News Round-Up
- “Is faulty injection technique behind rare clot disorder reported post Covid vaccination?” – Recent international studies suggest that faulty injection techniques may be the reason behind incidences of rare blood clots being reported post Covid vaccination, says the Times of India.
- “Children need a definite, irreversible return to normal” – Returning to exams next year is vital if we are to fix the damage that has been done, according to this Telegraph leader.
- “Inside Britain’s ‘Wild West’ travel testing regime” – Industry experts say Britain’s rip-off PCR testing market was created by the Government’s decision to open it up to private providers and then fail to regulate it properly, says MailOnline.
- “Fussing Over One Degree of Simulation” – Allowing some historical perspective shows that the IPCC is wrong to label the recent temperature changes “unprecedented”, according to Watts Up With That.
- “Australia’s Covid media wars add irony to injury” – Paul Collits takes aim at Australia’s mismanagement of the Covid crisis in the Conservative Woman.
- “Delta has exploded the case for zero Covid yet still we are failing to learn to live with the virus” – Madeline Grant in the Telegraph says her own brush with Covid has exposed the folly of Britain’s current state of confusion and paranoia.
- “More than half of Russell Group universities make face masks mandatory” – Of the country’s leading 24 institutions, 13 – including Oxford and Cambridge – say that face coverings must be worn, according to the Telegraph.
- “GB news advertising boycott backfires as more people likely to watch” – A survey of 1,000 people found that 29% were more likely to watch GB News following the boycott, reports the Telegraph.
- “Fifth consecutive weekend of protests in France over Covid pass” – More than 250,000 people are expected at 200 demonstrations this weekend, an increase on last week, according to the Guardian.
- “China, the WHO and the power grab that fuelled a pandemic” – After being heavily criticised by the World Health Organisation for its response to SARs in 2003, China decided it would not accept such public humiliation again, reports the Sunday Times in an investigation into China’s capture of the WHO.
- “Under-18s will start to receive first dose of ‘back to school’ jabs” – Health Secretary Sajid Javid says the Government aims to have offered a first dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine to all those aged 16 and 17 by August 23rd at walk-in centres across the country, reports the Mail on Sunday.
- “The teens who’d prefer to catch Covid than have the vaccine” – While more than 16,000 of Britain’s 1.5 million 16- and 17-year-olds took up the Government’s offer to get jabbed last weekend, thousands are not as enthusiastic, says the Mail on Sunday.
- “Free speech victory for Eton teacher Will Knowland sacked over gender lecture” – A teacher who was sacked by Eton over a provocative lecture on gender has been cleared by the watchdog of professional misconduct in a verdict hailed as a victory for free speech, says the Sunday Times.
- “In America’s Covid culture war, Republican leaders vie to be most freedom-loving” – There was scarcely a mask in sight as Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor, arrived on horseback to whoops and cheers from a sea of freedom-loving bikers, reports the Sunday Times.
- “When scientific experts agree too easily, we should all start worrying” – Mathew Syed in the Sunday Times says the fact that there’s a consensus among scientists about the causes of climate change isn’t a reason to embrace their point of view.
- “The Scottish Government doesn’t trust Scottish parents” – Claire Fox says the SNP’s insistence that children as young as four should be able to choose their pronouns will undermine the authority of Scottish parents.
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“More than 250,000 expected at French vaxport demos”.
As ignored by the BBC’s Ceefax. Again. GB News may not be perfect, but at least they do report some things like this, and it’s the best we’ve got on the free-view news channels. And it’s interesting to watch as well so as to know which advertisers won’t be bullied by the woke cancel culture mob.
It was interesting that the other day a friend of my wife’s said she wasn’t aware of any protests in France. Is the information blackout really that solid on the BBC? Not reading or watching the mainstream media makes it hard to track what they are doing in detail. It appears from the link above that the Guardian has at least mentioned it.
