News Round-Up
- “Boris Johnson reveals No. 10 is ‘keeping an eye’ on monkeypox” – Speaking in London Monday, the Prime Minister said: “So far the consequences don’t seem to be very serious but it’s important that we keep an eye on it,” reports the Mail.
- “Credit Suisse CEO Says We’ll Never Go Back to Office Full Time” – Credit Suisse Group AG Chief Executive Officer Thomas Gottstein doesn’t think banks will ever return to working full-time from the office, saying it’s “unrealistic and it is not what employees want”, Bloomberg reports.
- “Ex-WHO Scientist David Bell: Will New Pandemic Treaty Cause Permanent Lockdowns?” – Watch: With the World Health Organisation set to discuss a global pandemic treaty and far-reaching amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations, the Epoch Times speaks to Dr. David Bell, an expert in global health and infectious disease about his concerns about an over-mighty WHO.
- “When the Dust Settles, with Professor Lucy Easthope” – Listen: Laura Dodsworth speaks to the U.K.’s leading authority on recovering from disaster about her new book and why the U.K. Government deviated from existing pandemic plans when COVID-19 struck.
- “Could the West handle true austerity?” – Deprived of his stimulants, forced into a situation of compulsory cold-turkey, modern man would be furious that his bread and circuses have been taken away from him, writes Luke Perry in Bournbrook.
- “CDC Now Recommends COVID-19 Testing for All Domestic Air Travel, Including the Vaccinated” – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is recommending that all domestic travelers undergo COVID-19 testing before and after they travel – regardless of vaccination status, the Epoch Times reports.
- “Meet the new thought police: the ‘Orwellian’ researchers working to pathologise dissent” – A New Zealand research group funded by the Government is warning that people critical of the Government are a danger to society, according to the Looking Glass.
- “Slammin’ the JAMA – Studied Mis-use of Covid Data” – The Journal of the American Medical Association hides elevated, persistent, non-Covid excess mortality. What is going on, asks D.V. Williamson.
- “College where teacher died of Covid broke health laws, report finds” – A college where teacher Donna Coleman, 42, died of COVID-19 has become the first education sector employer in Great Britain found to have to breached health and safety laws during the pandemic, the Mail reports.
- “Did monkeypox leak from Wuhan?” – The initial evidence suggests not, but the fact that the question is being asked shows the damage to trust brought about by lies and secrecy, says Michael Simmons in the Spectator.
- “Real-World Hong Kong Study Reveals Antivirals Benefit COVID-19 Hospitalised Patients” – TrialSite News reports that the investigational team found that against Omicron BA.2, initiation of both Paxlovid and Molnupiravir were associated with lower risks of disease progression and all-cause mortality while also helping patients to achieve low viral load faster.
- “Joe Biden: U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily if China attacked” – The U.S. president warned Beijing would be “flirting with danger” if it tried to seize the democratic island by force, in the latest escalation of rhetoric, the Telegraph reports.
- “Henry Kissinger warns against the defeat of Russia as Western unity on sanctions frays badly” – The former U.S. Secretary of State urges Ukraine to cede territory to Putin in order to end the war, reports the Telegraph.
- “Millions ‘marching to starvation’ as Putin unleashes global food catastrophe” – Vladimir Putin’s blockade of Ukrainian ports “is a declaration of war on global food security,” a top UN official has warned, as 43m people are “knocking on starvation’s door” without exports from Europe’s breadbasket, the Telegraph reports.
- “Green radicals are ravaging mainstream parties” – As the Australian election results show, both the traditional Right and Left suffer at the hands of these unsatisfied activist-politicians, writes Tim Stanley in the Telegraph.
- “HSBC banker who criticised climate ‘nut jobs’ was right about a lot of things” – The City’s mania for ‘ESG’ is stifling debate and will stop us from solving the world’s problems, says Ben Wright in the Telegraph.
- “How the big banks fell to climate panic” – Capital markets ought to be able to reflect reality: to price the underlying value of an asset, such as an oil company, or to weigh up how risky an investment bet may be, but thanks to ESG, the markets have made themselves incapable of doing this job, writes Andrew Orlowski in Spiked.
- “Dragging kids to the library” – “Let drag queens flourish, is my motto,” writes Dr. Roger Watson at the New Conservative. “But let’s confine them to pantomimes and adult entertainment. Our kids have suffered enough.”
- “NYC Mayor Eric Adams says online platforms need to use AI to censor” – “We did it to Donald Trump on Twitter. So why aren’t we doing it to the everyday people?” he asks. And he calls himself a liberal.
- “Does Twitter believe in free speech?” – Secretly recorded videos suggest not, writes Damian Reilly in the Spectator.
- “Teach about dead white men or Shakespeare’s works will vanish from classrooms, schools warned” – Katharine Birbalsingh, a London headteacher, tells teachers not to drop classic texts for the sake of a ‘decolonised’ curriculum, according to the Telegraph.
- “Wolf-whistle ban would harm women’s rights” –Making everyday sexism a crime will only trivialise harassment, create wariness between sexes and waste police time, argues Clare Foges in the Times.
- “Now the Government wants to tag protestors” – If this Parliamentary term will be remembered for anything, it will be the repeated attacks on individual freedom. From the Government that brought you vaccine passports and the Online Safety Bill, we now have a new Public Order Bill that includes plans to electronically tag innocent people for attending protests, writes Mark Johnson in UnHerd.
