Mick Hartley – Page 25 – Politics and Culture

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If you don't know about the Giggle v Tickle case, this from Jo Bartosch is a good place to start.

Added:

It’s important to remember this: in Australia, Dame Edna would now be a real woman in the eyes of the law. pic.twitter.com/sE3lv9dtTz

— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) August 7, 2025

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Stolen, looted, or resold

Every single person I've spoken to inside Gaza for a week has been telling me the exact same thing: "Almost all food aid coming in is being stolen, looted, or resold at exorbitant prices; Hamas, clans, gangs, thugs & merchants are stealing aid; hardly any goes to needy people!" pic.twitter.com/8klZOP92jP

— Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (@afalkhatib) August 6, 2025

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Trouble at the dog food restaurant

North Korea's dog days (previously) are not going well:

A state-run dog meat restaurant in North Korea has been shut down after about 10 customers suffered food poisoning during the peak summer dining season, with authorities blaming the incident on inadequate water and electricity supplies rather than just poor sanitation.

The outbreak occurred at a restaurant operated by Sunchon city’s commercial department in South Pyongan province during sambok, the traditional three hottest days of summer when dog meat consumption typically soars. All customers who ate at the establishment on July 12 developed severe symptoms within hours, including stomach pain, fever, diarrhea, and vomiting….

The restaurant near Sunchon’s market was immediately ordered to close the following day as city officials launched a joint investigation with the hygiene quarantine office to determine the cause.

The investigation revealed systemic problems beyond basic food safety violations. Customers reported that the dog meat gave off a strong odor, while authorities discovered that ingredients requiring refrigeration were left at room temperature and eating utensils weren’t properly cleaned due to frequent water outages.

Restaurant employees told investigators they had to fetch water from a distant well because of inadequate municipal supply. Even more problematic, they were forced to use a refrigerator at another business—a 30-minute walk away—because their own facility lacked sufficient electricity to operate cooling equipment.

Well, you can see the problem….

Supporting Beth

nt-size: 11pt”>“The terminology is completely wrong and she should not be referred to as a ‘trans identifying male’.

“I worry this may cause additional upset.”

So so desperate to protect Upton from the horror of being misgendered. But of course a ‘trans identifying male’ is exactly what he is.

Belinda Morgan, the emergency care general manager, flagged Mr Hanvey’s press statement to Kate Searle, Dr Upton’s supervisor.

“I know you are supporting Beth so not sure if you want to give her the heads up about this and offer any support required,” she wrote.

Dr Searle replied three days later, after the story had broken.

“Oh dear,” the consultant wrote.

“This is so awful.”

Oh dear indeed.

Stoning women

Afghanistan to start stoning women to death for ‘adultery.’

The Supreme Leader of the Afghan Taliban Hibatullah Akhundzada says Afghanistan will begin stoning women to death for adultery in accordance with Sharia law.

If any woman is suspected of having relations with a man… pic.twitter.com/pDtNr9BYvY

— WDI.Afghanistan (@WDIAfghanistan) August 4, 2025

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"If any woman is suspected of having relations with a man before marriage they will be taken to holes in the desert and crowds will throw stones at them until they die."

The Hamas videos

srael is the sole author of the Gaza horror. As that army of Ivy League brat radicals at Harvard University said on 7 October itself, Israel is ‘entirely responsible’ for all violence in the Middle East.

Hamas’s release of those Nazi-like images of two Jews it abducted, starved and then humiliated for the titillation of the world’s anti-Semites was an assertion of the mad power it enjoys over the Gaza narrative. It knows that no matter the depths of depravity it sinks to, still the story will be that Israel is the problem. It knows it can send a 6,000-strong army to invade Israel, rape Israeli women, kill Israeli civilians, kidnap Jews and subject them to fascistic abasements, and still the influential of the West will point the finger at the Jewish State. David and Braslavski’s suffering was arguably intensified by this ethical disorder in the West – certainly Hamas was exploiting that ethical disorder when it released footage of their suffering in the full knowledge that many would just look the other way.

Worse, Hamas senses that its crimes are not only forgiven but rewarded, too. That it released the clips of David and Braslavski in the days after Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney said they would recognise the State of Palestine was striking – and sickening. Hamas has clearly got the message that persecuting Jews has benefits. That carrying out a pogrom can be fruitful. That killing more Jews in one day than anyone else has since the Nazis has its rewards. Including the reward of nationhood. Starmer’s promise to recognise Palestine proves ‘victory’ is ‘closer than we expected’, gloated Hamas. Ghazi Hamad went further, cheering Starmer’s promise as ‘one of the fruits of 7 October’.

