ricercata

Breaking: Starmer: "I understand that I've lost confidence in myself and so I've asked myself to leave post immediately."

The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem ended in a complete disaster because King Guy de Lusignan and Renaud de Chatillon did exactly what Trump and Netanyahu are doing right now. The Kingdom of Jerusalem did not fall because Islam was stronger than Christendom. It fell because two men — King Guy de Lusignan and Renaud de Chatillon — decided that provocation was a strategy, that the rules didn't apply to them, and that they could drag a fragile coalition into a war of their choosing on a timeline no one else had agreed to. At the Battle of Hattin in 1187, Saladin didn't defeat Jerusalem. Jerusalem defeated itself. Renaud de Chatillon was a maximalist operating on the logic that audacity is its own deterrent, that if you push hard enough — raid the caravans, strike the convoys, threaten the holy cities — the adversary will eventually capitulate rather than escalate. Renaud raided Muslim pilgrimage routes under active truce, attacked caravans Saladin had personally guaranteed safe passage, and treated every ceasefire as a staging period for the next provocation. He was not reckless by accident. He was reckless by doctrine. He believed the enemy's restraint was weakness. Saladin personally beheaded him after Hattin — a gesture he extended to almost no one else — because some men are too dangerous to ransom. Guy de Lusignan was legitimacy-challenged, politically dependent on his maximalist partner, and structurally incapable of restraining him because restraint means losing the coalition that keeps him in power. Guy didn't want to march into the waterless plateau above Tiberias in the July heat. His best commander, Raymond of Tripoli, told him it was a trap — that Saladin had designed the siege of Tiberias specifically to pull the Crusader army into terrain where it would die of thirst before it could fight. Guy knew this. He marched anyway. Because Renaud and the hawkish barons had made backing down politically impossible. The Crusader army did not lose at Hattin. It suffocated, on its feet, in the sun, before Saladin's cavalry closed in. The structure is identical. A dominant power whose strength is real but whose strategic position is more fragile than it appears. A political leader whose survival depends on a partner he cannot control. A partner whose entire identity is built on escalation and who has long since foreclosed the diplomatic exits. A patient adversary who has read the terrain, prepared the trap, and is waiting for the coalition to march into it of its own free will. Hattin was not a battle. It was the terminus of a political logic that had been running for years, and everyone involved could see where it was going except the people with the power to stop it. Jerusalem fell three months later. The Kingdom had hollowed itself out before Saladin needed to strike it. Some defeats are not inflicted. They are chosen, incrementally, by men who confused audacity with strategy and called the result God's will.

Commodifying mental health: apps, care and profitability Apps claim to improve our mental health – but maybe their business models should be making us anxious all over again. Eoin Fullam looks behind the scenes. revsoc21.uk/2025/04/08/com… via @revsoc21

@EuropeanPowell March 2025: "The number of people living in relative poverty in the UK rose by half a million" bbc.co.uk/news/articles/… Jan 2026: "Britain’s poorest are getting poorer: 6.8 million people are now living in very deep poverty, the highest level on record." jrf.org.uk/news/progress-…

Israeli Terror

@rogerwaters @Billy @davidmdraiman I used to love Disturbed when i was in my 20s, one of my favorite bands.. Finding out that Draiman was a genocide supporting bigot was a real letdown. The only sickness he's down with is Zionism

@rogerwaters @Billy @davidmdraiman The bald coward that is David Draiman doesn't want to debate. He just wants publicity for his shitty career How it started. How it ended

@rogerwaters @DevineChungus @Billy @davidmdraiman He's a real creep. This was what he said before he blocked me. Not worth wasting your breath on Mr. Waters.

An open letter to @Billy: Dear Billy Corgan How are you? It’s been too long. @davidmdraiman Someone forwarded me this chap’s appearance on your podcast. I’d never heard of him. Anyway, it turns out he has heard of me. It seems he has a problem with me standing up for human rights, particularly the human rights of my brothers and sisters in Gaza who are being slaughtered in a genocide by the armed forces of the Nazi racist, pariah state of Israel. You, being the lovely fella you are gave this little piece of shit a chance to clarify or even modify his position. He did. He is a psychotic racist Nazi pig. I’m told, Billy, he writes messages on bombs before the IDF drops them on civilians in Gaza. Enough said. I will continue to work with all my brothers and sisters all over the world in the movement to demand equal human rights for all human beings, irrespective of their religion or ethnicity or nationality. If you, my friend are wondering if I want a conversation with this obnoxious little prick? The answer is non merci Billy, life’s too short, he can inhabit his tiny corner of hell without the benefit of my love and truth. Love R. PS. @Disturbed ? 😂👍Er? Yeah! Just a bit!

@consequence I've responded. x.com/rogerwaters/st…

Pro-Palestinian tourists identified former Israeli soldiers in a Vietnam restaurant and confronted them over their actions keeping the pressure until they chose to leave.

Spanish actress Ester Expósito shows her support for Palestine at a solidarity event.

@Liam_Holman99 Even less if you were a member of a Tory cabinet during that same period.

If you voted Conservative between 2010 and 2024, then you don't really have a right to complain about the sluggish growth, the gutting of our armed forces, the ballooning welfare bill, the shit in our rivers and sea, or the open borders.

Even less if you were a member of a Tory cabinet during that same period.

@declassifiedUK @jmcevoy_2 Here's the very fella on the last known list of Labour Friends of Israel supporters

Chris Bryant admits to being 'put up' to the filibuster which prevented the SNP's ceasefire motion and then says 'We need a system that doesn't allow people to manipulate the rules to be able to get what they want.' 'Which you did?' *Laughs*

Cool youtu.be/M7IRYMDp4b0

BREAKING: Ceasefire violations reported as Israeli artillery shelling and aerial surveillance persist 🔴 LIVE updates: aje.news/060cxq?update=…

@PolitlcsUK Missing allegedly after Office.