When I was six, a couple named Pete and Marie, who had just moved in up the road descended on my doorstep to present their six-year-old son, Sam.
"This is your new friend," Marie informed Sam, pointing at me.
We had never set eyes on each other before, but both seemed to equably accept the situation.
The family had moved in, along with their two teenage sons, just for a year, as the father, Pete, an English professor, was completing a one-year sabbatical at the university upon whose campus I resided (and where my father also taught), and then they would be returning to America, where both parents had full-time positions at New Orleans' Loyola University.
Despite the possibly unlikely beginnings, Sam and I struck up a strong friendship, as did our respective parents, and after the family returned to the States, we remained in touch, visiting each other on several occasions over the years. Pete died a few years ago (he was quite a bit older than Marie), but Marie and Sam still live in New Orleans, where Sam is now married with two young children.
However, I found myself experiencing very little concern about their safety when I woke up to the "big Bourbon Street blast" news yesterday.
Not just because the chances of a pensioner and the exhausted parents of two toddlers being out until 3am are somewhat slim (but they're pretty hardcore in The Big Easy, you know), but for the usual reason: I felt highly sceptical that the story the media was relaying to us was an accurate portrayal of events.
Nevertheless, I asked my dad to drop Marie a quick message, which he did, and she confirmed they were all fine (either "too old or too young to be out at that time").
I also was not expecting her to say she or Sam personally knew anyone affected by the alleged incident, which, indeed, she didn't.
Of course, that in itself isn't proof of anything - over 300,000 people live in New Orleans, you wouldn't expect them all to have a personal connection an incident like this - but it's certainly interesting that my expectations were so completely confirmed.
So, then I had a look at the, ahem, "facts" (e.g., what the media is circulating) about the incident, in which it is alleged multiple people were killed and injured.
Obviously, if that's true, it's very sad.
But is it true?
As always in these theatrical high-profile media events, the alleged assailants' full name, occupation, background, and political affiliations were all known by the media almost instantly, and - very conveniently - said assailant is now dead.
We are told the assailant's name was Shamsud Din Jabbar.
Which, as the ever-astute Owen Benjamin has pointed out, can also be read as 'Sham Sudden Jab".
("They" certainly do love their little wordplay joke names - remember the UK petrol shortage being reported on by "Phil McCann"?)
And here is Mr. Sudden Jab himself doing the predictable hand sign.
Then, less than 24 hours after this incident, we supposedly have an exploding Tesla cybertruck and fireworks display right outside Donald Trump's hotel in Las Vegas. The authorities tell us the events "could be linked", and indeed, what do you know, both alleged perpetrators apparently served at the same Army base and used the same rental app to source vehicles.
Their shared military past could be seen to hint at MK Ultra style assassin training, but it's very difficult to successfully MK adults, hence why the programme has mostly focused on children. And, as I've argued before, killing people for real is very messy and complicated for the authorities, and when they require "terror attacks" to advance certain political agendas (more of which later), it's much simpler, safer, and cleaner to just stage them.
So it's far more likely, in my opinion, that this is military black ops where the so-called perps have both agreed to stage "terrorist attacks" (acted out drills where nobody is really harmed), and then have their current characters "killed" (i.e., be removed from the world stage, given new names and identities and the opportunity to start new lives).
We are told that Jabbar at least had serious financial difficulties following a difficult divorce, so there would be some financial motivation for him to partake in such a scheme. Or maybe he was blackmailed. Or had his family threatened: who knows?
We can never really know what motivates people to agree to participate in these charades, if indeed that's what they are: but we can know what the media is telling us, and therefore, how the events will be weaponised to fulfil certain political goals.
It is crucial, and far from incidental, to note that Jabbar - like the alleged Southport killer - was not an immigrant. He was a born and bred native who - also like the Southport assailant - was a recent convert to Islam.
The alleged Las Vegas perp, Matthew Livelsberger (also conveniently dead), has not (yet) been branded a Muslim convert, but perhaps we will be told subsequently that he was.
Why is this an important detail? Why is it important that these supposed terrorists were not immigrants, but, in at least two out of three cases, were Muslim converts?
Well, look at it in the context of the very recent big political brouhaha that blew up on Twitter: everyone got very angry with Daddy Saviour Elon, because he (an immigrant) stated he is in favour of (some) immigration.
He declared, and was supported by several key figures in his declaration, that he was in favour of skilled immigration, particularly from India, to help fill various alleged skill gaps in America's tech industries.
Much of his support base reacted with fury, to which he responded with a graphically descriptive expletive... and then, just days later, we have two "terrorist attacks" carried out by people who are not immigrants.
But at least one of them - just like the Southport stabber (stabber and Jabbar!) - is a Muslim convert.
The message you are supposed to get from this incident, then, is that it's not immigration itself that is a problem, it's Islam, because so pernicious and powerful is this force, that it can even radicalise born and bred Americans (and Welsh choirboys).
Mr. Musk now has the pitch-perfect "evidence" to support his stance: that it's not "immigration" per se endangering America and Americans (after all, how many Indian terror attacks have there been in recent years?), but importing Islam, and that this is a danger even to the native populace who are raised in non-Muslim homes.