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Worth remembering that China’s WHO have already changed their definition of a pandemic, without which the “covid ‘pandemic’ ” would never have qualified.
A bit worrying if Gates and the CCP have power to define something as a “pandemic” or “health emergency” whenever it suits them.
Guess what?
Monkeys; such selfish lovers.
From the WHO: “Multi-country monkeypox outbreak in non-endemic countries“. “Because of the public health risks associated with a single case of monkeypox, clinicians should report suspected cases immediately to national or local public health authorities regardless of whether they are also exploring other potential diagnoses. Cases should be reported immediately, according to the case definitions above or nationally tailored case definitions. Probable and confirmed cases should be reported immediately to WHO through IHR National Focal Points (NFPs) under the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005).”“Surveillance for rash-like illness should be intensified (…)”“A global case reporting form is under development.” Comments 1. Anyone who has a face rash would be well advised not to look into a smartphone camera or webcam until the rash has disappeared. 2. How long until the global database that logs “probable cases” also logs each case’s social contacts? On 2), at the moment the WHO is only saying this: Considerations related to contact tracingContact tracing is a key public health measure to control the spread of infectious disease pathogens such as monkeypox virus. It allows for the interruption of transmission and can also help people at a higher risk of developing severe disease to more quickly identify… Read more »
Boris Johnson reveals No. 10 is ‘keeping an eye’ on monkeypox”
translation – lockdown in 6 months,
would not surprise me if these jabs are knackering the immune system and now its getting all sorts.
Skilled as he is in “monkey business”, especially in regard to simian-like copulation, Johnson is eminently qualified to “keep an eye on monkeypox”. Voyeurism in the Monkey House that is 10, Downing Street.
So no AdultPartygate likely, or…
Aljazeera 20 May 22
“I’m stunned by this,” said Oyewale Tomori, a virologist who formerly headed the Nigerian Academy of Science and who sits on several WHO advisory boards. “Every day I wake up and there are more countries infected. This is not the kind of spread we’ve seen in West Africa, so there may be something new happening in the West.”
Go figure, as they say.
Yes – the reported cases of monkeypox in multiple countries is reminiscent of what happened with reported SARSCoV2 cases. With SARSCoV2 it was as if somebody was trying to make the number of countries as large as possible, as fast as possible. Tiny territories such as San Marino and the Vatican got on the list very early on.
(Now there’s an interesting job for a keen statistician who is also a sceptic! What level of significance was reached?)
From that Daily Mail article::
Might the authorities make vaccination compulsory for contacts of known cases?
If that’s being planned for, then there may already be signs of it in the way monkeypox is being written about in the gay media and on the most important gay socialising sites online (where I’m sure the 77th are active, just as they are on Mumsnet etc.)
“Millions ‘marching to starvation’ as Putin unleashes global food catastrophe” – Vladimir Putin’s blockade of Ukrainian ports “is a declaration of war on global food security,” a top UN official has warned, as 43m people are “knocking on starvation’s door” without exports from Europe’s breadbasket, the Telegraph reports. Let’s just remind ourselves here that this assertion, that Russia is blockading merchant ships in Ukrainian ports, is an outright, intentional black propaganda lie. Russia has maintained a safe passage open for merchant ships, and it is the Ukrainians who have mined their own ports who have made it impossible for grain ships to leave: No, The Ukraine War Has Not Stoked A Global Food Crisis. Those among the anti-Russian warmongers here promoting confrontation of Russia (including the management) who are honestly just dupes who actually believe all the nonsense they’ve been told about Russia for decades in order to manipulate them into precisely the position they are in right now, of supporting a lunatic, self-destructive policy of all out confrontation, should contemplate the incontrovertible fact that this is a lie, and also how near universal it is in the US sphere mainstream media, and how many authority figures are repeating it. That’s how… Read more »
I wonder what could have been done to reduce tensions after the events of 2014, and to prepare for the consequences of any possible escalation?
Certainly, far too little attention has been paid by the world’s media to the long-running war in the Donbass since 2014 (a war which rather gave the lie to the EU’s claim to be bringing peace to Europe in 2016). Do these Davos politicians really just assume that there won’t be any “black swan” events? Or do they even care?
“I wonder what could have been done to reduce tensions after the events of 2014“
It was easy, but it was impossible.
It was easy, because all that was needed was for the Ukrainian regime to treat its Russian-speaking population with basic decency, and accept reality over Crimea and NATO membership with good grace, and their whole future would have been immeasurably better, and there would have been no war.
Impossible, because it’s easy to whip up jingoistic fervour and provoke violence in a divided country, and it’s hard to resist those who do so. Outright impossible to resist them when they have the active interventionist backing of the world’s superpower and the greatest propaganda machine the world has ever seen.
Yes. I was thinking more of what EU and NATO countries may have done to make the situation worse since 2014. Was there ever any possibility that any of them could have done other than what they did? Some Trump supporters have suggested that the current escalation would not have happened with him as president. What about other leaders and their failures relating to this situation? Obviously the EU helped stir things up in 2014? What would have been the sensible thing for EU countries and the five EU presidents to have done when it became clear that people in the Donbass would not accept what the new regime was doing after the coup? How far was this new regime encouraged (or coerced) by some of these EU and NATO countries? How bad was the situation with bio-labs in the Ukraine?
