No Escape From Stalag Britain
Health Secretary Matt Hancock yesterday announced severe penalties for those not complying with the new border quarantine arrangements, including a 10 year prison term for lying about where you have travelled from. Kate Andrews in the Spectator has the details.
From Monday, all arrivals will need to take two PCR tests: one on day two and another on day eight of self-isolation. This will apply to everyone, regardless of where they are travelling in from or whether they are quarantining in a hotel or in their home.
This means anyone arriving in the UK will now be taking a total of three COVID-19 tests, as a negative test within 72 hours of travel is also required. Hancock announced that any positive result will require 10 more days of quarantine from the date of the test (notably not symptoms) and that all positive results will be analysed by genome sequencing to identify the variant and control the spread of any mutations deemed worrisome. Already pressure is mounting from backbench MPs to announce when these restrictions will be eased
Meanwhile, arrivals from 33 ‘red list countries’ (which are thought to be increasingly at risk of new variants) are expected to start mandatory hotel quarantine from next Monday – a policy that has proved to be a logistical challenge for officials. There will now also be increased fines for those who fail to quarantine – up to £10,000. Those who are found to lie about where they have travelled from (trying to skirt around the ‘red list’ to avoid hotel quarantine) will face a prison sentence of up to 10 years. These announcements are clearly designed to grab headlines – but also suggest the Government worries people think they are unlikely to get caught (and that hotel quarantine will require the co-operation of passengers if current systems struggle to easily identify who is lying).
The cost to the traveller of the mandatory stay in the quarantine hotel will be £1,750 for 10 nights, making travel all but unaffordable save for determined business users and those with a few grand to spare. Oliver Smith in the Telegraph is not impressed, noting that “the vaccine was supposed to herald a return to the wonderful old normal”. As far as travel is concerned, “our Government is in the process of fencing us in”.
Already, all arrivals – even those coming from a Covid-free tropical island – must bring evidence of a negative test. Even after proving themselves free from infection, they must self-isolate for up to 10 days. From next week, those returning from a growing number of ‘red list’ countries (in Scotland it is all returnees) will be required to complete their quarantine period under guard in a grim airport hotel (at a cost of around £1,750). And the latest wheeze from Matt Hancock? A prison sentence of up to 10 years for those who lie about visiting a red list country. For reference, the average term for convicted rapists in Britain is seven. (And how exactly is it fair to threaten travellers who have tested negative for coronavirus with jail time when the punishment for non-travellers who break self-isolation after a positive test is only a fine of £1,000?)
Such restrictions make travel extraordinarily difficult for everyone, and virtually impossible for families and those who cannot work from home. So will these rules be eased in time for spring and summer? The millions of Britons employed by the travel industry, and the millions more in dire need of sunshine after the bleakest of winters, are banking on it. But the noises coming from Whitehall, and its Covid-obsessed advisors, are deeply worrying.
Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, said yesterday: “The more elaborate your plans are for summer holidays, in terms of crossing borders, in terms of household mixing, given where we are now, I think we just have to say the more you are stepping into making guesses about the unknown at this point.” Fancy taking your car on the ferry to France? It might sound like a risk-free holiday to you, but if it involves crossing a border you can forget it. Far too “elaborate”.
Boris Johnson was even more alarming. “They are most effective, border controls, when you’ve got the rate of infection down in your country,” he said. “For border controls really to make that final difference, so you can isolate new variants as they come in, you need to have infections really much lower so you can track them as they spread.” They don’t sound like the words of a man about to loosen the shackles. Our reward for lower case numbers won’t be more freedom, but a doubling down on controls.
Worth reading in full.
Former Supreme Court Judge Lord Sumption thundered that Matt Hancock’s “connection with reality, which has been getting looser for some time, has finally snapped”.
Ten years is the maximum sentence for threats to kill, non-fatal poisoning or indecent assault. Does Mr Hancock really think that non-disclosure of a visit to Portugal is worse than the large number of violent firearms offences or sexual offences involving minors, for which the maximum is seven years?
The hotel quarantine rules are a form of imprisonment in solitary confinement. They are brutal, inhumane and disproportionate. They are economically extremely destructive. They are also of limited value because the virus is already endemic in the UK and spontaneously mutates all the time.
Unwelcome mutations are just as likely to originate in the UK. The so-called Kent variant probably did. So did several cases of the South African variant. At the moment, we are probably a net exporter of mutant viruses.
He diagnoses Hancock with a chronic case of tunnel vision.
As with so many of the Government’s COVID-19 measures, the 10-year jail sentence is important mainly for what it tells us about the mentality of the decision-makers. Laws like these can only be justified on the footing that nothing matters except keeping infections down.
They are the work of people who think that there is no limit to the human misery, oppressive cruelty, economic damage or injustice that we must put up with if it reduces infections.
Mr Hancock is on record as saying that he will “stop at nothing” to suppress COVID-19. Yet, however admirable their objectives, ministers who will stop at nothing to achieve them are dangerous fanatics. There is always a point at which even the best of objectives is not worth achieving if the cost in terms of human wellbeing is too high.
This balance is fundamental to intelligent policy-making. The main charge to be levelled at the present Government is not that it has got the balance wrong. It is that it is not interested in balance at all. It is not a natural tyrant, but it believes, like every tyrant that ever lived, that the end justifies the means.
Worth reading in full.
The Telegraph provides a handy list of offences with similar or lower jail terms to the new one of telling porkies about Portugal:
Offences with 10-year maximum terms
– Rioting
– Making threats to kill
– Indecent assault
– Firearm possession
– Burglary with intent to commit rape
– Indecency with children under 14Offences with seven-year maximum terms
– Child sex offences
– Carrying loaded firearm
– Racially-aggravated assault
– Incest
Stop Press: Kirstie Allsopp was none too impressed by the new tariff for lying about where you’ve returned from: “This isn’t the thin end of the wedge, it’s the whole thing.”
Lockdown Battle Lines are Drawn
Some of the Government’s scientific advisers on SAGE have indicated that the emergence of mutant variants will lead to a need for on-off lockdowns continuing for several years. The Mail has the details.
Britain could be trapped in coronavirus lockdown cycles for “several years” as it’s forced to wrestle with new variants that could scupper vaccines, top scientists have warned.
Professor Sir Ian Boyd, an infectious disease expert at the University of St Andrews and member of SAGE, said the emergence of potentially jab-resistant strains means the UK could be stuck in a pattern of “control and release for a long time to come”.
Evidence suggests the Oxford University vaccine – the main weapon in Britain’s arsenal to combat the virus – does not stop people falling ill with the South African variant, which is feared to be spreading in the community already. But No 10’s top scientific advisers believe it still protects against severe illness and death.
Professor Boyd and several other prominent SAGE members have warned reopening the current shutdown too early could risk allowing new, equally concerning variants to spawn.
Mutations randomly happen as viruses spread but most changes never change the way it looks or behaves. Very high transmission gives the virus more opportunity to mutate and, therefore, drives up the risk that one of the alterations could change the course of the disease.
Professor Boyd told the Times: “It stands to reason that the more people there are in the population with infections – the prevalence – the more virus that is replicating and the more chance there is of even highly improbable mutations happening.”
He warned even if Britain gets on top of the South African strain, there will be more concerning ones down the line. He added: “My suspicion is that we will experience a damped oscillation of control-release for a long time to come – perhaps several years.”
Professor Graham Medley, another SAGE member and infectious disease expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said “everything works better” when there is lower prevalence, adding that the emergence of new variants “strengthens that case”.
In the Belfast News Letter, Northern Ireland’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride said:
I suspect that we will require some degree of the current restrictions, certainly for the rest of this year, and probably enhanced again towards the autumn and winter of this year, and I think it will probably be into the following year before we see things a little more normal.
