News Round-Up

• “The Economists Self-Censored and Inflation Is a Result” – Jay Bhattacharya and Mikko Pakalen in Brownstone on the disastrous, hastily achieved consensus among economists that Covid measures came without any significant costs to the public.
• “‘Exceeded Their Authority’: Judge Strikes Down Biden Administration’s Head Start Covid Mandate” – The mask and COVID-19 vaccine mandate imposed on the federal Head Start program was struck down on September 21st by a U.S. judge who said the mandate is clearly outside the power of the agency that promulgated and enforced it, the Epoch Times reports.
• “Remdesivir-induced emergence of SARS-CoV2 variants in patients with prolonged infection” – A study in Cell finds that “whereas viral populations are surprisingly stable overall, novel variant species can rapidly emerge in remdesivir-treated patients, suggesting that antiviral treatment can create evolutionary bottlenecks, which promote emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants”.
• “Ballarat woman has ‘no regrets’ as police drop anti-lockdown incitement charge” – Zoe Buhler livestreamed her arrest while pregnant in 2020, showing police handcuffing her in a video that later went viral, and is now considering further legal action, reports ABC News.
• “Why have 355 excess deaths in children disappeared from EuroMOMO?” – Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson are not impressed with the shifting data in the European mortality monitor.
• “How severe was the pandemic in Europe?” – Ayal Shahar suggests that if the virus had been named ‘influenza’, no one would have made a fuss.
• “Coronavirus vaccine” – Norway is not recommending boosters for individuals under 65 except at high risk.
• “Travelling to the Netherlands from abroad” – Netherlands removes all Covid travel restrictions, stating they are “no longer proportional”.
• “On Bad Writing and Banality and Klaus Schwab” – Eugyppius offers “diffuse remarks on why it is that the World Economic Forum is so unreadable”.
• “Politico Pushes for WHO Power Grab” – Dr. Robert Malone spies a sinister agenda behind the recent mainstream exposé of Bill Gates’s outsize role in the global pandemic response.
• “How do we sway the minds of people who refuse to see the negative data?” – Steve Kirsch argues that collecting more negative data on the vaccines isn’t going to change anything, as the problem is getting people to consider the possibility that they have been fooled.
• “No, Lockdown Instigators Do Not Deserve the Benefit of the Doubt” – Michael Senger contends that the damage that lockdowns would cause was far too well known, far too uneven, and far too catastrophic to assume that their chief instigators must have had good intentions.
• “Louisiana Repeals Shot Mandate for Schools” – Dr. Robert Malone in Brownstone on a welcome political win.
• “Does this explode the great global warming myth?” – Andrew Montford writes for TCW Defending Freedom about a new Global Warming Policy Foundation paper by former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre William Kininmonth, which finds that CO₂ in the atmosphere cannot be responsible for the recent 0.4°C warming of the ocean surface because the atmosphere, at the tropics at least, is cooler than the ocean.
• “Hundreds of protesters detained in Russia, as men flee in panic to avoid fighting in Ukraine” – Airline tickets sell out after Vladimir Putin announced the country will draft 300,000 reservists, amid mounting losses in the war, reports the Telegraph.
• “Pullman lambasts Society of Authors as ‘vehicle for gesture politics’ after Clanchy row” – Philip Pullman has accused the Society of Authors of being a “vehicle for gesture politics” after resigning as president earlier this year over a cancel culture row, the Times reports.
• “Pro-Brexit firefighter sacked from his union for backing Leave wins £8,300 payout after bosses launched ‘witch hunt’ to get rid of him” – Paul Embery spoke out at a rally in 2019 calling for Brexit to be fully implemented, even if it meant leaving the EU without a deal, only to be branded a “disgrace” by the Fire Brigade Union, the Mail reports.
• “Sorry, trolls. Viewers favour casting black actors as elves and dwarves” – The Mail reports that a poll finds 50% of respondents support casting black and brown actors in movie and television roles typically associated with whites, even when it runs counter to the source material, with only 28% against and readers of the books even more supportive.
• “Leicester and the downside with diversity” – Douglas Murray in the Spectator writes that sadly the most common response is simply to shrug and hope for the best.
• “Mermaids is a threat to gay rights” – Julie Bindel in UnHerd says trans activists are trying to destroy the LGB Alliance.
• “San Francisco loses another 39,000 taxpayers” – Millennials and Gen Xers are leaving California in droves, writes Joel Kotkin in UnHerd.
• “Oxford faculty drops ‘oriental’ from name to avoid offence” – The Times reports that an Oxford department founded in the 19th century has dropped the word ‘oriental’ from its name because it is seen as outdated and potentially offensive. William Atkinson in the Speccie says it’s a mistake.
• “Say Only What We Want to Hear, or We Will Take Away Your Livelihood” – Thorsteinn Siglaugsson says that PayPal’s deplatforming of the FSU, Daily Sceptic and others is based on “blatant opposition to the freedom of expression, opposition that until recently one thought belonged to the scrapheaps of history”.
• “PayPal bans the Free Speech Union, the Daily Sceptic, and Toby Young” – Reclaim the Net reports that Toby described PayPal’s actions as “a new low in Big Tech’s war on free speech.” Watch the clip of Toby telling Nigel Farage this on GB News.
• “PayPal cancels FSU and The Daily Sceptic accounts” – It seems that states and corporations are coalescing around the idea that, in order to censor someone, turning off their revenue is the place to start, writes Mark Johnson in UnHerd.
• “Big Tech is waging financial war on dissenters” – PayPal’s banning of the Free Speech Union is its most sinister move yet, writes Tom Slater in Spiked.
• “Why has PayPal cancelled the Free Speech Union?” – Toby writes about PayPal’s clampdown in the Spectator.
• “We all owe a debt of gratitude to @UsforThemUK tireless campaigning for kids” – Watch Molly Kingsley from UsforThem speak to Mark Dolan on GB News about her organisation’s cancellation by PayPal as well.

If you have any tips for inclusion in the round-up, email us here.