The only reason the Poroshenko and Zelensky were able to enact the policies they did was active support from the US and from the EU. All the EU and US needed to do was make clear that economic support and cooperation would be withdrawn if the policies weren’t changed, and they would have been changed.
Blessed are the peacemakers, of which there are almost none at all in this corrupt old nation of ours.
I don’t go along with the Nazi Germany nuttiness of the left over flags fro the Jubilee, but I am sad that our nation has descended to such a level that it can promote a war that might end in the extinction of our species.
“a war that might end in the extinction of our species.”
“I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure.”
Who are you quoting, some character from The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone or your mate, the would-be actor and barista, Korhonen?
That’s a line from the hugely overrated film The Matrix, which took the ancient science fiction trope of “could it be we are just living in a simulation of the world?” and reworked it to impress semi-bright people around the world who hadn’t encountered it before, or who were just easily impressed. Classic US film industry.
Thanks Mark.
380 trillion viruses are estimated to live in or on the human body. Mostly symbiotically. A few more than humans on Earth. Bad analogy from an overrated movie.
You know, you really shouldn’t have read that daft Dawkins book…
Sputnik News, Russia Today, and Pravda = ‘not’ propaganda.
I would say perhaps secession referendums under UN supervision. They would be insulting to Donbass residents insofar as they have already voted in legitimate referendums and the wishes of the large majority are very clear – but if such re-runs could have been promised and agreed as a condition for stopping the war at any time since 2014 then I doubt many would mind being slightly insulted in this way.
Important developments included:
Let’s just remind ourselves here that this assertion, that Russia is blockading merchant ships in Ukrainian ports, is an outright, intentional black propaganda lie.
Russia has maintained a safe passage open for merchant ships, and it is the Ukrainians who have mined their own ports who have made it impossible for grain ships to leave.
it’s a lie they keep repeating. I’ve seen lies – outright and intentional – repeated before, but nothing like what we’ve seen over the last couple of years. It’s on a scale to make Goebbels either blush or swell with pride.
And what the hell is Toby doing, with all due respect (I both respect and am grateful for his work), inviting Ian Rons to return with more of his demonstrable nonsense? Free speech for whom? Is Rons sceptical? No – he is a voice urging us not to be sceptical of official narratives that don’t even make sense on their own terms, but to swallow them: hook, line and sinker.
Do the exponents of wokery get invitations to spout their nonsense here, or are they rightly consigned to the news round-ups – which offer us both authorised versions and sceptical criticism?
“And what the hell is Toby doing, with all due respect (I both respect and am grateful for his work), inviting Ian Rons to return with more of his demonstrable nonsense? Free speech for whom? Is Rons sceptical? No – he is a voice urging us not to be sceptical of official narratives that don’t even make sense on their own terms, but to swallow them: hook, line and sinker. Do the exponents of wokery get invitations to spout their nonsense here, or are they rightly consigned to the news round-ups – which offer us both authorised versions and sceptical criticism?” Young and Rons are both (as far as I can tell) genuine dupes for the neocons and interventionists. Most likely because they are unable to separate today’s reality from that of the Cold War they grew up in, and the lies they’ve swallowed for decades have come from sources they can’t help but respect and trust, cloaked in seeming attitudes they can’t help but fall for (jingoism pretending to be patriotism, supposed support for liberty and democracy, robust “standing up to” supposed “bullies”, etc). That’s why they push the anti-Russia Official Truth here (which they believe in), but don’t push the… Read more »
There is a long tradition of regarding Russians as some sort of barbarians, corrupted by their interactions with Asia and threatening “real” Europeans.
Intelligent and well-read people need to have some awareness of that and bear it in mind when they consider their reactions to certain stories. The same is true of any story we’ve been encouraged to believe as children. Reasonable adults understand the potency and try to factor it into their analyses.
I know why they push the “anti-Russia Official Truth”. I’m disappointed that they don’t apply their scepticism to it with appropriate rigour. This is a story that has immense significance. It’s not a matter of which football team you support.
Anybody who has not availed themselves of some Russian literature – at least – should consider their education incomplete.
I think this was once widely understood. Something has gone very wrong in the US sphere (for want of a better term) in the last few decades: morally, culturally and intellectually.
We have stupid, vicious fights about pronouns and gender; and completely ignore huge political and economic issues before our very eyes.
I’ve been to the USA eight times and liked what I saw. I went to Russia once and have no desire to go back, ever. Awful – grey – dull – depressing – frightening – slums – and you don’t know if they will let you out again.
I bet most of the ‘Russian supporters’ on here have never been to Russia.
So there are no slums in the USA? Or inner city gangs? No drug addicts in tent cities (San Francisco for instance)? It makes you wonder why Julian Assange is so reluctant to be extradited to that sun-drenched land of the free.
Those of us who have been to both, and seen a bit of the world, know that you cannot get any honest impression of a significant country from the odd visit.
I remember travelling on the New York subway in the 1970s and being rather unimpressed, and I recall a trope a few years back showing pictures of Detroit and of third world African streets and asking people to try to say which looked worse.
And more recently:
PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN IN PHILADELPHIA
Russia at least has the excuse of its C20th experience to justify relative poverty. The US has been, potentially or actually, the richest nation in the world since the colonists took over an entire almost unexploited continent, and the world’s most powerful state by far for half a century.