Certainly there’s nothing on Ceefax about France currently. They do have a peice about the “worst ever Covid situation” in NSW (there were nearly 500 Covid “cases” recorded in the whole country yesterday). I must say, though, ythat when there have been some fairly large demos in London about the vaxports etc. they have not even put anything on the local London or travel news sections of Ceefax. I think they did mention one protest (the tennis balls in Downing Street one). What options do you have left when politicians and the msm ignore concerns and protests like this?
My idea was to show up at an event that they are bound to cover so it is harder for them to ignore – and maybe a proper (peaceful) protest targeting some specific place such as Heathrow or the BBC, though how practical that is, and whether it could avoid getting hijacked, or backfiring, I don’t know.
France 24 reports on the rally.
A mass outbreak now seems inevitable in the near future down in Oz. It will be fascinating to see how the politicians there try to cover the stupidity of their approach to covid. My schadenfreude gene is itching to get going!
after being ignored by BBC next extra small march, which I went on, on 15 May some 70,000 of us deliberately stopped outside BBC Portland Place for 20 mins.Still ignored by all MSM. see film outside BBC after 1hr 25 mins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1D2xkEihNY
A quick look at the BBC News website’s Europe page reveals nothing about protests in France. In fact very little covid related stuff. Climate change, Russian spies, horrid Poles.
It’s not a news website really. It’s a propaganda website dressed up to look like a news site by the inclusion of the odd piece of news, but the selection of what is covered and what is omitted is 100% to support their agendas, and there is not that much room for news in between all the manufactured stuff – non-stories on things that are only topical because the BBC keep going on about them where they ask a question like “is it time we drowned men at birth?” and then find some people to agree with the premise.
Even the sports section, which does still have vestige of being a functional sports news and results service, is littered with woke stuff, women’s sport that no-one watches, pieces on their pet people like Coco Gauff or Naomi Osaka or Simone Biles.
I’ve even stopped using the sports site for football coverage. By the time you’ve scrolled past all the ‘rate the players’ crap you’ve lost interest in the game.
Vanilla Ice hopes to solve mystery of who kidnapped Shergar
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/vanilla-ice-hopes-to-solve-mystery-of-who-kidnapped-shergar/ar-AAL6h6I
He famously urged the world to ‘stop, collaborate and listen’ in his 1990 hip hop hit ‘Ice, Ice Baby’.
Now, Vanilla Ice is back with what he hopes will be another winner: a podcast about the theft of legendary ‘super horse’ Shergar.
The 1981 Epsom Derby winner was kidnapped along with his groom John Fitzgerald in February 1983 from his stud farm in Ballymanny, County Kildare, by a group of masked men.
Whilst Fitzgerald was soon released, the thieves – who investigators believe were members of the IRA – demanded £2million for Shergar’s return.
After a series of phone calls, the kidnappers broke off contact and the magnificent horse, owned by the Aga Khan, was never seen again.
Horse-mad Ice – who now uses his real name Rob Van Winkle – is now delving into the cold case in a seven-part BBC podcast.
Sport’s Strangest Crimes: The disappearance of Shergar the super horse also hears from Shergar’s trainer, Sir Michael Stoute, along with BBC presenter Clare Balding and people who were involved in the initial efforts to rescue the horse.
It was considerably more than 250,000 as well
Yes – the figure I saw was 625,000.
425k in Paris. Over 1.5 million in the country, as per RT.
Why Toby quotes Guardian figures here is beyond me.
Is Ceefax still going?
I think they call it BBC text service now, I call it Ceefax for old times sake. Rather more convenient than laptops for some things. Mind you, I’m still furious they turned off analogue…
“In America’s Covid culture war, Republican leaders vie to be most freedom-loving” – There was scarcely a mask in sight as Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor, arrived on horseback to whoops and cheers from a sea of freedom-loving bikers, repots the Sunday Times. Is this the difference between the US and France? In the US there is organised political representation for those resisting the covid agenda, and it comes from the “populist” wing of the Republican Party. In France, like the UK, as far as I can see there’s basically no top level political representation for such people. The next step for the anti-populist elites is to turn the full force of the state security apparatus on the dissenters – conservatives (“racists”), Christians (“bigots”) and covid rationalists (“antivaxxers”). In the US this has already started, with the Jan 6th protests at the Capitol,smeared as “storming” and “insurrection” (if the leftists of BLM or climate alarmists had done exactly the same they would have been painted by big media and big tech as “mostly peaceful” but occasionally understandably over-exuberant political demonstrators). Here’s how the US elites think: “This new terrorism advisory is not based on any actual threats or plots, but… Read more »
This of course touches on points I make above about what options are left. As for “freedom loving”, Democrats (and it’s a strange thing for democrats not to be freedom loving) should note that it is also loving the poor, and not least in third world coutries (as noted elsewhere on this site) to oppose these genocidal lockdowns and related restrictions and abuses.