Prof Andrew Pollard, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, was much more upbeat about the opportunity to lift restrictions provided by the vaccines. The Telegraph has more.
“If people have just got the sniffles then I think our job is done,” Prof Pollard told MPs on Tuesday as he looked ahead to the coming years during an event hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus.
With scientists increasingly talking about an annual Covid jab and warning that the virus will not disappear entirely, MPs are considering how to balance the long-term needs of protecting people and rebuilding the economy.
Conservative backbenchers eager to see restrictions loosened as soon as is realistically possible have told the Telegraph they want Government ministers to make assurances that nationwide lockdowns will not be repeated.
The idea is that to kickstart the economic recovery – getting businesses to reopen and triggering a spending boom – company bosses and workers have to be reassured that the lifting of the rules will not be reversed weeks later…
In a separate appearance, Prof Pollard told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme: “The really important point though is that all vaccines, everywhere in the world where they’ve been tested, are still preventing severe disease and death.
“And I think that is perhaps the clue to the future here, that we are going to see new variants arise and they will spread in the population, like most of the viruses that cause colds every winter. But as long as we have enough immunity to prevent severe disease, hospitalisations and death, then we’re going to be fine in the future in the pandemic.”
Mark Harper, chair of the Covid Recovery Group (CRG) of Conservative MPs, and CRG member David Davis, told the Telegraph there need to be assurances from ministers that lockdowns would be a thing of the past.
Mr Harper said he wanted the easing of lockdown restrictions to begin once all over-70s and frontline healthcare workers are vaccinated, which is estimated to be early March. He hopes something close to full reopening can be completed by May.
After that, with age groups most at risk of dying if they catch the virus overwhelmingly vaccinated, ministers should consider reassurances that future lockdowns will not happen, he argued.
“The Government basically has to say: ‘We’re not going to stop this by having lockdowns, we have other tools,'” Mr Harper said.
Both Mr Davis and Mr Harper accepted that a “no more lockdowns” promise could never be 100% binding, with the future course of the virus unknown. But they stressed it is essential that reassurances are provided to both employees and employers over the possibility of another national lockdown if the economy is to recover quickly.
The Times heard from other scientists pushing the suppression line, and more from Mark Harper.
Professor Robin Shattock, of Imperial College London, who is leading Britain’s most advanced effort to develop an RNA vaccine, said: “It would be very advisable to try to push the cases as low as possible to reduce the chance of additional variants. This would make sense alongside border restrictions.”
Mark Harper, head of the Covid Recovery Group of MPs, said: “The justification for lockdowns and the severe restrictions on people’s lives and freedoms was always saving lives, reducing hospitalisations and avoiding the NHS being overwhelmed. That must remain the position.” He said that “moving the goalposts risks never going back to normal, never reopening the economy, with a cost to people’s lives and livelihoods that simply isn’t acceptable in a free society”.
Stop Press: German news outlet DW reports on a draft Government document suggesting the lockdown in the country is set to continue till March over fears of virus mutations. “Considering the virus mutations, the steps to lift the restrictions must come carefully and gradually in order to avoid risking the successful curbing of infections,” it says.
Stop Press 2: The Telegraph reports that Public Health England has said there’s no indication the “dangerous” new variants are surging: “Dangerous coronavirus variants that may evade vaccines and the immune system are not increasing in Britain and people should be reassured that they are being kept under control,” the report says.
The Zero Covid Cult
Dermot Martin at Laboratory News has written a summary of the Zero Covid approach, which I thought was worth reproducing here in the spirit of Know Thy Enemy.
Vaccines are the great hope, but with the virus’s agility and ability to mutate, they can only be a part of the solution unless the infection rates are reduced to close to zero… A consensus is emerging among some in the scientific community that to breakout from this trap we need a fresh approach. It’s called Zero Covid and it is being discussed in Germany, Ireland and Canada. There seems to be little talk about it in the UK beyond an excellent comment piece in The Lancet.
Top German Virologist, Melanie Brinkmann, and physicist, Matthias Schneider, argue that it is time for a consistent containment strategy to avoid a permanent economic shutdown. It’s called Zero Covid. Instead of more passivity, they say, we need to design an active collective response and it needs to be a “bottom-up process” which embraces tangible and measurable goals leading to the termination of COVID-19.
“We have to move away from reactive harm reduction and towards proactive control of the pandemic, comprising all social, health and economic areas of our society, with a clear goal that enables a return to freedom and stability.”
This is what Zero Covid supporters want to see.
Zero Covid focuses on regional green zones
With Zero Covid there would be a firm regional focus. For example, in the UK, when the incidence of infection in a region falls to zero, that region should be declared a Green Zone. Intense, protective contact and travel restrictions should be imposed around this zone. Such a policy calls for robust test, trace, and isolate protocols which in the UK we have failed to effectively deliver locally – but we can improve.
Individuals and communities would be motivated to conform and support the plan as part of a social consensus – a collective objective for the regional populations. It would be assisted by local daily communication with the public.
The Zero Covid strategy takes a layered approach
The Zero Covid strategy would have several layers: an effective lockdown until defined regions reach below 10 cases per 100,000 people. Germany dropped as low as 2.5 cases per 100k last year. It is a doable target. In Melbourne, hitting this target only took four weeks to achieve.
The UK currently has 33 cases per 100,000 and with a Zero Covid policy the current lockdown would remain in place until the figure was below 10 cases per 100k. We might divide the UK along county lines with larger cities London, Birmingham, Manchester counted as counties in their own right. Once a region, county or city reaches near zero cases, it would be classified as a Green Zone. With this GZ status comes normal activity but only within carefully monitored county borders.
As other ‘adjacent’ GZs spring up, normal travel and interactions could take place, while protecting the hard-won successes and providing the rewards of Covid-free living.
The lynchpin of this system would be a rigorous test, trace and support system to ensure the spread does not resume and keeps Covid cases at zero. This would entail robust, sometimes painful, protocols and firm policing.
To cool any virus hotspots, locally based authorities could commit – as Australia and New Zealand did – to go hard and early in introducing new lockdowns and measures to tackle any new outbreaks. In a pandemic, we have seen that over reaction is the most effective response when it comes to stopping exponential growth.
Proponents of Zero Covid believe this new focus would be mentally good for the population. It might help reduce the passive daily consumption of Covid statistics on deaths, infections and hospitalisations.
Absolute fanatic.
Worth reading in full.
Playing With Our Theory of Mind
Today we’re publishing a new piece by Philosophy Lecturer at Newcastle University and Lockdown Sceptics regular Dr Sinéad Murphy. It’s an examination of how the Zero Covid crowd are looking to mess with our minds. Here’s the opening:
In an article on February 4th, Unherd’s Freddie Sayers reported on his attendance at an international conference that was held over three days during the previous week. Running under the title ‘Covid Community Action Summit,’ it was a forum for those interested in pursuing what is called ‘Zero Covid’.
Sayers was taken aback at the conference’s emphasis on communication strategies; it is as if they are planning a military campaign, he wrote, and this conference was their war room.
In illustration, Sayers quoted Tomás Ryan, an Irish neuroscientist employed by Trinity College Dublin. Ryan is a co-founder of Ireland’s ‘Independent Scientific Advocacy Group’, which aims to persuade the Irish Government to adopt a Zero Covid policy. Reflecting on the limited success so far of the Zero Covid campaign, Ryan told the conference: “You have to be playing with the theory of mind of your audience.”
This idea – that our “theory of mind” is to be “played with” – struck me as it might strike many who live with someone diagnosed with autism; a seminal experiment conducted by Simon Baron-Cohen over 30 years ago established that those diagnosed with autism lack a “theory of mind”.