What’s their excuse?
Where did you go? I’ve lived in St Petersburg, Moscow, Zelenograd and Yaroslavl and visited dozens of other places while I was there.
I came back in 2004, before the economic recovery had really taken off for a lot of the country, so when I was there, most places were still in need of a long overdue lick of paint. However, Novgorod on a bright winter’s day is one the most beautiful places I have ever been.
I felt an awful lot safer in Moscow than I would feel in London. I’m sorry you had such an unpleasant time there. It really isn’t that bad. Here’s a picture of a pond just round the corner from my old flat on Skolkovskoye Shosse in Moscow. Nice, isn’t it?
And their music…
Now explain how ‘communists’ turn into ‘oligarchs’ by ‘being nice to others and not barbarians at all’.
A few days down a Siberian lead mine would soon change attitudes on here!
A few years living under a downtown flyover because your house was repossessed after the 2008 subprime thing wouldn’t, though?
“Young and Rons are both (as far as I can tell) genuine dupes for the neocons and interventionists.”
It seems that even the quote from Goebbels (“If you tell a lie often enough people will believe it’s the truth”) is falsely attributed. Goebbels preferred to base his propaganda on truths, and accused the English of “telling a big lie and sticking to it.”
Plus ça change…
My first encounter with a primary source expressing the “big lie” theory as generally quoted was in Mein Kampf (1925), where Hitler said the following (as translated by James Murphy, who published the first English translation in 1939): All this was inspired by the principle – which is quite true within itself – that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. I thought it was a very shrewd observation – unpleasant but shrewd; and wondered (like many others) whether it was the result of discussions with the extremely shrewd Goebbels, whom he had met by then. Like all clever propagandists, GoebbeIs used his version of the truth (factually correct, but highly selective) where it suited him. Like all fervent ideologues, he was not above using outright falsehoods when… Read more »
Your argument seems no different to those of the campus bullies deplatforming invited speakers at university meetings.
If a collection of (presumed) sceptics need protection against other people’s pronouncements, what’s the point of being a sceptic?
As per the campus activity, surely the only way forward is to engage and argue, not to protest about the inclusion of alternative views?
In fairness to AE (and many others who’ve made the point), there is a valid argument that the whole point of a sceptical publication is to be sceptical of mainstream narratives that dominate the mainstream media, not to reinforce what is already constantly shouted at us in our daily life.
The place for engagement and argument is surely below the line, with robust free speech policies in place.
For what it’s worth, I agree with your implicit position here, that there’s a place for some exposition of the mainstream narratives, or critiques of sceptical positions, atl, but the other position is a valid argument and suggests such should be limited.
So you want to censor what I may read.
You assume I read/hear MSM or social media – I avoid it.
That’s a reasonable point. But the views espoused by Rons are not short of platforms, in universities or anywhere else. I have no objection at all to his being invited to contribute. But I am asking questions about the fact that he has been invited to return, with more to say in support of an official narrative, when there are so many literate and well-informed sceptical voices who don’t get invited to a platform for “Daily Sceptics” at all. Above-the-line articles are privileged positions on this platform. It would be interesting to see more of the sceptical views that are constantly de-platformed elsewhere. I don’t think people here need protection against anybody’s view; and I meant what I said about my respect and gratitude for what is provided here. On this occasion (the only one with which I have raised any issues), we have a set of views from someone who has not only already been included, but who is expressing opinions which have an immense variety of platforms from which they are espoused daily. I would like to see more alternative views included – of any description. The way forward is not only to engage and argue – it’s… Read more »
So you only want your bias confirmed.
I think you miss the point, it is not the authors who are supposed to be sceptical, it is the readership.
If not, we would read only the views of or approved by the editorial team, so we would end up just like readers of the MSM, with not outside views, infirmation with which to compare.
The purpose of this site is to allow a variety of views and Toby et al do us the courtesy of giving us the opportunity to decide for ourselves, unlike in the MSM or social media.
Will you next complain that Toby should not allow comments from those who are not sceptical or sceptical enough?
Just as with the virus.
Why is Russia asking for a review of sanctions in return for lifting the blockade if there is no blockade?
How did 3 ships loaded in Crimea with a reported 0.5 million tons of grain become embroiled in a political theater, being turned away from multiple ports in the Med, if there is a blockade?
Could it be because Crimea is under Russian control?
so it’s not blockaded then
No Russia are not blockading their own ports!
Sensible!
Unlike the Ukrainians, apparently, who panicked and mined their own ports.
If you don’t have a navy, the enemy is blockading your merchant shipping, and there is a risk of sea-born invasion it is hardly panic to mine your ports.
It arguably is, if it halts your own exports. I doubt the Russians were going to sail straight in, in the teeth of modern anti-ship ordnance.
Regardless, justified or not that’s clearly what they did (blockaded their own ports).