Also, it seems to me that some of the woke mob and “vaccine” collaborators are fairly bigoted and intolerant. At my grandad’s funeral’ the vicar made a point of noting that he had been a tolerant man when it came to opposing points of view to his – a tolerance apparently all too lacking by some today.
To your point: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/08/14/dept-of-homeland-security-makes-official-u-s-government-announcement-if-you-question-govt-covid-response-you-are-considered-a-domestic-violent-extremist/
Re first headline – I suspect the blood clots are rare in the same way that hardly anyone is protesting in France.
Blood clotting was predicted by independent scientists. Nothing to do with ‘vaccination techniques’.
A lot of the ‘minor’ symptoms suggest clotting events – and ‘rarity’ is relative to the context. This outbreak isn’t ‘rare’ in relation to drug testing.
It is possible to accidentally inject into a blood vessel instead of the muscle which would spoil the pharmacokinetics. It is extremely unlikely, but then so are the blood clots. If the person doing the injection aspirates then they will detect this as they will draw some blood into the syringe before injecting and can then discard the injection and try again.
I see the official advice to vaccinators in the UK is that aspiration is not necessary – presumably because whoever wrote the advice thought the risk was so small. However, why not?
Returning to exams is essential to repair the damage done to students? Ah…could we start with no masks, and full time in person classroom learning? Drop virus tests, add all the normal extra curricular activities and pleasures.
Schools here did that last term. Masks were completely optional. Testing was at the families discretion and life was as normal as it could be with the pinged isolating on and off.
School are forced to test all students once on return and then it’s back to the above. If people would just drop the app it would be 99% normal.
Exams are a minor issue; A-levels have always been poor predictors of later achievement – but the media loves making a noise about them – every year, Covid or not.
The important matters, as said, are to do with returning to a normal environment and binning the barmy masks and testing regimes – which are even more pointless.
Exams are almost the entirety of the issue. Exams, imperfect as they might be, are the only practicable and reasonably objective alternative to the kind of subjective assessment always desired by those who wish to manage and control society in detail (“for the greater good”, of course).
Wrong. The research shows A-levels as a very poor predictor of later academic performance – about as reliable as masks against Covid when it comes to discrimination at the borderline – i.e validity.
That’s been known for years.
Ironically, the best predictor is General Studies – if selection is the objective.
You make far too many intemperate remarks to be taken seriously.
There is a great deal more nuance regarding A levels as predictors than you are prepared to admit in yet another attempt to score trivial debating points.
Three A stars have been well evidenced as good indicators of future academic success
“intemperate remarks”
I really had a good laugh at that one – from the obsessively intemperate pot.
You’ve obviously (and predictably) not grasped what I’ve said about discrimination at borderlines, nor the crucial nature of the degree of correlation between two variables. It’s you who’ve missed the nuance.
In practical terms, A-level grades are a poor predictor for such an important process, when the default of a single grade can be decisive.
Only a ‘trivial debating point’ to someone who can’t distinguish between the ‘trivial’ and an important issue that affects thousands each year.
Are you any relation of Sir Geoffrey Boycott?
Let me make this as simple as I can:
You say: ‘Wrong. The research shows A-levels as a very poor predictor of later academic performance…..the best predictor is General Studies – if selection is the objective’
A massive generalisation.
What do those who know what they are talking about say?
‘Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that educational attainment at school is a good, albeit imperfect, predictor of academic attainment at medical school’
Academic selection isn’t the objective, merely a useful artefact. Education is the goal, and objective testing is required for it not to be too directly manipulated.