For some time now, I have been suspicious of the extent to which this lack of a “theory of mind” is really disabling. In fact, I have begun to wonder whether it is having a theory of mind that is the bigger problem. And then, out of the blue, I find myself reading that one of the would-be architects of Ireland’s Zero Covid campaign has urged for more “playing with” our “theory of mind”.
So, what is it to have a “theory of mind”?
Worth reading in full.
Is COVID-19 Hysteria Driven by the Media? (Is the Pope Catholic?)
Professor Philipp Bagus, Professor of Economics at University Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid and a Lockdown Sceptics reader, has a new article in a top journal entitled “COVID-19 and the Political Economy of Mass Hysteria”. He and his colleagues argue that “mass and digital media in connection with the state may have had adverse consequences during the COVID-19 crisis” particularly through driving “collective hysteria”. Here’s the abstract.
In this article, we aim to develop a political economy of mass hysteria. Using the background of COVID-19, we study past mass hysteria. Negative information which is spread through mass media repetitively can affect public health negatively in the form of nocebo effects and mass hysteria. We argue that mass and digital media in connection with the state may have had adverse consequences during the COVID-19 crisis. The resulting collective hysteria may have contributed to policy errors by governments not in line with health recommendations. While mass hysteria can occur in societies with a minimal state, we show that there exist certain self-corrective mechanisms and limits to the harm inflicted, such as sacrosanct private property rights. However, mass hysteria can be exacerbated and self-reinforcing when the negative information comes from an authoritative source, when the media are politicized, and social networks make the negative information omnipresent. We conclude that the negative long-term effects of mass hysteria are exacerbated by the size of the state.
This article is packed full of insights and well-referenced information about the crisis and repays reading in full.
SAGE Exclusive: PCR Tests With a Ct >25 Pick Up Non-Infectious Positives. No, really?
The SAGE minutes from December 21st contain a striking admission: that PCR tests above the 25 cycle threshold (Ct) are “not associated with transmission-type patterns meaning these people may be less infectious to others than those whose tests have a low Ct value”. This, they say, is a key reason why Lateral Flow Tests, though less sensitive, are no less reliable than PCR for containing the outbreak: “Lateral flow testing (which is more likely to identify cases which have a low PCR test Ct value) is better at identifying more infectious individuals than it is at identifying infected but less infectious people”. Here is the relevant section:
Use of household survey to measure infectiousness
39. Cycle threshold (Ct) values broadly categorise the concentration of viral genetic material in a patient sample following testing by RT-PCR (with higher Ct values corresponding to lower concentrations). Initial analysis from ONS COVID-19 Infection Survey (CIS) data up to December 7th showed that positive tests with high Ct values (>25) do not cluster with other positive tests (with either high or low Ct values).
40. This suggests that they are not associated with transmission-type patterns meaning these people may be less infectious to others than those whose tests have a low Ct value. Some caution is required with this finding, as higher Ct values were observed during the summer when other factors may have reduced within household transmission. However, it would be in line with expert opinion which suggests a Ct value of below 25 seems to be associated with viable transmission.
41. This also supports the hypothesis that lateral flow testing (which is more likely to identify cases which have a low PCR test Ct value) is better at identifying more infectious individuals than it is at identifying infected but less infectious people.
This is a vindication of an argument first advanced by sceptics like Dr Clare Craig, who saw the advantages of LFT over PCR tests in terms of avoiding false (non-infectious) positives back in November.
How Many Doctors Are Misattributing Covid Deaths?
A letter to the Telegraph yesterday raised this question once again.
Certified Covid deaths
SIR – My 94-year-old cousin died recently. Despite her having no symptoms, and negative Covid testing, her GP put Covid on the death certificate, even though he had not been to see her. At the family’s insistence, that untruth was removed and a more honest cause added. The GP rang to apologise.
How many more of these false certificates are being signed and what effect are they having on statistics?
Peter Welsh
Sale, Cheshire
Just How Many Forms Do You Have to Fill In to Become a Vaccinator in Scotland?!?
The retired GP who let us know he was volunteering to become a vaccinator has written with an update on the bizarre obstacles that keep being put in his way. Perhaps explains why Scotland is struggling to keep up with England in the vaccination programme.
I am a retired GP, and thought that with a lifetime’s experience (and being re-registered with the GMC) I would be able to quickly get involved on an unpaid basis and help with the initial vaccination campaign.
Nope. The only way in was to get a job as a professional vaccinator. Five weeks after applying I am now about to “start” which means start the online training. Hours and hours of slow grinding through modules with minimal new information, designed for brand new nurses training to be vaccinators. Despite accepting the post three weeks ago I have still not been vaccinated, so actually starting to vaccinate people is probably still two to three weeks away.
I am not certain about this, and am unsure how much is planned and how much cock-up, but I think there are two problems here in Scotland.
1. As I was retiring, a new Scottish contract for GPs was being negotiated. Due to a real shortage of GPs, our negotiators wanted to remove from our core role some services such as vaccination, which would be done thereafter by Board employees. Although it is possible to involve practices in the Covid vaccination effort a number of Health Boards (probably most or all) are choosing not to.
2. Our local Health Board seems to be creating a permanent vaccination force. That is fine for the longer term, but we needed an emergency response for the first few months, during which time we retired doctors and nurses could have carried the initial burden.
A retired English GP told me that he and his colleagues had been called by his old practice and asked to help out. Having been vaccinated in December (and having made sure that they were up to date with vaccines and responses to adverse reactions) they have been back working since the beginning of January.
General Practice, due to its small units, is flexible and able to react quickly to new challenges. In England, 75% of vaccinations have been done by practices, which I think shows why England is so far ahead.
Despite the sheer stultifying misery of renewed NHS employment, I will keep buggering on, at least for a few months.
Dear Harriet Harman…
Lockdown Sceptics reader Hugo Stolkin copied us into his email to Harriet Harman, his MP. We thought we’d share it with you.
I write to you as a constituent, born in King’s College Hospital, who campaigned in his childhood in the Lane Ward for the Labour Party, helping my father through the grim 1980s, canvassing for hours each evening against Bowden and Thatcher. I remain broadly left wing and liberal. I hate Brexit. I support the Rule of Law. And I still listen to my father, who continues, in semi-retirement, to teach medicine, as he has done for his whole career, originally at King’s London, and more recently at Guy’s/Thomas’s. I insisted that my children be vaccinated against MMR. And I have never forgotten two fundamental tenets of medicine that my father drummed into me from an early age: “first, do no harm”; and “damaging the economy damages people’s health”.
Lockdown is an obscenity. It will kill around 250,000 Britons in the coming years, from cancelled or delayed diagnoses and treatments and economic damage. Globally, the economic consequences will kill twice as many people as the number of those who died from violence in the whole of the twentieth century. Those people will die horribly, from hunger, poverty, cold, lack of shelter, and the inability to afford medical treatment.
Unpleasant as it is to recognise, on a normal day, in the UK, about 1,700 people die. Sometimes it’s 100 or 200 more. Sometimes it’s 100 or 200 less. But, roughly, it’s 1,700. In a week, it’s roughly 12,000, give or take a thousand, depending on the week in question. In a year it’s roughly 600,000, with a variation of five to ten percent. This has been the position for very many years.
2020 was no different. No more people died last year than in 2008. Yet, for no reason, and flying in the face of all the research and planning for pandemics done, over years, before Covid, we have destroyed the economy and the lives and livelihoods of millions.
No political party is speaking out against this. No mainstream media outlet is giving publicity to the absolutely rational position that lockdown must stop immediately, if far greater harm is to be prevented.
Please will you look at the objective data, that lockdown has saved few, if any, lives, and threatens to kill many more than will ever die with, or from, Covid? Please speak out against this government, which is cynically using Covid to hide decades of NHS underfunding, as well as the catastrophic economic impact of Brexit?