As far as I can tell that ancillary lie comes from a clearly intentional misrepresentation of comments made by Russian authorities, who were talking about the contribution of the wider sanctions to the world hunger problems: “Interfax quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko as saying: “You have to not only appeal to the Russian Federation but also look deeply at the whole complex of reasons that caused the current food crisis and, in the first instance, these are the sanctions that have been imposed against Russia by the U.S. and the EU that interfere with normal free trade, encompassing food products including wheat, fertilisers and others.”” Moscow says opening Ukraine ports would need review of sanctions on Russia – Interfax Despite all the intentionally mendacious headlines and misleading stories, I haven’t been able to find any actual quoted example of a Russian government representative saying what is attributed to them. But there are plenty of examples of them saying the exact opposite – that civilian merchant ships are and have always been free to leave Ukrainian ports as far as they are concerned: “The Russian Embassy noted that its naval vessels are ensuring the commercial ships’ freedom of movement… Read more »
This doesn’t make sense. I cannot believe that the UN secretary general is publicly calling on Russia to relax its blockade if the blockade doesn’t exist. It would be interesting to read an informed and detailed discussion of the issues. I suspect the Russia humanitarian corridor is only to do with allowing neutral merchant ships, that were stranded by the war in Ukrainian ports, to escape. I am not sure that large scale exporting of Ukrainian grain is included. Also, the Russian threat to Ukraine may mean that Ukraine dare not clear mines – either because they are essential for defence (not sure how effective group to ship missiles are – or how many they have left) or because the mine sweepers would be too much at risk.
Agreed. It is Ukraine that blocked the ports and mined the Black Sea.
The other distraction is that “the breadbasket of Europe” in reality includes Russia and some of its its allies, not just Ukraine – whiose exports have been blockaded by the West in the form of sanctions.
Not to mention that food shortages were in the pipeline from the combined effects of years of printing money catching up with the world economy, and the waste and disruption caused by COVID policies.
Sri Lanka, of course, the first really hard-hit nation, suffered also from ill-advised green policies. Ukraine has virtually nothing to do with that country’s severe food shortage.
“Not to mention that food shortages were in the pipeline from the combined effects of years of printing money catching up with the world economy, and the waste and disruption caused by COVID policies.”
Absolutely (though you missed out the contribution of green dogma):
Here’s the Dreizin Report last November/December pointing out that a famine year was already baked in for 2022:
The Famine Year Approaches
“(though you missed out the contribution of green dogma)“
My apologies, I missed that you’d covered that in relation to Ceylon’s policies.
And as someone has pointed out, those trains carrying weapons from Poland into the Ukraine could return loaded with grain instead of returning empty.
Can I add the prevention of the UK (and other countries) from becoming self-sufficient in food as a crime against humanity? Where is the modern equivalent of “dig for victory”? Is it true that some farmers are still being told to produce less food?
To be fair to the Telegraph, they did have a report on people going hungry in Kenya some while back, but there hasn’t bee nealy enough in the media about the suffering caused by lockdowns in places like Kenya and Madagascar (or Britain for that matter). The tragedy is that these things could easily have been avoided, and I hope that those responsible will eventually be held to account.
“Is it true that some farmers are still being told to produce less food?”
Yes. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/a-summary-of-the-sfi-in-2022
Can I add the prevention of the UK (and other countries) from becoming self-sufficient in food as a crime against humanity?
And I would like to point out that the EU as a whole is self-sufficient – shame we can’t benefit from that.
They refuse to sell food to non-EU members?
I know my Spanish lemons are old, but they’re not that old.
Of course the sell food to us – but if there is a severe shortage then they are going to be a lot better off than we are.
Perhaps we shouldn’t have had 25 years of mass immigration.
Would have kept our emissions down as well.
Except that the agriculture sector we do have is highly reliant on immigrant labour – particularly from the EU.
What proportion of the millions who have settled here over the past 25 years are agricultural workers?
And one huge effect I noticed after Poles were allowed to work here is that lots of Portuguese businesses in the Fens disappeared.
I should hope it is, we’ve certainly put enough into French farming…
I guess it just shows how effective fear propaganda can be. I wonder what will happen when it gets back to global cooling…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61537610
“Gene-edited tomatoes could soon be sold in England”
Would that perchance mean GMO?
In January a government consultation closed on “Applications for nine genetically modified organisms for food and feed uses”:
https://www.food.gov.uk/news-alerts/consultations/applications-for-nine-genetically-modified-organisms-for-food-and-feed-uses
The outcome can be viewed in a pdf at the above link. It seems “stakeholders'” reservations were not considered to raise issues of relevance or substance sufficient to be an impediment to implementation.
Can you still get non-GM humans for transfusions?
If they started mRNA-vaxxing our tomatoes, would they even tell us?
I was interested to hear, by chance, that GM food is apparently banned in Russia:
WHY Sanctions have FAILED against RUSSIA – Inside Russia Report
(Not the heavyweight analysis the title might suggest, just a bit of reportage chat, but interesting notwithstanding.
Yes – I found that interesting, too. It led me to this from TASS:
1 SEP 2021: Broad use of GM food in Russia premature, Putin says
Russian president stressed that there were no restrictions in working in this area for scientific purposes
VLADIVOSTOK, August 31. /TASS/. The widespread use of genetically modified (GM) food in Russia is still premature, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday at a meeting with schoolchildren during his trip to the Far East.
“We indeed have a law that limits the use of genetically modified food so that it does not appear on the table. At the same time, there are no restrictions in working in this area for scientific purposes,” the head of state said.
“The issue of using genetically modified food is indeed very complicated and specialists believe it is not yet ready for broad use, like in the United States, for example, where pulse crops, soybeans and corn are grown in huge quantities, then used to feed the cattle, and then meat enters sales channels,” Putin noted.