Went to Peppa Pig world theme park with the kids yesterday. I am pleased to say that I could count the amount of masks I saw on one hand. It was great to see.
There’s some heartening video footage of the protests in a number of French towns and cities on this chap’s twitter feed. Made me wish to be there!
henning rosenbusch (@rosenbusch_) / Twitter
I liked this comment over at the Telegraph about the Delta variant exploding the case for zero covid and failing to live the virus. The utter insanity of it all – incredible really when you think about it. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so serious.
Adam Atkinson 14 Aug 2021 7:02PM
So to sum up:
We’ve got a health service that needs protecting from its patients.
A vaccine that isn’t a vaccine.
Vaccine passports to show you can still spread COVID.
Vaccinations for children who don’t have to wear face masks.
Face masks with holes 500 times the size of the virus.
Travel restrictions to prevent the arrival of a virus that’s already here.
A pandemic so bad that the global population went up by 85 million last year.
Most people today regard America’s experiment with alcohol prohibition as a national embarrassment, rightly repealed in 1933. So it will be with the closures and lockdowns of 2020-21, someday. In 1920, however, to be against the rising tide of prohibition took courage. People assume that the main lobbyists were religious folk who denounce “demon rum,” or perhaps the would-be bootleggers who imagined huge profits in black markets. In fact, what pushed the Constitutional amendment over the top, and swung so many lawmakers in the direction of a complete prohibition of production, was in fact the science at the time. In those days, when you were arguing against prohibition, you were opposing opinion backed by celebratory scientists and exalted social thinkers. What you were saying flew in the face of “expert consensus.” Prohibition stands out as one of the most implausible, destructive, and unviable social and economic experiments of modern times. The very idea that the government, on its own authority and power, was going to purge from a Western society the production and distribution of alcohol, strikes us today as a millenarian pipedream, one that turned into disaster for the whole country. We could say the same about Covid lockdowns… Read more »
Good spot
I’d not considered that parallel before nor was I aware of the science element to it
And in between there was the War On Drugs.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/sinister-threat-of-blairs-vaccine-apartheid/ I’ve been banging on about Blairism and Blair for years, not many see that all the UK roads to ruin lead to Blair.
Yes, him and his disciples, Cameron and Hague! I see that Hitchens has a go at all three today! { https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/ }
You forgot Thatcher – his Mum.
Strange how far from reality you Lefties can be when you try.
Nothing to do with ‘lefty’ or otherwise – the sad name calling of the terminally dim who can’t stand the reality of the icons they worship.
Just a political fact about the laying down of the conditions that brought us the domination of capital over democracy.
Well said! He has (a lot of) previous:
‘nearly half a million people were killed as a result of a western military operation that tore up the fabric of a modern society and divided its people’
‘….the Iraq war dramatised a huge divergence between the values of the political elite, and what most people want and expect from politicians.’
‘…there is a concept of the state that is strategic and empowering (Blair)’
‘On the structural deficit, Blair declares that after 2005 Labour was “insufficiently vigorous in limiting or eliminating the potential structural deficit”
‘….the failure under his leadership to embrace the Fundamental Savings Review of 2005-06 was “a much bigger error than I ever thought at the time (Blair)”.
‘…..banning foxhunting was “not one of my finest policy moments” and in retrospect a mistake (Blair)’
‘The perception that Blair was a toxic influence on the body politic is not mainly generated from within the Labour party. Polls are unequivocal that this is a popular sentiment.
‘Given his record, what is striking is the fact that his opinion and advice are regularly sought and given….’
The Guardian (!)
Dr David Kelly – another victim of the Iraq war – what do you say about that Bliar?
Your knowledge of the Labour Party and internal opposition to Blair is astoundingly ignorant – as anyone on the Iraq demonstrations would know.
It was in marked contrast to the Tory party celebrating a known lying narcissist in its last leadership election.
As far as I know, only Robin Cook did the right thing though.
I’m talking about the party.