I think of myself as a resilient individual. I run regularly over the hills of South East London. I live in a large house, with a garden, in Peckham. There are parks all around. My children’s home-schooling is irritating but manageable. And, most importantly, the business I work in has continued to do well through 2020. But the moral obscenity of lockdown, the harm it is causing, and, perhaps most terrible of all, the failure of those in positions of authority to speak out against it, leave me shattered and despairing.
Please speak to Keir Starmer and your party and begin a new movement to bring down this murderous government and turn this catastrophe around.
Round-up
- “WHO’s rejection of Wuhan ‘lab leak’ theory leaves too many questions unanswered” – Ross Clark in the Telegraph is unconvinced by the WHO’s unseemly haste, poorly aided by lead investigator Peter Ben Embarek’s false assertion that laboratory accidents are “extremely rare”, to rule out one of the most compelling explanations for the origin of the virus. John Naish in the Mail agrees that the move it all too convenient for the Chinese Government
- “Christian liberty versus ‘lockdownism’” – Christian Concern‘s Dr Joe Boot on “the importance of liberty as an indispensable condition of life and human dignity”
- “Meeting others to worship is a lifeline” – Revd Dr William Philip in the Critic on why a group of Scottish clergy is taking the Government to court over church closures
- “Facebook extends ban on anti-vax misinformation” – Politico reports on the latest Covid censorship, as the social media giant bans content that claims “COVID-19 is man-made”, that “vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease they are meant to protect against” and that “vaccines are dangerous”
- “More bad faith” – Brendan O’Neill in Medium takes science writer John Gillott to task for his error-strewn criticism of spiked‘s Covid coverage
- “Hygiene Theatre Is Still a Huge Waste of Time” – Derek Thompson in the Atlantic on the strange obsession with scrubbing surfaces when the best current evidence shows SARS-CoV-2 spreads almost entirely through the air
- “Who Wanted Pandemic Lockdowns?” – Jeffrey A. Tucker on the AIER blog wonders who might have had a soft spot for locking down to fight the virus
- “The state is making a huge power grab, and it won’t be giving it up” – Jeremy Warner in the Telegraph asks why “salvation from the wretched virus is seemingly always just beyond the horizon, one last heave away from success” and what the world will be like afterwards
- “Rise in young women being hospitalised with severe Covid – but scientists are baffled as to why” – The Sun goes to Professor Carl Heneghan, who explains: “Given everyone who enters hospital irrespective of the reason is tested, then I’d treat this with caution”
- “Viral Myths: Why we risk learning the wrong lessons from the pandemic” – New report from the Institute of Economic Affairs on the “big story” that there is no “big story”: “Our long-standing ideological disputes about what the size of the state should be, how open our economy should be, or what type of health reform we need (if any) are not going to be settled by a virus”
- “Extending Their Claws: An Anarchist Analysis of the Pandemic as an Opportunity for State & Capital” – A radical Left wing view from the It’s Going Down blog
- “Government ‘gambling’ by keeping borders open, virologist tells James O’Brien” – The “virologist” in question is… Professor Devi Sridhar. Who is in fact an anthropologist by background and not in any way a “virologist”
- “No overseas holidays until October, says top scientist” – The “top scientist” in question is… Professor Devi Sridhar, who seemed to be ubiquitous yesterday pushing the Zero Covid agenda to all too willing broadcasters
- “Using political logic, quarantines, border closures and lockdowns may never end” – Professor Steven Schwarz in the Spectator Australia spots the flaw in the lockdown plan
- “The class of Covid will pay the price for years to come” – Ross Clark in the Spectator on a new report from the OECD estimating the long-term cost of disrupting children’s education
- “My Journey out of Lockdown (part 3)” – The final instalment on Left Lockdown Sceptics of Jo Nash’s attempt to get back to Scotland, focusing this time on the situation in India
- “The Only Thing To Fear Is Fear Itself – Dr Nicola Ridgeway Interview” – The Real Normal Podcast gang have their first guest, a Clinical Psychologist who talks about how mental health is being affected by the lockdown and how the Government has deliberately frightened a nation
- Mark Harper MP tweeted yesterday that Ministers are seeking MPs’ retrospective approval on measures that allow the sharing of health data with the police and a vote will take place today
— Mark Harper (@Mark_J_Harper) February 9, 2021
Ministers are seeking MPs’ retrospective approval on measures that allow the sharing of your health data with the police.
Yesterday, I asked some reasonable questions about these measures. The Government has not yet answered them.
A vote will now take place tomorrow
pic.twitter.com/P6KUXVyy6X
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
They’re coming thick and fast. Ten today: “Hysteria” by Muse, “Living In A Ghost Town” by the Rolling Stones, “Under Pressure” by Queen & David Bowie, “Don’t Give Up” by Peter Gabriel (ft. Kate Bush), “Take The Power Back” by Rage Against The Machine, “Afternoons and Coffeespoons” by Crash Test Dummies, “Stop in the name of love” by the Supremes, “Ever Changing Times” by Aretha Franklin, “Forever and Ever” by Demis Roussos and “Crackdown” by Cabaret Voltaire.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums as well as post comments below the line, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email Lockdown Sceptics here.
Sharing Stories
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Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, it’s the news that Historic England has followed the dubious example of the National Trust and carried out its own woke review of links to slavery. Allison Pearson has penned a searing critique in the Telegraph.
We are all guilty, ladies and gentlemen. You may think you live in a blameless village with a pretty church, a pub, a school, a newsagent and a duckpond. A village where the only thing of note to happen since the Norman Conquest was that time Gary, the postmistress’s nephew, changed the tyre on the Triumph Spitfire of Shelley from Bucks Fizz when she broke down on the B3199 in the summer of 1982.
Think again. You are the unwitting inhabitant of a festering sore on the nation’s conscience, a bastion of white privilege where the Ghost of Injustices Past stalks the High Street and gravestones weep remorseful tears for standing atop the remains of a 400-year-old slave trader whose very name strikes fear and loathing into every liberal heart. (Well, it would if the lettering on the gravestone weren’t obscured by a thick pelt of moss.)
That, at least, is the conclusion of Historic England, the Provisional wing of the Department of Culture which is given £88.5million of our money every year to teach us to be ashamed of our past and now, in an ambitious new move, the places where we live.
Inspired by the National Trust’s recent “Why Our Great Country Houses Secretly Stink” review (aka the Colonial Countryside Study), the woke busybodies of Historic England have tracked down evidence of the “transatlantic slavery economy” in an audit of halls, churches and pubs from Little Gidding to Great Snoring. Apparently, the strategy is intended to make heritage appeal to newly outlined “priority audiences” including “people with black, Asian or other minority ethnic heritage, and people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer”.
And what a success it sounds. Why, I hear that hardly a day goes by in Tower Hamlets or Southall without the thwarted city dwellers clamouring to be patronised by a bunch of art historians from Historic England who live in expensively restored Georgian terraces in Hackney and have themselves visited the countryside on at least five occasions. Glastonbury, obvs, and there was that afternoon at Charleston, taking in the decorative art of the Bloomsbury Group until Guinevere found out that they were a bunch of snobs and fascists, and Fabien had to drive her to Brighton to have her chakras soothed.
A public body, whose job it is to preserve buildings and monuments, has helpfully drawn up a list of tainted places including chapels, where exploiters worshipped in centuries past, and the graves of slave profiteers and their relatives. All calculated to “better represent the diversity of England and our rich heritage”.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Seaford Head School in East Sussex has supinely dropped Winston Churchill and J. K. Rowling from its house names after some woker-than-thou students carried out a “consultation”. The students wrote: “Churchill was a figure who promoted racism and inequality, unfairly imprisoning and torturing many.” As for the Harry Potter author: “We no longer think that J.K. Rowling is a suitable representative, because of her recent words about the trans community.”