Russia banned the planting of genetically modified plants and the import of genetically modified seeds from July 4, 2016.
Woe betide the journalist who tries to interview Nick Clegg…
Though I must admit I’m rather keen on some dead white women. My favourite pem (The Old Armchair, by Eliza Cook) is by a woman. One of very few poems that have really moved me.
The Old Arm-Chair by Eliza Cook – Poems | Academy of American Poets
And to think what has been done to old people like the one in the poem these past two years…
“I’m rather keen on some dead white women“
I prefer them alive, myself, but de gustibus non est disputandum…
Drop Shakespeare from the curriculum – about bloody time. I was subjected to it at school over 50 years age and it was so bloody boring. I hated it.
Well, you don’t have to read it or go to the plays.
If we dropped something from the curriculum because somebody found it boring, we would have no science teaching at all.
Then we’d have even more people who are incapable of understanding what they are being told (and sold) about a virus or climate change, or any number of matters which affect our lives.
I disagree. What relevance does Shakespeare have in modern world?
Science history geography yes. Shakespeare no.
Btw I read extensively both fact and fiction. But Shakespeare absolutely not
Well reading Shakespeare might help you to improve your writing skills. As for the Bard’s relevance “in modern world” [sic] “Things deemed unlikely, e’en impossible, experience oft hath proved to be true.”
You don’t have to agree, of course (the down-tick is not mine) – but there are people who find Shakespeare illuminating with regard to human nature and the problems of being human, and who find his language immensely moving and inspiringly beautiful.
I didn’t make an argument with regard to relevance, by the way. My argument was that finding something boring does not constitute a good reason for deciding that it should be dropped from the curriculum.
Maybe they can just ban flirting and be done with it? I suppose it might help their depopulation agenda…
As does the transphilia insanity.
Pleased to report that wolf whistles were alive and well on Friday when we went swimming in the river here in North Yorkshire.
Needless to say, they were directed not at me, but at the better half. And she rather enjoyed it.
“Joe Biden: U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily if China attacked” – The U.S. president warned Beijing would be “flirting with danger” if it tried to seize the democratic island by force, in the latest escalation of rhetoric, the Telegraph reports. There’s no evidence Peking wants to use force against Taiwan, and plenty of evidence and reasons to believe it does not. But China absolutely will use force if the US interferes in ways that change the status quo, by giving formal recognition to a separate Chinese state or by taking steps to make it potentially militarily or diplomatically capable of declaring itself such. That’s a clear and stated red line for China, just as the NATO-isation of the Ukraine was a clear and stated red line for Russia, and recognised as such by most of the US’s most senior professionals. There will be war in Taiwan if the US does ether of the aforementioned, have no doubt, just as NATO-isation of the Ukraine led to war with Russia. Unlike Russia, modern China has few redeeming features as a state, and also unlike Russia it is sufficiently powerful to be a real threat and rival to the US sphere. Arguments can certainly be… Read more »
I’ve heard the recent speculation that the US is about to abandon the regime change project in Russia for the sake of a fight with China.
Those contemplating any such notion must be clinically insane.
Their absurd policies, with regard to foreign reserves for instance, are creating allies for Russia and China; their repeated and cynical abandonment of those they claim to support is arousing more and more suspicion – in peoples if not in their hireling leaders.
Pah, everyone wants to shift from Russia to China. Real men want to take both on at once.
“While still wrangling over how to overthrow Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration is already looking for other targets. President Bush has called for the ouster of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Now some within the administration–and allies at D.C. think tanks–are eying Iran and even Saudi Arabia. As one senior British official put it: “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.““
[Bold added]
August 2002
https://www.newsweek.com/periscope-144087
Thanks for that – gave me my first good laugh for the evening (as it is here). What a bunch of wimps.
First piece on the Roundup –
“Speaking in London Monday”
Where’s London Monday?
Somewhere near Sheffield Wednesday?
😀 😀 😀
You’ve just won the Internet, Hugh.
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
Off the posts? 🙂
“Is this Wembley?”
“No, it’s Thursday.”
“So am I – let’s have a pint.”
The punchline should be “let’s have another drink/pint” (suggesting that they were both inebriated to start with).
Quite right… but can you remember the comedy duo who originated the routine (I can’t – from my father’s time)?
Sounds like The Two Ronnies kind of thing to me.
Yep: they keep trying to preposition me, but I just won’t have it!
This government truly has an obsession with mass medicating the population and indeed seems to regard same as a suitable vehicle for animal trials. In my separate post I’ve flagged up https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61537610? and yes the resourceful BBC illustrates a “difference” between gene editing and gene modifacation. Maybe more concerningly the article states: “Tomatoes that boost the body’s vitamin D could be among the first gene-edited crops allowed on sale in England.” [etc] Yet isn’t it the case that excess vitamin D can itself be problematic e.g. in relation to the body’s utilisation of calcium? Regardless here we have another case of mass medication irrespective of suitable dosage / informed consent. Another animal test where the general public are the “animals”!? Anyway the point of this separate post is just to remind that there is another government consultation closing soon on procedures to be adopted for future local consultations for water fluoridation schemes – the Secretary of State replacing local authorities as the implementor of water fluoridation schemes: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/water-fluoridation-seeking-views-on-future-consultation-process/water-fluoridation-seeking-views-on-future-consultation-process https://consultations.dhsc.gov.uk/en/624ab9aacfec175b10628637/fb6b9e17-376e-492a-88aa-d5a9cf6df4dc/start Closes 3 June 2022. https://www.ukfffa.org.uk Fluoride Free Alliance UK (FFAUK)(formerly known as UK Freedom From Fluoride Alliance (UKFFFA)). Joy Warren, joint coordinator guested on the Richie Allen Show 19 April 2022… Read more »
Boris Johnson reveals No. 10 is ‘keeping an eye’ on monkeypox.
