I’ve not had the time or inclination to write anything over the last few days. I have, nevertheless, accrued a significant selection of post-it notes on my Bollocks Board.
Here’s a few highlights for posterity and your consideration.
For What It’s Worth
No doubt Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe did not deserve to be languishing in a horrendous Tehran prison for 6 years, unless she had done something terrible of which we are unaware.
But, although she does have a UK passport, she is first and foremost an Iranian citizen, having been born there to Iranian parents. Perhaps she imagined that it was still 1979 in Tehran and western liberal behaviours and agitations would somehow be acceptable in the capital city of this Islamic republic.
So, while it’s good news for her and her family that she is now safely out of prison and back with her husband and children in the UK, at a time when the economy is going insane, families are struggling to cope in the aftermath of 2 years of hysteria-enforced economic paralysis, would it be unseemly to question whether the UK government really ought to have pledged £393M to the Iranian government in exchange for the release of this woman and one other detainee of similarly middle-eastern heritage?
You know, the Iranian government which is still trying to enrich uranium, produce plutonium and build nuclear bombs? The ones who are allied with Russia, China and North Korea?
I can’t imagine the struggling denizens of the Tories’ red wall constituencies share the unalloyed joy that the Twitterati have displayed, and nor should they.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson was in Saudi Arabia, begging that murderous regime to sell us some more oil. And failing.
This is Fine
In 2019, Jussie Smollett confected a hilariously fake hate-crime that raised racial tensions in an already tense USA. A nation where many cities went on to burn during ‘mostly peaceful’ riots over the next two years.
Who knows why he did it but the man is clearly a delusional fourth-rate nobody even in the tawdry annals of the ‘dress up and pretend for the camera’ profession.
Three years on, he was found guilty of lying to the police about the whole matter. He was sentenced to 150 days in prison and was sent away on 11th March 2022.
Less than a week later, he was released, pending an appeal.
I suppose everyone is entitled to due process, but would you bet the change in your pocket that he’ll ever be returned to prison for his part in inciting widespread rioting and conflagrations across America? I know I wouldn’t.
Deepfake News is the new Russian Bots
Several ‘fact checks’ have come out over the last few days, claiming that videos purporting to show Ukranian and Russian leaders are deepfakes.
I’ve no doubt that the videos in question were fakes, constructed using machine learning technology, as previously trailed.
I have even less doubt that the brainless foghorns in politics, showbiz and social media will now spend 2 years screaming “DEEFAKE” at the top of their voices whenever any inconvenient video footage appears on the internet. The next Project Veritas video? Deepfake. I’d bet money on that.
And like with all previous deflections, it’ll be a long time before the inevitable truth comes out, all the while the idiot masses will believe the sainted ‘fact checkers’.
Just the Facts, Ma’am.
Speaking of fact checkers. Many of those organisations went full on denial about Hunter Biden’s laptop - its existence, its provenance, its contents. So did the Whitehouse press secretary.
So imagine the surprise of no-one whatsoever, when 2 years later, the New York Times quietly admits deep into an article that the whole thing was legit.
The rabbit hole of looking at all the fact-checker claims that have been false, and who funds the fact checkers is one it could take years to emerge from.
But at least you can be reasonably sure that anyone citing fact-checkers can immediately be disregarded as either a willful liar or a common idiot.
Well, SOMEONE here is guilty of treason. But who?
In a US Senate hearing, Under-secretary of State Victoria Newland admitted under questioning from Marco Rubio that there are “biological research facilities” in the Ukraine, and that the US is concerned about Putin getting his hands on them.
The fact-checkers swung into action, the cries of ‘fake news’ went out, and people who repeated the statements in the media were accused of treason, follwed by demands from some of the worlds dumbest and most evil people for those who repeated the claims to be incarcerated.
So there’s obviously nothing to see here.
Do you ever get the feeling…
That the powers-that-be will stop at nothing to keep control of the narrative? If the continuously increasing censorship and closing of ranks in the media and the social media doesn’t give you pause for thought, ask yourself where it ends.
The next step in the UK is all laid out on the Online Harms Bill. Read some of the analyses (1)(2)(3) of what this will mean for freedom of expression and the consequences of stepping over arbitrary boundaries will be.
Meantime a cursory search of Twitter will reveal every single special interest group is lobbying to get its own particular bugbear addressed by a heavy-handed, ill-conceived bucket of unintended consequences.
The truth is the truth is the truth. Don’t let these fuckers blow you off course.
AJ
More fake hate crimes please, accelerate us toward the end faster and faster