What are they teaching them?
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to obtain a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card – because wearing a mask causes them “severe distress”, for instance. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and the Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. And if you feel obliged to wear a mask but want to signal your disapproval of having to do so, you can get a “sexy world” mask with the Swedish flag on it here.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption. Another reader has created an Android app which displays “I am exempt from wearing a face mask” on your phone. Only 99p.
If you’re a shop owner and you want to let your customers know you will not be insisting on face masks or asking them what their reasons for exemption are, you can download a friendly sign to stick in your window here.
And here’s an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry. See also the Swiss Doctor’s thorough review of the scientific evidence here and Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson’s Spectator article about the Danish mask study here.
Stop Press: US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr Anthony Fauci has said that masks will only go when “the level of virus is so low, it’s not a threat at all”. He told Fox News:
Then at that point, you can start thinking in terms of not having to have a uniform wearing of masks. But we’re certainly not near there yet. When do I think that would occur? It’s very difficult to predict, Bret, but if everything falls into the right place and we get this under control, it is conceivable that you might be able to pull back a bit on some of the public health measures as we get into the late fall of this year. But there’s no guarantee of that.
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched in October and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it ever since. If you googled it a week after launch, the top hits were three smear pieces from the Guardian, including: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now tops the search results – and Toby’s Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports their strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics so expect no let up in the attacks. (Wikipedia has also done a smear job.)
You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over three quarters of a million signatures.
Update: The authors of the GBD have expanded the FAQs to deal with some of the arguments and smears that have been made against their proposal. Worth reading in full.
Update 2: Many of the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration are involved with new UK anti-lockdown campaign Recovery. Find out more and join here.
Update 3: You can watch Sunetra Gupta set out the case for “Focused Protection” here and Jay Bhattacharya make it here.
Update 4: The three GBD authors plus Prof Carl Heneghan of CEBM have launched a new website collateralglobal.org, “a global repository for research into the collateral effects of the COVID-19 lockdown measures”. Follow Collateral Global on Twitter here. Sign up to the newsletter here.
Stop Press: Facebook have deleted the GBD’s page because it “goes against our community standards”.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many legal cases being brought against the Government and its ministers we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
The Simon Dolan case has now reached the end of the road. The current lead case is the Robin Tilbrook case which challenges whether the Lockdown Regulations are constitutional. You can read about that and contribute here.
Then there’s John’s Campaign which is focused specifically on care homes. Find out more about that here.
There’s the GoodLawProject and Runnymede Trust’s Judicial Review of the Government’s award of lucrative PPE contracts to various private companies. You can find out more about that here and contribute to the crowdfunder here.
Scottish Church leaders from a range of Christian denominations have launched legal action, supported by the Christian Legal Centre against the Scottish Government’s attempt to close churches in Scotland for the first time since the the Stuart kings in the 17th century. The church leaders emphasised it is a disproportionate step, and one which has serious implications for freedom of religion.” Further information available here.
There’s the class action lawsuit being brought by Dr Reiner Fuellmich and his team in various countries against “the manufacturers and sellers of the defective product, PCR tests”. Dr Fuellmich explains the lawsuit in this video. Dr Fuellmich has also served cease and desist papers on Professor Christian Drosten, co-author of the Corman-Drosten paper which was the first and WHO-recommended PCR protocol for detection of SARS-CoV-2. That paper, which was pivotal to the roll out of mass PCR testing, was submitted to the journal Eurosurveillance on January 21st and accepted following peer review on January 22nd. The paper has been critically reviewed here by Pieter Borger and colleagues, who also submitted a retraction request, which was rejected in February.
And last but not least there was the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. A High Court judge refused permission for the FSU’s judicial review on December 9th and the FSU has decided not to appeal the decision because Ofcom has conceded most of the points it was making. Check here for details.
Samaritans
If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, providing a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. Doing these daily updates is hard work (although we have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending us stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links we should include in future updates, email us here. (Don’t assume we’ll pick them up in the comments.)
And Finally…
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Going into Iraq or Afganistan to throw out (or better, to destroy or disarm) the Taliban and Al Qaeda would have been justified as a defensive move following 9/11. To take over those places for decades was not justified. Indeed, in the UK the justification for Iraq2 was clearly a lie – Sadam clearly did not have WMD. No sensible justification for occupation of Afganistan or the anticipated outcomes were ever given to the British viters.
If 21yrs later you remain of the belief that 3 immensely strong steel and concrete buildings collapsed ‘into their socks’ as a result of fires started by the plane impacts (one without benefit of said impact) then you’ll definitely be interested in this bridge I have for sale!!
You also have to ignore the large number of firemen who reported hearing, feeling and observing the results of explosions in the basements and lower floors.
9/11 was the moment I realised the world was run by gangsters.
‘Back and to the left’ did it for me.
I’ll admit to only learning about WTC 7’s collapse some several years after the event. That’s what made me, well… think.
The BBC knew about it 30 minutes before it happened
This poor chap sadly died in an RTA on an open road driving a Volvo (appalling safety record, I know)
https://youtu.be/X6tikZimCQc
It’s interesting how the 9/11 scam is a red pill many otherwise sceptical people just won’t take.
Perhaps they could start here
https://www.ae911truth.org/
And then read this..
https://www.amazon.co.uk/9-11-Revealed-Unanswered-Questions/dp/0786716134
But ultimately, and apologies DS for getting so off-topic with this, the down voters gotta be either bots or shills & it don’t bother me none. I know what I know.
Big love everyone
For once I’ll admit to “down voting” and I’m not a bot or a shill.
No need to resort to complex explanations. I’m now a retired civil engineer. When I watched the collapsing towers in 2001, with my knowledge of structures and the behaviour of steel at elevated temperatures, and a ‘back of a fag packet’ estimate of the kinetic energy of the mass of the floors above the impact zone, it was no surprise to me that the pile-driving effect of that mass accelerated by gravity would cause the floors below to progressively fail spectacularly. When I later learned of the detail of how the steel beams were connected to the central support, it was consistent with my assumptions.
No complex explanation needed as to why you’re a ‘retired’ CE if that’s your summary.
Almost ‘Whittyesque’ in its emptiness, quite an achievement.
Hope you didn’t build anything round our way
Since you have reached a different conclusion please post your calculations to this forum that show that the structure beneath the impact and fire affected zone could withstand the dynamic loading of the accelerating mass of the floors above. To give you a head start, here are 2 impartial bits of information:
The maximum fire temperatures attained in the WTC fires were in the range of 1000 to 1200degC.
I attach a graph showing the effect of temperature on the mechanical properties of steel. From it you can see that even at just 800degC the residual strength is only about 10% of the room temperature value.
Also, your qualifications and membership details of an internationally accredited professional body of civil/structural engineers would be appreciated.
Strange Loop
I think that’s a clear win to me.
Glad to see another Civil Engineer pointing out the obvious facts of the matter.
Some of the loopier theorists on here are either certifiable or (more likely) are Al Queda supporters.
And I’m someone who thinks the FBI & CIA absolutely sucks (see their treatment of the last US President democratically elected.)
But, of all the bad stuff the CIA and State Department have been involved in, their negligent insouciance in allowing Khomeini and his murderous chums to take over Iran was one of the worst.
Strange all the Conspiracy Freaks never mention that…
I knew being a DS follower meant having strange bedfellows but 2:1 is seriously depressing. It’s like discovering your fellow traveler is a flat-earther.
Edumacated eejit.