Bozo the chimp is under orders and those are to re-run the March 2020 playbook:
Tell the plebs there’s nothing to worry about. We’ll let you ramp it up later.
“OK Bill, will co.”
Bozo gets off on the military lingo. He’s already been down to Saville Row to be measured for his General, All Forces Commander, Darts and Crossbow uniform and is looking forward to taking his first inspection.
Laughter amid the ruins… you might want to lower your volume in advance.
A very sweary comment on Australia’s erec-sorry, ELection.
“Did monkeypox leak from Wuhan?”
No of course not – it came from a Ukraine lab.
FFS.
“Teach about dead white men or Shakespeare’s works will vanish from classrooms, schools warned.”
An unusually brave teacher.
P45 in the post.
She’ll be fine; Birbalsingh has a long and glorious history of irritating the right people, despite which she continues to succeed, as do the children under her charge.
“Now the Government wants to tag protestors.”
The birthplace of democracy. What did Bozo say about the Union Jack?
Must have slipped his mind. He’s definitely a warrior though. See you next Tuesday type.
Johnson’s “British values” always were a joke.
British in the sense of being a chav.
Since Shakespeare was key to the development of modern English, attacking his work attacks our culture at a fundamental level. And to understand Shakespeare, you have to understand the Bible. Jordan Peterson interviewed by Joe Rogan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt9K6kmpx44
The cultural barbarians responsible for these attacks seem to imagine (if they have an imagination) that certain works produce certain inevitable responses.
Even bad propaganda can’t be relied upon to do that (as the Nazis discovered). Great art never does.
People of all ethnicities, political colours and points of view, religious beliefs and backgrounds have loved and still love the works of Shakespeare – that sublime English gift to the world.
He can be read in countless different ways, as can the Bible.
Thanks for the link, Londo,
“CDC Now Recommends COVID-19 Testing for All Domestic Air Travel, Including the Vaccinated.”
Well that certainly puts the nail in the “vaccination” coffin.
Given that the CDC have admitted that the PCR test is useless what are they providing by way of a replacement?
Their narrative is falling apart and the more they try to maintain it by imposing more and more outrageous and ridiculous rules, the more we see the clown’s circus theatre for what it is.
“Meet the new thought police: the ‘Orwellian’ researchers working to pathologise dissent.”
Any restriction aimed at coercing thought is in itself a restriction on freedom of the individual; anathema to decent people.
Attempting to restrict freedom of thought can and will only have negative impacts.
Innovations, in any field, arise only from freedom of the mind. The greater good of humanity is not well served by restricting the freedom of ideas. Without freedom we will descend into a morass of banality.
While we exist on this planet free thought will persist. It may well be driven underground as in the Soviet era but some of us will remain free in spirit if not body.
I probably will not be alive to see it but Globocrap will be defeated.
Perhaps we’re already seeing the Twilight of the Gods.
There have always been greedy and ambitious elites. The ones who’ve revealed their outrageous hubris in the last couple of years are another breed entirely.
Saddle your horses over there in Saddleworth, hp – we could be in for one hell of a ride. They have made the mistake of showing us what they are.
Actually, ambitious elites are not the problem – on reflection. Ambition is usually a wonderful thing; driving people to do better.
If ambition is entirely directed towards subjugating others and aggrandising oneself, we have a problem. And we do.
Presumably, if there’s an election and the other party gains power, supporters of the previous government instantly turn into dangerous activists?
Nice to see you back, HP. I agree wholeheartedly with you and posted above about this. I may die in our cause for freedom but will definitely not live under this type of tyranny. Not on my watch anyway. Risings are happening in many places. I feel that when you fight (peacefully) for something good, wholesome and true, you can’t lose. Truth will prevail and so will we.
More strength and readiness to your arm, Aethelred!
The point about protests is that they often seem small, weak and ineffective – or large but futile – until, one day, they’re not.
The only guarantee of defeat is despair and the abandonment of hope. That’s why certain individuals work so hard to encourage precisely that: telling good and conscientious people trying to do something that they’re wasting their time.
Even prior to the Soviet era, Poland had “underground universities” in a previous era of Russian occupation. Looks like we will also have to have underground education for children to counter the thought police in schools.
“TrialSite News reports that the investigational team found that against Omicron BA.2, initiation of both Paxlovid and Molnupiravir were associated with lower risks of disease progression and all-cause mortality while also helping patients to achieve low viral load faster.”
Well that’s a result backed up with an ocean of facts and figures.
What a load of blatant carp.
Omicron BA.2?
Isn’t that variant virtually inert all by itself?
Does Paxlovid and Molnupiravir reduce your chance of death from one in a billion to one in one point one billion?
