote: I’m getting spelt flour from Morrisons. M&S also don’t fortify their flour or bread mixes yet, or just aren’t telling us. I hand made a white loaf the other day from a bread mix, yeast etc added. Turned out nice. Next time I’ll bake two or three, good way to fill up corners of the freezer.

Isilme: Another place in the UK to get flour without folic acid (white or wholemeal) is . https://www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/
But I like the look of Ratton Pantry too. I will have to investigate fully as they seem to have a range of unusual flours. I’m enjoying making bread but I’m unhappy with the breadmaker now because the loaves have a hole where the paddle goes. So when I have a bit of time I might try making a no-knead bread and see how that gets on.

JH: Ratton Pantry, by the way, is in Eastbourne. Also, if I missed your suggestions here, pls forgive, not intentional, do tell us.

Friday [21 till close of play]

(1519) Afternoon all. Enjoy your chish and fips later.

 

26. Le Pen’s true colours showing

First doing a Farage on the deathculters, saying they’re French, then saying she has nothing against Zelensky. What planet is she on? What if she’s lying and plans to deport as soon as she’s in? Same as Farage, she’d have been lying. Prayers for France and real French people, plus for our expats.

25. Katie Zacharia “transitioning out” of role

Oh dear, not good, press like hyenas, given tasty morsels of flesh. The vetting, frankly, was poor, esp. just before midterms. Also, the Eric Deters thing was not good. The talk of national emergency? Who knows?

24. It’s all in the colour of the hair


23. Unfortified flour

Steve has this:

The petition: End the mandatory fortification of white flour with folic acid immediately | https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/769589

IYE has this:

Flour of the unfortified type. 🍞🥖

Andy has a comment about breadmaking but I wonder if it’s unfortified.

Then there’s this … it’s not just in the flour:


22. There’s something going on wit donor Eric Deters

Filed by Krassenstein (TDS and psycho) regarding Donny, Wiles, others. Naturally carried by the woke left press, no one reputable. Deters I suspect has the hots for Guilfoyle.

21. Roswell again

Friday [16 to 20]

(1115)(1146)

 

20. We may have had this one

Jenna Ellis has some question marks next to her, herself … we covered it some time back. However, she may be right about this:


19. Moo corner


18. Another called for Rupert and Farage to talk

… I replied:


17. IYE and the Bolsheviks

What is to be done?”

Vladimir Lenin published What Is to Be Done?1 — the operational blueprint for the Bolshevik Revolution — in 1902.

It’s typically read as political theory, but it’s actually more usefully read as a description of how to shift a population from passive discontent to active revolution — without the population understanding where it’s ultimately being taken.

And this knowledge is highly relevant in today’s charged environment.

By the turn of the twentieth century, strikes were common, and discontent was widespread in Russia2. Lenin argued that none of this was sufficient on its own, because workers could only develop ‘trade union consciousness’3. They could sense that things were bad and organise around grievances at the local level, but they did not ultimately grasp why things were bad, nor determine what to do about it.

Lenin didn’t claim the workers were stupid. Rather, he observed that ‘correct’ analysis doesn’t emerge naturally — it has to be introduced by people who have already arrived at the ‘correct’ framework: the vanguard.

The vanguard’s job is to interpret grievance through the ‘correct’ lens and guide the population toward the preferred conclusion. To Lenin, revolutionary consciousness ‘could only be brought to them from without’; the workers provide the energy; the vanguard provides the direction.

But if the vanguard should guide the masses toward ‘correct’ consciousness, it would logically also have to protect them from the ‘incorrect’ sort — because these would lead elsewhere but the ‘correct’ destination. To this end, Lenin identified a type of opposition leader whom he called ‘economists’, who channel people into non-revolutionary directions through ‘incorrect’ prescriptions.

The economists are worse than outright enemies, because they occupy the space where revolutionary consciousness should develop; they hoover up the discontented, and thus prevent actual transformation.….”

Read on MacDuff…🔽

https://escapekey.substack.com/p/what-is-to-be-done

Interesting comments thread too.

JH: And just to add, yet again, my same old same old:


16. Walkies

Departed 1021, back here 1037. E.T. 16 mins for the (near) kilometre. Recovery 8 minutes … long time. Better than two days ago, less doddery, but still some way to go. Various obstacle courses along the way.

Along the way … friendly folk, plus two tugs side by side. You ever been close beside a tug? Fab boats. One guy waved, the other, grumpy, ignored. His loss.