Yes, strange bedfellows indeed. But we’ve been there before. A few years ago Steven Lewandowski and Cooke published an “acclaimed” paper looking at every kind of barmy conspiracy theory, including 9/11, Mooon Landing, Elvis alive and well, Kennedy assassination and (of course) “Climate Deniers”.
The entire purpose of the paper was to “show” that people who pointed out all the lies and gross exaggerations in the “Settled Science” Glowbull Warming scam were as nutty as fruitcakes.
The likes of “Strange Loop” and his chums are either certifiable, Al Quaeda fans or Extinction Rebellion/ Ruinable energy freaks. Or maybe paid by Pfizer. There are lots of people out there VERY keen to discredit the Daily Sceptic.
I’ll take that bridge.
The two towers clearly collapse from the top down, the weight of the structure weakens by the impact and the fires resulting from tens of thousands of gallons of burning jet fuel.
I appreciate there is speculation over the other building but again I don’t believe it is in any way incredible that it collapsed from damage from the other towers.
Now I appreciate that i’ll never change your mind, fair enough, but not everything is a CIA black op.
Did I mention the CIA?
It really is a magnificent bridge. All I need is just a few bank details and it’s yours!!!
CIA’s dodgy. So are some people who have worked for the UK government, one of whom has a connection with the Falkland Islands. Doesn’t mean those islands are rightly Argentinian, contrary to what one Guardian article implied..
“The two towers clearly collapse from the top down”
I’d say that they disintegrate from the top down.
“The weight of the structure weakens by the impact”
The official explanation affords no credit to the physical impact of the planes: the towers were designed to cope with planes crashing into them
“Tens of thousands of gallons”
Nope, they wouldn’t have set off with tens of thousands of gallons. I just googled. It isn’t difficult.
But why did they did they disintegrate from the top when the fires were much lower down?
Agreed.
I trust the evidence of my own eyes.
The buildings explode, detonate, pulverised literally to dust within seconds.
And what steel remained was carted off pronto.
I suspect OBL was as surprised as anyone when they collapsed.
What I’m saying, is that ‘event’ resulted in the War on Terror, countless lives lost, many more immisered, and the cast-iron conviction of those responsible that they can do anything.
And here we are.
So what about the gazillions of people who witnessed 2 planes crashing into 2 towers? Including the many that were actually present, on the ground and in nearby buildings? What about all the people on the planes that perished? It does present a rather large caveat to your “it was an inside job done with thousands of sticks of dynamite that a team managed to plant unnoticed” theory.
I’m open to hearing alternative theories but with 9/11 you really can’t get passed the minor detail that was the planes. Or are you implying the buildings were in fact detonated just at the same nanosecond terrorists flew the planes into the buildings? That’s some impressive synchronisation, not just once but twice!
To be fair, actually starting your remarks with ‘whataboutery’ is pretty transparent, so thanks for that.
What is piquing me at the moment is the standard (i.e rubbish) counters being dredged from years ago, like they’re on an old disk drive somewhere.
I recognise your handle, but can’t recall your comment slant on topics, but I have new insight now and will be paying more attention.
Ta!!
Merely asking how the planes tie in to your theory that the towers were detonated. I’m missing the part where you’re expecting people to reasonably believe that this landmark could be both blown up with God knows how much explosive ( which happened to be placed and gone undetected for how long? ) and have 2 jumbo jets flown into it in the space of a couple of hours.
It always intrigues me that some people can’t get their head around the idea that insiders could pull off crashing three planes and demolishing three buildings within a few hours, but have no problem believing that a Saudi Arabian freedom fighter living in a cave in Afghanistan can orchestrate something similar.
Hello Mogwai. It is possible for both the planes to have hit and the towers to have been intentionally demolished, approximately one and a half hours later. A perfect cover for some very shady goings on.
The collapse of the seventh tower (which was never hit by a plane) was what made me sit up and think. It was so obviously a demolition. Please research what the building (WTC7) contained.
Nothing is as they say it is. There are soooo many unanswered questions. Questions which are met only with derision and denunciation and ad hominem. Good questions asked by very many very well credentialed people.
Ah so the explosives had already been put in situ, all under people’s noses, ready to be detonated on some special date, but a couple of planes just happened to be highjacked and a group of pesky terrorists end up unwittingly aiming for the same target and stealing the thunder of these shady and mass-murdering ‘Insiders’? Now that is the coincidence to end all coincidences. Man, those towers really were unpopular and destined to come down by hook or by crook.
I’ve never heard of a seventh tower. But until somebody explains to me, with convincing rationale, where the planes come into it this theory just sounds like a bad Hollywood movie plot to me.
Yes, just imagine what might have happened if the gunpowder plot had been successful. And if someone had got Leonardo’s helicopter to work!
You’ve never heard of the seventh tower. Go look it up. Prepare to have your world view bent a little.
Absolutely right. And you don’t initiate a structural collapse (a blow down) with “thousands of sticks of dynamite”, nor place the explosive or cutting charges half way up a structure!
Absolute horse manure.
And one must admit that what was going on between the so-called United States and “Saudi” Arabia was, well, quite provocative.
“American” cultural (and economic) imperialism was surely annoying (and continues to annoy) quite a lot of people, regardless of anything those nice people at the CIA might have done.
Thank God.
Someone else with sense.
How much difference would it have actually made if it was just the planes (or “aeroplanes” – Douglas Bader) rather than whatever you are suggesting?
Seriously???
Just as ‘back and to the left’ utterly destroys the Warren Commission conclusion of a lone assassin and confirms conspiracy, so does the collapse of the 3 WTC buildings – fires started by the plane impacts could never achieve that.
The NIST report is an early stab at Scientism, with data manipulation and lies, much like the Covid Inqury will be
Hugh, is it?
Got a little list now
Oliver Stone has no more credibility as an amateur forensics expert than Ivan Katchanovski, and it’s no wonder he featured Katchanovski in one of his silly films. What do you imagine happens when a bullet hits the spine or brain? People don’t just go limp, in fact they tend to “plank” – i.e., they stiffen up. You can see this in innumerable instances of US police bodycam footage (see Donut Operator’s channel). JFK was hit through the right hemisphere, from the occipital pole to the front, causing massive damage and causing his motor nerves to go haywire, hence the movement seen. Plus it’s naive is to think that bodies move in the direction of travel of the bullet when struck, which they don’t because relatively little momentum is imparted. There was a good documentary discussing this which is unfortunately only available via BitTorrent.
As to WTC7, yes it was highly unusual in that this was the first instance of a fire-induced collapse of a steel-framed building. I don’t think it’s wrong or peculiar to be sceptical of the official explanation, since it was so strange. For a very long time I was baffled by what seemed like something very similar to a controlled demolition, but the NIST report is credible and it’s not good enough to simply dismiss it, especially when the alternative explanation – that the building was secretly rigged with explosives – is really very far-fetched. And especially when the sound of explosives wasn’t picked up on any videos, etc.
I used to be very keen on conspiracy theories of the sort being discussed here, such as JFK, the moon landings, 9/11, etc. I even subscribed to Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review for a time. But in each instance, after examination I found the “official story” to be true. The opposite is the case when it comes to climate change and the dangers of Covid and the safety/efficacy of the vaccines, but that’s the core issue here: whether it’s possible to keep an open mind and not allow groupthink, prejudice or sheer ignorance to inform one’s belief on highly important matters like 9/11.
And there is a lot of groupthink going on with conspiracy theorists – I see them come up with the same talking points again and again, and they always assume everyone else is just stupid or unaware, but for these “conspiracy theorists” (and yes, I know it’s a term coined by the CIA) they don’t see that they’re being herded just as much as those who blindly accept whatever narrative their own government tells them. And as is quite often the case, the conspiracy version of history is actually being promoted by a foreign government, so really they’re just being herded by a different government. That’s totally the case with Russia-Ukraine, by the way – Katchanovski, Baud, Maté and others are just parroting the official Kremlin line. I’d be embarrassed if my mind were being controlled in that way by Kremlin propagandists, but as P.T. Barnum put it, “there’s a sucker born every minute”.