Stealing Gaza aid

e of the pressing need to distribute it better.

But they…

— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) August 5, 2025

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Report here:

New data published last week by the U.N. agency UNOPS shows that most of its aid entering the war-torn Gaza Strip has been looted inside the Palestinian territory. UNOPS provides management services for the world body's own humanitarian operations.

Despite this, condemnation of Israel over the hunger crisis in Gaza has been ramping up, prompting an increasing number of Western governments to declare intentions to recognize a Palestinian state as punishment, and leading some media outlets to totally tune out the role both international humanitarian organizations and Hamas, whose October 2023 mass terror attack in Israel started the nearly two-year-old war, have played in this catastrophe….

Information posted on the website of UNOPS, the U.N. Office for Project Services, shows that around 87%, or 1,753 of the 2,013 aid trucks that entered Gaza since May 19 did not reach their final destinations, with the aid being stolen either "peacefully by hungry people or forcefully by armed actors," as first reported by Israel's news agency, TPS-IL.

The data, which showed that a record 90 trucks carrying some 1,695 tons of aid were looted on May 31 alone, comes as shocking photos of emaciated Palestinian children – some of which were later proven to be children with pre-existing health conditions used as propaganda by Hamas – have gone viral.

Islamophobia watch

The firing of a teacher for suggesting someone’s prison sentence was harsh should raise alarm bells about free speech, in particular the creeping censorship of lawful political viewpoints.

Simon Pearson, a teacher at Preston College, had commented on the case of Lucy Connolly, the wife of a Tory councillor, who is serving a 31-month prison sentence. She pleaded guilty to a charge of inciting racial hatred in a social media post following last summer’s Southport riots. The post, which she later deleted, said: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f***ing hotels full of the bastards for all I care … If that makes me racist so be it.”

Pearson, in a social media post, described Connolly’s comments as “obviously wrong” but added that she “should not have been jailed”. An internal investigation found his comments had the potential to bring the further education college into disrepute and he was sacked.

It's scarcely credible that this actually happened. The Lucy Connolly case has prompted a whole barrage of comment – mostly agreeing with what Simon Pearson said. Yes what she said was vile, but she quickly deleted it and apologised. Sacking Pearson, though, for expressing a perfectly straightforward and reasonable opinion…how on earth did we get here?

Pearson was dismissed after a complaint from a Muslim member of the National Education Union (NEU) at the college, who alleged that the post was “Islamophobic” and “racially discriminatory”.

Ah yes, that's how we got here. "Islamophobic". And a member of the NEU. A vision of the future?

Thoroughly rotten capitalist acts

Breast augmentation in North Korea? Apparently so.

The Ministry of Social Security recently ordered an emergency crackdown after medical complications from illegal breast augmentation surgeries in Pyongyang began surging.

“Medical complications from cosmetic surgeries by private practitioners have spiked as demand among women for breast augmentation procedures skyrockets,” a Daily NK source in Pyongyang said recently. “The Ministry of Social Security issued an emergency crackdown order to its Pyongyang branch on the morning of July 13.”

According to the source, the ministry’s order criticized women for “engaging in all sorts of decadent behavior” under bourgeois influence within the socialist system. While authorities had previously overlooked women getting double eyelid surgery or eyebrow tattoos, the order stated that “thoroughly rotten capitalist acts” like breast enlargements were now becoming commonplace.

Breast augmentations have grown trendy among women in their 20s and 30s seeking more voluptuous figures, particularly those in Pyongyang’s upscale central neighborhoods like Jung and Potonggang districts, the source said….

However, since authorities consider breast augmentations non-socialist behavior, women cannot receive them at official medical institutions.

As a result, surgeons secretly perform illegal procedures in their homes using silicone imported from China. This creates serious problems, as such procedures carry high risks of complications like infections….

Taking the rising number of illegal breast augmentations and medical complications seriously, the Ministry of Social Security issued its emergency order. Pyongyang police have organized strike teams to conduct intensive crackdowns through the end of September, aiming to “eradicate non-socialist behavior.”

City police issued detailed crackdown instructions. First, officers will infiltrate places performing illegal medical procedures by posing as women seeking breast augmentations. Second, officers will patrol with neighborhood watch unit heads, stopping women with enlarged breasts and taking them to police stations or hospitals for questioning and physical examinations.

Police taking any woman they think might have large breasts off the streets and down to the station for a closer inspection. No, I can't see any problems there.

“Strike teams in civilian clothes are already active in Pyongyang’s central districts, where they’ve begun their crackdown,” the source said. “Women and private doctors could face forced labor or other criminal punishments for engaging in non-socialist behavior.”

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