My thoughts exactly.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams isn’t just keen on censorship he’s till masking toddlers.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nyc-parents-want-person-meeting-mayor-over-toddler-mask-mandate-our-calls-have-gone
Why the bloody hell do the fool patents comply with this outrage?
Excuse the very sloppy headline: “College where teacher died of covid…”
The HSE is a heavy-handed organisation at the best of times, but a year, notwithstanding WFH, to pursue this matter is worrying…
While reading the article below, I think I had what is commonly called a eureka moment.
https://www.sciencealert.com/first-patient-injected-with-experimental-cancer-killing-virus-in-new-clinical-trial
Could the Gene Transfer Technology (rebranded by governments as a Covid vaccine, to allay public fears) actually have been designed to intentionally compromise everyone’s immune system? Is it too ridiculous to suppose that all governments were unaware of this possibility? Assuming this to be the case, then a chance exists of finally putting an end to this experiment.
Amazingly a monkepox vaccine was created in 2019.
But what use is a vaccine if there isn’t a pandemic of monkey pox?
In order to make some serious monkey back on the vaccine investment you either need a a global monkey pox outbreak or to be able to make people believe there is a global monkey pox outbreak.
I wonder if that nice Mr Gates has money invested in the monkey pox vax?
A belief travelling at almost the speed of light? It worked well enough with covid.
I think it was also developed against smallpox. There’s a lot of profit (not) in immunizing against extinct diseases and rare African zoonotic conditions.
I am not interested in or worried by the thought of monkeypox myself, but out of curiosity I wonder if those of us old enough to have been vaccinated against smallpox would be immune anyway. I must have been vaccinated as I was born in the 50s, and vaccination continued until 1971 in the UK apparently. However, you can bet that if they start pushing pox vacs they will say that previous smallpox vaccinations are useless and you simply must have a new one.
I was also born in the 1950’s and I wasn’t vaccinated against smallpox. Regular voluntary vaccination against smallpox was stopped in 1948 with the birth of the NHS, apparently in 1939 there was around a 30% uptake. There was a period in the 19th century when it was compulsory to have your child vaccinated.
Vaccination was stopped completely in 1971, between 1948 and 1971 I presume vaccination was targeted at contacts with an infected person, similar to the TB vaccination nowadays.
Also, according to https://www.historytoday.com/archive/end-smallpox the virus present in the U.K. was mainly a less virulent form, with a 1% case fatality rate, with episodes of the more virulent form.
Oh well, that’s interesting. I just assumed I had been, but probably not then. I know both my parents had scars on their arms which I am sure they said was from the smallpox vaccine, but they were children in the 20s/30s. However, I have definitely had the BCG and I have the scar to prove it. Wonderful vaccines – scarring and injuring people through the centuries!
“…it is a disease of the sodomite..” Interesting you use that old-fashioned word as opposed to “gay” or “homosexual”. And as far as I’m aware it’s not a disease exclusively affecting gay men, it’s merely that they’ve found it in mostly gay men thus far.
Susceptibility to infection may be related to (a) Number of partners (b) Broken skin (c) Excessive use of anti-biotics as a prophylactic.
These were all factors suggested by sceptics of the HIV/AIDS link.
how long has sondomy been exclusive to gay men?
I don’t think poor spelling is a sign of a disordered sexual preference.
Even more interesting, the comment I was replying to appears to have been deleted. Perhaps because it was recognised as sounding pretty homophobic, from my interpretation anyway.
That’s a bit concerning, if DS are applying political correctness standards for deletions. Of course, without being able to see the original post it’s impossible to judge the reasonableness of the censorship – always the problem with an anti-free speech censorship regime.
BBC NEWS APP:North Korea fights Covid with tea and salt water!
What a backward and undeveloped nation!
Meanwhile in the “civilised and highly technically developed West?
Wear bits of rag on your face and cover your hands with slime.
Altogether now: FF’S.
Almost every news item is a reflection of the clownworld we live in as a result of top down government creation. If Lucy Easthope wants her book to be take seriously it’s probably a good idea not to giggle her way through an interview as she gaslights her way through it, she wants us to believe the lockdowns were all because of the “government machine” unable to row back from it’s own ramping up of the fear factor – I call BS on that. And the Bourbank piece, pontificating about how “modern man…Deprived of his stimulants, forced into a situation of compulsory cold-turkey, he would be furious that his bread and circuses have been taken away from him.” would most likely take to the streets in their millions. Would there be a Communist revolution? A Fascist revolution? Whatever the finale, the build-up to it won’t be pretty; an atomised and balkanised world is further susceptible to political extremism. After 2 years of government SME crushing nonsense? Seriously what world do these people live in? Clearly not one in which their business was crushed by government dictat, they ate away their financial lifeboat to avoid losing their home, and had to… Read more »
The torches and pitchforks were deployed in Sri Lanka.
and the plebs are better off how?
Mr Kissinger is a legend.
The ongoing war in Ukraine solved with but a single stroke.
Simply hand over Crimea and all will be well.
Oh! Hang on…….
Does this mean they’re finally admitting that those expensive (and how!) vaxxes have been somewhat of a scam?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-london-61507125
How bloody ridiculous. TfL employee with half her face covered, to please Mayor Khant, no doubt. Not a single person muzzled on the trains, from what I can see.