Hi Ian,
Soz for hijacking your article, but it wasn’t that great, let’s be honest.
Like I said, the standard tropes of whataboutery and random connections btl here (Falklands? Da Vinci? Douglas Bader?? What planes?) are classic diversionary nonsense.
Your previous articles clearly illustrate your stance and views – I suspect you’re presence protects DS from accusations of bias at the very least. So kudos for sticking to it.
Be careful though, Cognitive Dissonance can really mess you up long term
Hi Strange Loop,
Nah, don’t worry I’m not bothered about the comments here going off on a tangent – I take it as something of a backhand compliment that nobody’s really taking issue with specific points in the article, and anyway I’m very much at home talking about conspiracy theories and all manner of strange things – I’ve spent a lot of my life researching such things.
I don’t know how many people, like me, went down a Delingpolesque “rabbit hole” with these sorts of things and then came up again the other side, but if I suffer from cognitive dissonance then it’s a strange type of cognitive dissonance, given that I still have very unconventional and non-conformist views on a number of topics (e.g., I’m a researcher and proponent of psi phenomena, currently working on morphic resonance which I think is a fascinating theory but never properly tested in the lab because it’s “heresy”) while at the same time holding conventional views when the evidence supports them. I suppose that’s why I hate it when people try to censor unconventional speech, because there’s no topic so outlandish that it doesn’t deserve serious attention. So by all means, go full JFK and 9/11, I can take it
Another feature of diversionary/destructive tropes is the Ad Hominem attacks.
I haven’t mentioned Oliver Stone or Ivan Kickab***akov or anyone else for that matter.
The only film director I’ve an appreciation of is Abraham Zapruder.
Your explanation of the former president’s movement after the head shot is… interesting.
I think Jackie’s behaviour is at least as telling – instinctively reaching to the the rear of the car to recover fragments of her husband’s skull and brains, where they had ended up following a shot FROM THE FRONT AND RIGHT – sorry, hit caps by mistake.
Enough of this.
Enjoy the weather everyone (don’t start!)
I assumed when you quoted “back and to the left” you knew that’s the most famous line from Oliver Stone’s film JFK. On that point, I’d really recommend the PBS Nova Cold Case JFK documentary, which includes what was really the first proper firearm forensics examination of the case. There were also some papers written by the forensics team – look up Luke Haag on afte.org. I won’t link to it, but you can find the documentary on the Pirate Bay.
“Like I said, the standard tropes of whataboutery and random connections btl here (Falklands? Da Vinci? Douglas Bader?? What planes?) are classic diversionary nonsense.”
And while we’re at it, an “Arabian fighter living in a cave in Afghanistan”. Seriously? I seem to remember a Guiness book of Records article in the 80s or 90s about the biggest terrorist organisation in the world. Something to do with the Arab world I think. It wasn’t just a few men in caves but a well funded, well organised operation. Did you ever see that Bond film where the Mujahideen were the good guys? The Mujahideen kept their “American” weapons when the Soviets left and their organisation led directly to Al-Qaeda. The so-called States (among others) were annoying quite a lot of people with their cultural and economic imperialism and interference in various governments well before 2001, and continue to do so today. Certainly there is plenty the CIA could do (and indeed have done), but plenty of people had reason to be angry with “America” at the time. That gun attack on a “US” warship? The previous failed attack on the WTC? There was plenty of anger in some places about the various highly provocative “US” actions.
How much help if any such groups may (or may not) have had from the CIA I don’t know (and certainly that organisation will try and manipulate things, I seem to remember a story about a plan they had to fake the second coming of Christ for the benefit of the Cubans), but “American” policy was always going to create a backlash.
Eh? Sorry Hugh, that’s a C-minus from me – not sure what you’re really on about TBH, but perhaps that’s yourshtick.
Occams Razor for me, every time
“Must try harder”, eh?
In any case, what exactly is your point (if any)?
If we take as a starting point the proposition that some people linked to a well organised terrorist group with a grudge against the “US” (see above) hi-jacked some aeroplanes (remembering that security with internal “US” flights was pretty lax in those days) and flew them into some buildings in New York (and apparently the Pentagon), what needs adding or subtracting from this account of events?
I don’t doubt that the CIA and others are capable of some pretty shady stuff and manipulating things to suit their agenda, but equally this “one man in a cave” stuff is rather far from what the situation actually was (and is for that matter, look at Northern Nigeria for just one example)
Sympathies. I know its Sunday and hard to get the best peeps in, but I’d assumed you’d read the thread, soz.
I made my point (checks thread) 16hrs ago, everything else is bunce, most fun I’ve had in weeks, thank you
Not really, no, and I’m not counting the links which I don’t have time to read. Your point, as I understand it, is that the CIA (or some such) dynamited the WTC buildings because flying aeroplanes into them, killing many people and probably condemning the buildings they hit, wasn’t enough. And possibly that the CIA organised the hijackings too. Why were both aeroplanes and dynamite needed? Why wouldn’t a terrorist group who regards the “US” as evil carry out such attacks (as indeed they have in other places, unless those were the CIA too)? And why would the CIA consider it worth pursuing such a high risk and frankly indefensible strategy as you seem to suggest. More questions raised than answers given. I’m still not convinced that that is how the CIA works.
Yes the dynamite was already there then the CIA had to find some kamikaze pilots and incentivize them to sacrifice their lives whilst being willing to kill countless others ( are their families living in the lap of luxury since this infamous date?? ), but the agreement was that they would be blamed for the destruction of the twin towers and their names forever blackened. Thats quite the job description. So hired hit men on steroids then. The timing was imperative, the jumbo jets had to hit then shortly after ( because only a very small window was available otherwise peeps wouldn’t fall for the terrorism line ) it was somebody’s responsibility to detonate shit loads of explosive, which had lain dormant and undetected for months, very soon after so as to say “look, terrorists did it!” When really it was the shady ‘insiders’, and for why? “Let’s kill a shit tonne of fellow American civilians just because we can and blame it on terrorists”, said no-one ever. Yep I’m gonna need more than somebody’s over-zealous belief in something before I’m convinced, personally.
Yes the planes, which you are inferring are a figment of our imaginations. Please explain. Because all I see is terrorism. Prove me wrong.
Oh you mean it was “an insider job from start to finish”? So the ‘Insiders’in the US had to lay explosives undetected then go on a recruitment of Muslims who were willing to sacrifice their lives plus countless other innocent civilian lives whom they would murder to accomplish their goals, and they also needed the ability to fly a jumbo jet. Okay, so far so implausible.
I’m afraid you’re gonna have to explain to regular peeps like me how on earth such a feat was doable and what the M.O was. Until then it just smacks of cock and bull!
So a Saudi jihadist orchestrating the simultaneous hijacking and crashing of 4 commercial planes from a cave in Afghanistan is not far fetched but insiders secretly rigging up three buildings with explosives is.
Ok.
Osama bin Laden wasn’t in a cave at the time, he had the support of the Taliban government and had a camp where he trained the guys who went to Hamburg to organise things. The “stupid jihadis in a cave” talking point is just empty rhetoric.
I’m not sure any of those details change anything much.
If Osama Bin Laden can do it with the “support of the Taliban government” (whatever that actually means), then I don’t see why some insiders couldn’t do the same thing or something similar.
I wouldn’t claim to know what happened or who did it. And you don’t know either.
What is very clear to me is that you need to believe some pretty implausible things for the official story to add up.