But there were other MPs who also stuck out their necks, and the largest political opposition to the Iraq debacle came from Labour Party voters and members. Even in that large demonstration, I kept coming across people I knew to be members who had traveled to make their voices heard
254 labour MPs voted for intervention in Iraq.
Not one single liberal democrat voted in favour.
Your reading and comprehension skills are astoundingly poor.
I simply quote, above, from your favourite newspaper.
Don’t be stupid – I’ve written extensively about my contempt for the Guardian, and its decline.
Always the problem with one-eyed fanatics – they see the world through the prejudiced imagination of one eye.
They do, don’t they……
Yep – now go find something I’ve written that shows an admiration for the current Groan.
You have vanished down yet another rabbit hole.
Blair freely admits his mistakes but, hilariously, his supporters cannot.
Oh I forgot the biggest hilarity of all: the attempt at gerrymandering via Scottish devolution. I really do have to stop now….
Note my letters about the AZ in BMJ Rapid Responses ie it was always known there was an undisclosed risk of clots with the product though it seems likely faulty administration would make it worse. Also, our government appears to have created an army of inexperienced people to deliver jabs: Re: Covid-19: Rare immune response may cause clots after AstraZeneca vaccine, say researchers Dear EditorI have had drawn to my attention the paper by Othman et al, ‘Adenovirus-induced thrombocytopenia: the role of von Willebrand factor and P-selectin in mediating accelerated platelet clearance’ [1]. The introduction begins with the statement:“Acute thrombocytopenia has been consistently reported following intravenous administration of adenovirus.”This in turn cites three published animal studies by Lozier et al [2], Cichon et al [3] and Varnavski et al [4].I wonder whether the designers of the AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson vaccines [5] were aware of this?[1] Maha Othman, Andrea Labelle, Ian Mazzetti, Hisham S Elbatarny, David Lillicrap, ‘Adenovirus-induced thrombocytopenia: the role of von Willebrand factor and P-selectin in mediating accelerated platelet clearance’, Blood Volume 109, Issue 7, 1 April 2007, Pages 2832-2839, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006497120417847?via%…[2] J Lozier, G Csako, TH Mondoro, et al.,’ Toxicity of a first generation adenoviral vector in Rhesus macaques’,… Read more »
The Chinese will step in with large cash injections against future mining products. Bought & paid for then. Canberra will have a couple of Chinese reps on the board, and NZ will become a giant Disneyland for tourists. From China, mainly.
Brilliant article on climate change:
‘Allowing some historical perspective shows that the IPCC is wrong to label the recent temperature changes ‘unprecedented’. They are not unusual in magnitude, direction or rate of change, which should diminish fears that recent climate change is somehow catastrophic.’
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/08/13/fussing-over-one-degree-of-simulation/
That sounds a bit familiar (see attached).
“Is faulty injection technique behind rare clot disorder reported post Covid vaccination?” – indiatoday
Unreal the lengths these charlatans are going to to hide the dangers of these jabs, faulty injection technique, what a joke.
No it’s the spike proteins damaging veins/arteries and causing large clots in some, but body wide micro clotting in many many others and that’s the scary part because that is going to cause right side heart failure within 3 years in millions of people.
This was warned about before the jab roll out and those same doctors are still being censored by the mainstream for talking about the micro clotting they’re seeing in their own practices. If you’ve had a jab and are curious, go buy yourself some D-Dimer self testing kits and see if it comes back positive.
I don’t disagree, but the techniques and problems described do make sense.
The really shocking thing is that this is a topic 9 months into the campaign, not before it started.
The SNP don’t like parents full stop. Hence their communist ideals being shown up in their desire for the Named person act.
They also hate Scots most. Prefer to follow Kalergi, they are much more accepting.
“More than half of Russell Group universities make face masks mandatory”
How to blow apart in one easy move any reputation for academic excellence and rational discourse.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/69807-2/ Shocked, never realised that the BBC vet the calls they get on their programmes, but it must be true, Jeremy Vine said so.
