Category Archives: Cultural

Scare-mongering politicians, the media and covid are a lethal combination

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Covid FACTS is an interesting summary of where we are now at, or at least more factual than most of what you read nowadays. This is mostly about Australia, and where I look at things differently it is over whether vaccination has had any effect on the death toll, which I highly doubt. Still, this is a useful approach to thinking about the political mess we are in. And it is a political mess, not even remotely a medical crisis.

As reported on October 20, [2020], 73 per cent of Australians who have died with COVID-19 had at least one (and often multiple) other pre-existing comorbidities, death certificate data reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show.

These included dementia (41 per cent), chronic cardiac conditions (32 per cent), diabetes (17 per cent) and hypertension (16 per cent). The average age of COVID-19 deaths in Australia is 85 years – above the age of life expectancy.

Yet our scare-mongering politicians and bureaucrats have terrified millions of relatively healthy and non-elderly people to believe they are at serious risk of dying or getting very sick from the virus….

In the face of hysterical daily news conferences by premiers to announce case numbers and obliging media hyperventilating, it’s largely been forgotten that – so far – nobody who has caught COVID-19 in Australia this year has died. Barely anyone is seriously sick….

Total recorded deaths in Australia last year were broadly steady at 141,116 as registered by February 28, 2021, according to preliminary ABS data. Because of COVID-19-related restrictions such as social distancing and lockdowns, respiratory disease deaths fell 16 per cent as influenza and pneumonia cases plunged in a mild flu season.

But offsetting that was cancer deaths rising 4 per cent, dementia deaths jumping 7.3 per cent and diabetes deaths increasing 9.1 per cent.

With our political leaders and health bureaucrats consumed by COVID-19, they have neglected other health problems and may have shifted deaths to other causes because of cancelled health check-ups during lockdowns.

How we get out of this mess is now getting more difficult to work through. There is money to be made and political agendas to fulfil, with half the population stupid enough to be spooked by all of what is going on.

Health fascism

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A bit of modern etiquette explained to us via The Age/SMH: My higher-ups flout mask rules in the office. What should I do? What should you do? Why you should dob them in.

Most people at work don’t seem to pay attention to the COVID-19 mask rules. I’m in a state where masks are mandatory indoors, but hardly anyone wears one, not even the higher-ups. It makes me feel uncomfortable being at the office. What should I do? This is such a common question – my fellow Australians, what is going on?! We are in a global pandemic; we all dread lockdowns, and no one wants to help spread the disease. Unless you have a medical reason not to …. just wear the damn mask. If there are any people at your work (of any seniority) deciding not to wear their mask when it is mandatory to do so, then it is your bosses (and their bosses) responsibility to fix the problem. It should not be on you to have to police this. That said, the bar has well and truly been set as to what can happen to anyone who decides to put their colleagues’ health at risk. Your bosses should count themselves lucky you have not contacted Crimestoppers already (big shout out to the person who role-modelled how to be a community-minded citizen and dobbed in the Deputy Prime Minister for not wearing his mask).

We are not alone, it seems: Majority of Britons Back Continued Mask Mandates, Would Feel Unsafe Without Them. Given the terror on the streets – not the kind of people who would have faced up to the Nazis – it seems that Boris is much more tough-minded than you might otherwise have thought: Covid: Most rules set to end in England, says PM. Showing the way:

Face masks will no longer be legally required and distancing rules will be scrapped at the final stage of England’s Covid lockdown roadmap, Boris Johnson has confirmed. The rule of six inside private homes will be removed and work-from-home guidance abolished as 16 months of on-off restrictions on daily life end.

But then we are being cautioned here about our lax attitudes to vaccination: Australia’s COVID Catch-22. This is how it begins and ends.

Last year Australia was a COVID-19 success story. Just 30,274 cases and 910 deaths in 26 million people was something to celebrate. But now America and Europe are getting on with vaccinations and learning how to live with the virus. Australia is faltering with embarrassingly few vaccinations and new lockdowns…. The challenge ahead is to transform these into meaningful action on the vaccine front and for politicians to provide leadership. Every effort should be made to learn from overseas—such as the latest trials showing that mixing vaccines is more effective—to speed up the rollout. They should call in the military logisticians behind Britain’s speedy rollout and the scientific expertise from the United States to expand manufacturing. It will then be necessary, once the population is vaccinated, to have an adult conversation about how COVID-19 is not going to disappear from the face of the planet. Australia did well at the start of the pandemic. But learning how to live with the virus is going to take a little while longer.