As I've written before, the ruling classes are determined to destroy the two largest and most powerful religious movements in the world, Islam and Christianity, and they are working towards abolishing the former by globally demonising it with a series of staged "terror attacks", and a sudden high-profile re-focus on the grooming gangs.
The grooming gangs are certainly very real, and a horrific crime and injustice... but the authorities have known about them for years. Successive governments have known about them for years. And precious little has been done.
So, why is there a sudden refocus on them now?
Why is Elon Musk publicly engaging with British MPs suddenly exorcised about them now?
It's all highly strategic, and it is about inducing as much fulminating fury and outrage as possible in the population, as we head towards two highly significant political dates in the UK and US...
First, on January 6th, the UK parliament will debate an allegedly "grassroots" petition calling for another General Election. The petition has amassed more than 3 million signatures, supporting the premise that Labour has failed to fulfil its election promises and so the country deserves to go to the polls again.
Please note that parliament is under no obligation to debate this petition. They are obliged to "consider" debating petitions that attract more than 100,000 signatures, but could just as easily decide not to, so the fact they have agreed to debate it is, in my opinion, highly significant.
What I roughly expect to see in this debate is both the Labour and Conservative parties depicted as blithering idiots who have incompetently mismanaged the "severe threat represented to the UK" by terrorism and radical Islam, threats only the valiant Reform saviours can possibly defeat (a sentiment Elon Musk likes to reiterate every chance he gets).
I do genuinely believe we will have another General Election a lot sooner than 2029, and that Reform will win by a gargantuan landslide. I'm not sure when it will be, but this debate will certainly get the proverbial ball rolling, and it then might be smacked well and truly out of the ballpark by what happens on January 20th, Donald Trump's inauguration.
I am anticipating another "assassination attempt", possibly one we will be told is "successful", which will be attributed to a Muslim terrorist, and, in particular, an Iranian one. If this happened - even another unsuccessful "attempt", let alone "the real thing" - the tinder box of tensions simmering all across the West towards Islam and Islamic countries would explode, and this would certainly set the stage for war, as well as sealing the deal on that sweeping Reform victory in the UK.
(And, as I have been enjoying a refreshing change of pace in the theme of insults I receive recently, their having adjusted from "far-right extremist" to "woke lefty libtard" - because I don't support Farage and Reform - please let me make it abundantly clear, once again, that I do not support Labour or any branch of the uniparty. Yes, there are alternatives. No, you won't ever read "hit pieces" about them in the MSM. See Heritage, Freedom Alliance, ADF, and standing as an independent.)
Broadly speaking, the ruling classes require nominally right-wing governments in place to install the next few stages of the agenda, including destroying the political and cultural power of Islam.
"But why would they ship thousands of Islamists into Western countries and give them lots of special perks if they wanted to destroy Islam?" People ask.
For precisely that reason. To turn the host countries against the religion so they support its abolition. As I've pointed out before, if Islam just existed in Islamic countries, very few people in the West would care what it does. To get us to care, and to get us to cooperate in calling for its annihilation, it has to be in our faces, in our cities and towns, carrying out (fake) terror attacks and (real) sexual assaults.
Now we care. Now we're angry. And now, we will get behind governments who vow to do something about it (bombing Iran to smithereens, for instance).
The ruling classes are much further along with abolishing Christianity than they are Islam (the former having been one of their main focuses post World War II, and something that left-wing governments were instrumental in helping them achieve), so now the focus is shifting to Islam for a while. That's one reason for the engineered Western political swing to the right.
Further, however, is that there are certain agenda items - digital IDs, new vaccines, brain chips - that vast swathes of the population wouldn't accept under a left-wing administration. The resistance for the last five years has primarily been a "right-wing" affair, with very few traditional leftists challenging such things as lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
Such is the tribal antipathy from "the right" for anything on "the left" that they would never accept digital IDs or brain chips coming from Kamala Harris or Keir Starmer.
But they will accept them from Donald Trump (and his deputies Musk, Vance, Kennedy) and Nigel Farage.
Maybe they will tell us we need these things to "stop terrorism", or perhaps that it's a 5D chess move that we can't yet fully understand, but must simply "trust the plan".
And, as a vigorous supporter of free speech and free will, my position is, if you want to go along with that - if you want to invest trust and faith in billionaire celebrity politicians (surely the most trustworthy collection of adjectives imaginable!) - be my guest. I'm not in the business of forcing or threatening anyone into doing anything or believing anything (I leave that to said celebrity politicians).
I can simply tell you what I will do: place zero confidence in known actors and liars to have any positive impact on my life or future whatsoever (and if they somehow manage to do so, perhaps by accident, then that will be a pleasant surprise).
I will continue to believe that responsibility for creating and maintaining a life worth living doesn't reside with any celebrity stranger on a screen... but entirely with me.
To believe otherwise is a total abdication of personal power and responsibility, and that is the real "black pill" they're desperate for you to swallow.
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