A useful reference site for videos of covid lunacy protests.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeIzHhBSrVIZGNlyZsDOtgQVeJyAYSXtV
It’s an RT subsidiary, but those of us who have opposed the US sphere’s evil, militarised foreign policy have known for decades that a Russian-controlled (or Iranian-controlled) news agency is no more (and no less) biased and controlled than are the US sphere agencies that supply all our mainstream “news”, just in different directions, and the truth is best approximated by triangulating between all of them, and accounting for the systematic biases.
““The teens who’d prefer to catch Covid than have the vaccine””
Thing is – it won’t prevent them catching it, anyway.
And it won’t hurt them if they do catch it.
The teens article can’t help to avoid the usual framing techniques, but it is quite a bit more balanced than expected, gives hope and has very supportive comments.
It is obvious that the author was looking for something different, was surprised and then had to write a different article than expected or instructed.
Bullshit. What it shows is the political establishment are hellbent on destroying the future for the people of this country with their fanatical drive to corrupt children in every way imaginable.
A nice juxtaposition that says a lot about the entire US elite and the political class that manages their “democracy”. Senile old man “elected” as a result of elite manipulation of opinion via big media and big tech, just a month ago: “the Afghan troops have 300,000… as well equipped as any army in the world and an air force, against something like 75,000 Taliban…. What you had is [in Vietnam] you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our Embassy … The Taliban is not the .. North Vietnamese Army. The’re not remotely comparable, in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance, you see people being lifted of the roof of an Embassy of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable….the likelihood it’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1426854179738370054 Headlines today: Escape from Kabul: Diplomats flee US Embassy in Chinook helicopters as Taliban fighters storm Afghan capital – in stark echoes of the Fall of Saigon Funnily enough I recall discussing the Afghan nation-building nonsense with US Republicans back shortly after the initial defeat of the Taliban – nearly 20 years ago… Read more »
And by the way, I suppose we have to decide whether these loons in our own regime are delusional or blatantly dishonest (or most likely both, I suppose): “Meanwhile, in the UK, Boris Johnson is facing calls for a last-ditch intervention to prevent the complete collapse of Afghanistan. … In the UK, there was deep anger among many MPs at the way – 20 years after the first international forces entered Afghanistan – the country was being abandoned to its fate. The chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Tom Tugendhat said it was ‘the biggest single foreign policy disaster’ since Suez, while Defence Committee chairman Tobias Ellwood said it was a humiliation for the West.” The US has poured military and economic resources into Afghanistan that the UK regime couldn’t dream of approaching in its wildest fantasies, and eventually had to admit defeat. The idea that we could prop up the Afghan collaboration regime for a moment on our own is pure fantasy. The “foreign policy disaster” was trying to nation-build in the first place, and the “humiliation for the West” was baked in when the US regime chose that policy – the only question was how much (other… Read more »
For once, I agree with you.
I’m more concerned with the Health Taliban with their mouth niqabs – here in Europe.
I’ve always taken the view that murdering foreigners should be, morally, our first concern with regard to what our government does.
Our government has no business concerning itself with the affairs of foreigners anyway, by definition, but actually killing them should be beyond the Pale, genuine defence aside of course
Covid and Flu Jabs? Thank you but I have never had a flu jab and I will certainly not take the combo.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/08/15/uk-vaccine-mega-factory-working-combined-flu-covid-jab/
This is pretty funny.
Now, technically there’s a kernel of truth in the BBC apparatchik’s position – it’s true that reports of deaths and adverse effects are not proven to be caused by the vaccine – just as deaths within 28 days or whatever of a covid test weren’t necessarily “deaths of” covid, but that never concerned the BBC or its apparatchiks.
But the fact is that the contents of the Yellow Card system are news, and the BBC doesn’t report them because it assumes that people will be put off taking the vaccines, and the BBC sees its task as manipulating people to do what the elites want them to do, not reporting information and letting people decide how to respond.
And it’s comical also that the apparatchik is offended by the caller misrepresenting his views to get on the show, but seemingly has no concern about the fact that it was necessary to lie to be able to express these facts and opinions on the BBC at all.
The BBC’s vaccine cheerleader Jeremy Vine gets his comeuppance