The “problem” is, of course, that no one is dying and hardly anyone is even getting sick. I think (hope) underneath that our PM may well be somewhat of a Covid Skeptic, but given the nature of the constitution and the role of the states, there is little he can do to open the country up.

There are no vaccines against idiocy

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The photo is from an article by a Canadian author, David Solway, one of the very best there is, found on an international website unrelated to Australia, other than it occasionally features Peter Smith who does live in Sydney. The article is titled, The Oxymorons Heard ‘Round the World, which may not mean very much, but you should read it all. Let me, as a sample of what you will find if you do, quote the following.

The palpable fact is that the vaccinated, who are now presumably shielded, should have no fear of the unvaccinated. It doesn’t seem to matter. I have met many of the jabbed who diligently avoid those who have demurred—even close relatives—though if the vaccines they swear by were potent, they should clearly have acquired immunity and be assured of their security. They are confident, yet frightened, a perfect instance of cognitive dissonance of which they remain unaware.

And there’s the rub. Such people are not governed by reason but by a species of magical thinking, a kind of voodoo conviction. Despite whatever inner tremors they feel or doubts they may have struggled to suppress, they insist on the soundness of the vaccines and rush to the inoculation booths. These confections are like magical elixirs, bunches of dill or lavender laid at the door to keep out demonic beings, or talismans affixed to the lintel to ward off the angel of contagion.

I see many many people walking the streets of Melbourne wearing masks when it is perfectly legal to walk along without one. I find all of it tragic and depressing.

And speaking of Australia in the international news, there was also this I came across: Australian authorities ban church from singing—on Zoom. I guess you just can’t be too careful.

Peter Hitchens on the slow death of freedom

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The words that come with the video:

In a hard-hitting interview, Peter Hitchens argues that through Covid we have surrendered our liberty to the state, perhaps irretrievably. As we approach the promised full unlocking of the UK on June 21st, he asks is it too late to reclaim our fundamental freedoms?

We have taken so much for granted for so long that many of us no longer even know what freedom is, and it seems all too few even think it matters. There are some who seem to believe we can give up a bit of our freedom to add a bit to our safety, but the reality is that if we keep going the way we have been going, we will lose both.

As he says: “There is no more impregnable fortress on the planet than a closed mind.”

Repulsive and incoherent

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You thought Covid was about health and safety did you? Watch the video from the World Health Organization and you will see it’s really about the rich against the poor.

I cannot tell whether it is more repulsive than it is incoherent, or the other way round, but it is certainly both.

Complication of vaccination “a consideration”

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This article has just made its way to me which is part of a circulating letter sent to the Minister of Health: Vaccine Role In BBC Presenter’s Death To Be Probed.

A coroner will consider if the cause of BBC presenter Lisa Shaw’s death might have been complicated by her having had the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.

Her family said the 44-year-old was treated for blood clots days after her first jab. She died on Friday.

An interim fact-of-death certificate lists the vaccine as one of the possible factors being considered.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said vaccine benefits exceed risks for most people.

The BBC has seen the interim fact-of-death certificate issued by Newcastle’s senior coroner Karen Dilks.

It confirms an investigation into Ms Shaw’s death will be held and lists a “complication of AstraZeneca Covid-19 virus vaccination” as a consideration.

The document does not determine a cause of death – that will not be issued until the investigation has been completed.

The BBC Radio Newcastle presenter was not known to have any underlying health problems.

In a statement, Ms Shaw’s family said:

“Lisa developed severe headaches a week after receiving her AstraZeneca vaccine and fell seriously ill a few days later. She was treated by the RVI’s [Royal Victoria Infirmary] intensive care team for blood clots and bleeding in her head. Tragically she passed away, surrounded by her family, on Friday afternoon. We are devastated and there is a Lisa-shaped hole in our lives that can never be filled. We will love and miss her always. It’s been a huge comfort to see how loved she was by everyone whose lives she touched, and we ask for privacy at this time to allow us to grieve as a family.“

Here is the direct link to the story which is from the BBC itself. The article is from Principia Scientific International whose mission statement is set out at the link:

Support Our Ongoing Work To Expose The Lies About COVID19

And the first of the comments on the article links to this: Covid-19 Vaccines Lead to New Infections and Mortality: The Evidence is Overwhelming where you can read this:

The latest official figures for the European Union which are rarely acknowledged by the mainstream media indicate the following:

From late December 2020 to  May 22, 2021:

  1. 12,184 deaths and 1,196,190 injuries following injections of four experimental COVID-19 shots (Moderna, Pfizer-BionTech; AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen). Serious injuries are of the order of 604,744 (i.e more than 50% of total injuries)
  2. The Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA gene-edited vaccine has resulted in the largest number of fatalities: Total reactions for its mRNA vaccine: Tozinameran: 5,961 deaths and 452,779 injuries to 22/05/2021

While Pfizer has the largest numbers of deaths and injuries, the EU Commission has largely placed the blame on AstraZeneka.

If only there were someone, somewhere you could really trust. Meantime, there is also this: Scientists launch study to find out if COVID-19 vaccines are causing period changes after hundreds of women notice irregularities. Come back in a year to see what other “irregularities” have come to be noticed.

Viral immunology 101

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Plus this: Studies show vaccines work even as tiny fraction of vaccinated people die of COVID-19. They actually think vaccines work because it is the Indian Delta version that is now dominant. Of course, the virus won’t kill you but the vaccine might. Might note the first comment that comes with the vid:

It’s almost as if viruses become more transmissible and less virulent over time. Hang on, I recall being taught that in viral immunology 101.

By 2025, we will know everything we need to know. Alas, it is still 2021.

On vaccines, they seem to know something they are not telling the rest of us

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Do you suppose they know something they are not telling the rest of us: Covid-19: Doctors outraged at Queensland Premier’s jab scare.

Queensland officials warned against taking the AstraZeneca vaccine and accused Scott Morrison of putting lives in danger.

In the most significant rift within national cabinet, Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young said she did “not want under-40s getting AstraZeneca”, after the Prime Minister said all adults could access the vaccine if they consulted their doctor on the small risk it could cause clotting.

“I don’t want an 18-year-old in Queensland dying from a clotting illness who, if they got Covid, probably wouldn’t die,” Dr Young said.

What else do they know that they are not letting the rest of us in on? Let me take you back to a post I put up on April 9, 2020.

Let me highlight a bit of what’s going on. First this: Dr. Birx: Government Classifying All Deaths Of Patients With Coronavirus As COVID-19 Deaths. Hmmmmm:

According to the response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, the government is classifying all deaths of patients with coronavirus as COVID-19 deaths.

Dr. Deborah Birx made that announcement during Tuesday’s briefing. She confirmed the classification will be made regardless of any underlying health issues that could have contributed to loss of life.

The task force coordinator went on to say the federal government is continuing to count the suspected COVID-19 deaths despite other nations doing the exact opposite.

“There are other countries that if you had a pre-existing condition, and lets say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem, some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death,” she explained. “Right now, we’re still recording it.”

That is, every number you see coming from the United States has been amplified as a matter of policy.

Meanwhile, and this from the US and also right now: Deaths From Vaccine Top 6K As FDA Issues Warning After Spike In Cases Of Fatal Heart Inflammation. Just like what they’re worried about in Queensland.

They know, but they’re not telling. And this has been going on for more than a year.

One man’s joke is another man’s thought crime

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Dealing with people of the left as I am sometimes compelled to do, the most astonishing characteristic is how humourless they invariably are. And they believe the most astonishingly absurd things, like global warming or that the American election last year was honest. It’s a large part of why satire is now having such a hard time in the world, since for almost everyone on the left, it is difficult to separate satirical exaggeration from the actual facts one is supposed to believe. As for the video above:

Seth Dillon is the CEO of The Babylon Bee, where they write satire for a living. You’d think that would be easy in today’s absurd world, but in reality, it’s just the opposite. Seth explains why this endangers the very concept of free speech and the open exchange of ideas.

“Free speech”! “The open exchange of ideas”! Would be nice. Just think of this: Millennials Are Boycotting Seinfeld over Its ‘Offensive Humor’. Which then led me to this: The 100 Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy. Which then led to this:

Purely North American as is the entire list of 100 jokes. All funny, but no Monty Python or Graham Kennedy.