For example, that there were cameras everywhere around the Pentagon and yet there is no footage available of a plane approaching and crashing into the Pentagon. Only a few frames showing nothing and then an explosion.
One’s credulity needs to be off the charts to believe that there is no footage or that the footage cannot be released for legitimate national security reasons.
There are many of those highly unlikely bits to the story. And the fact that someone can come up with explanations for each of them doesn’t mean the explanations are true, or reasonable or even plausible.
The security camera footage shows the plane quite clearly. It was travelling at roughly 460 knots, which is ~230m/s, or likely 115 metres for every frame of footage (I’m guessing that camera was running at 2fps, quite a common frame rate at the time), so it’s actually a little surprising we can see the plane as clearly as we do, although obviously it’s a little blurry.
Please send link to footage. I am intrigued. I’ve never seen a plane.
I wonder if the Madrid train and London tube bombings were the CIA as well?
I for one don’t find it particularly implausible that a successful terrorist group, probably with military experience, can carry out these relatively small scale operations (I’m just glad they haven’t managed to set off a dirty bomb).
I said, when the first crack-pot suggestions (or, more likely, vicious anti-American poison) showed up, not long after 9/11, I pointed out that the claim that jet planes crashing into skyscrapers couldn’t lead to collapse, couldn’t even be dignified as a credible hypothesis, usually reliant on the point that melting of structural steel needed higher temperatures.
But, as anyone whose IQ score is greater than their hat size might realise, you don’t need to melt steel, only to weaken it significantly.
That’s how a blacksmith does his job.
You obviously have no conception how the steel frame of a skyscraper is designed, nor of the then deficiencies of the US fire protection codes, nor even the foggiest idea about explosive demolition. I have actual, real life qualifications and experience in many of these areas, as a Chartered Engineer.
If you want to live in your little dream world ascribing the disaster and massacre to those naughty Jews or horrible Americans then I can’t stop you, other than to point out that you are deluded to the point that you should seek medical help.
Talking of blacksmiths, here’s a good two-minute video demonstration. And a more serious look.
Talking of fire protection codes, Grenfell. And the EU (Christopher Booker).
Discuss…
Hugh. you’re correct. But Grenfell didn’t collapse did it?
I should have been clearer.
The ‘fire protection codes’ I referred to weren’t directly about protecting inhabitants, but about giving a reasonable time of exposure to a vigorous fire before the structural steel joints were liable to fail. Relevant to the design of the structure.
It didn’t help the general situation that the cladding around the steelwork was apparently asbestos based. Nothing to do with the collapse, asbestos just as good as modern replacements. But the clouds of asbestos dust helped no-one.
Grenfall was many types of disaster (and I am sceptical that those blatantly in the wrong will ever get their deserved punishment – including the idiots who imagined the “insulation” installed, even if correctly specified and installed, would help save money – let alone the Planet) but not even the loonies on here have blamed the USA.
Yet.
Your argument boils down to
a trust me I’m an engineer, I know.
For every expert engineer claiming it’s perfectly possible for the WTC to collapse as it is claimed it did I can find an equally accomplished one that says it can’t.
b. U.S. building codes are very lax
I’m no expert but it seems rather unlikely to me that US building codes allow tall buildings to be built that would collapse if there was a fire on the upper floors.
The strawmen – naughty Jews, horrible Americans – suggest you don’t always think your arguments through very carefully.
OK, Stewart. You volunteered.
Give us a link to a credible Engineering / Demolition expert who supports the ‘thousands of sticks of dynamite’ theory.
The ‘strawmen’ are precisely the people that the ‘dynamite’ enthusiasts always trott out and have been doing for 20 years.
Neither Governments were waging war on the USA.
I think we get it – you two disagree. Neither sides argument can be proven, so perhaps time to put this one to bed.
Surely a robust debate between people with differing viewpoints where both sides try to make a logical case and address each other’s points is better than what we have in the MSM – one sided, name calling, censorship, hysteria. Same goes for Covid.
100%. It’s just that this now feels like a spat being made through a series of articles – doesn’t work for me. A better format would be a podcast where the two can directly debate and share their views.
Yes, that’s a fair point
Sorry, the idea that the twin towers were demolished using explosive charges is absolute bollocks.
No-one with any serious experience of demolition design and practice could believe that, for a drug induced microsecond.
Wrong thread my friend
What’s your hat size again?
The author seems to have conveniently overlooked the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the US and UK, a completely flagrant breach of international law.
Though technically not carried out by NATO, that will appear of little difference to an adversary eg Putin, since the US is the dominant partner of NATO, and the UK it’s sidekick.
We may choose to regard the ensuing war and chaos as history, but others don’t.
The invasion of Afghanistan wasn’t a defensive operation because Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11.
Ian Rons’ worldview seems to show up rather clearly in his article
Arguments and explanatios put forward by the US for its actions are reasonable, consistent and can be taken at face value.
Those put forward by Russia are unreasonable, contradictory and insincere.
Or to put it in an analogy, if you are having a conversation with someone who happens to be pointing a gun at you and that person claims they’re only pointing the gun for defence, just in case, then if it’s an American, you can believe him and needn’t worry, if it’s a Russian, he’s lying.
Brilliant!
When someone has parked their tanks on your garden, its a bit late to moralise about whether their actions are justified…
Why?
Because the practical realities of the situation far outweigh any philosophical argument about who or what is to blame. Its like getting run down on a pedestrian crossing. You can argue all you like about your rights to be there and cross the road unmolested, but you got run down and when that happens stemming the bleeding and splinting the broken bones is the priority.
That sounds very good, but in practice the moral/legal implications of the situation are just as much of a priority. The driver will immediately be required to answer for his actions. In fact in a hit and run, most people will try to get a licence plate if they can before attending to the injured.
Whatever the order of things, the moral/legal implications are almost always treated by the authorities as being every bit as important as attending to the consequences.
There are rare exceptions. Like forr example when a novel virus appears in highly suspicious circumstances. The authorities don’t seem at all interested in establishing whether there are moral or legal responsibilities in that case, for some strange reason.
So ban all vehicles, or ban all pedestrians – which?
Put all men in prison to prevent any women being raped?
So we should do what – go to war with any Country – just in case?
Thanks a lot, Ian Rons, for some much needed common sense on this topic!
Drat it!!
I was going to read this article then found I couldn’t because I cant’t find my rose-tinted spectacles anywhere….can anyone help?
The west as led by our supposed leaders is not worth defending. Russia does NOT want its culture and history trashed but our governments do. Go figure.
“Russia does NOT want its culture and history trashed”
Russia certainly wishes to trash the cultural and ideological legacy of arguably the greatest writer in its history.
Leo Tolstoy (increasingly as he got older) vigorously promoted an anti-nationalist and anti-war / anti-violence agenda.
Since 24 Feb earthquake detectors have been lighting up 100 miles south of Moscow as Tolstoy spins in his Yasnya Polyana grave.
The logic ‘justifying’ NATO’s behaviour outside its remit is a pot-pourri of excuses: pre-emption, retaliation, upholding of Human Rights, doing what’s right.
On that basis NATO would have been justified in carrying our pre-emptive nuclear attack to destroy the USSR in defence of its members, and similarly ‘justified’ in attacking Iran, China, North Korea.
NATO was established to provide a command and control resource for the military forces of its members to counter an attack in Europe by the USSR.
There was nothing in NATOs remit about planning and controlling offensive operations absent immediate and present threat.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya did not attack NATO Countries, nor were they poised to strike. Russia has not attacked a NATO Country nor is it poised to strike one.
NATO has become the military wing of the EU and a proxy for US aggression to serve its own foreign policy… such as it is.
Ian, thanks for the article.
You wrote here BTL that you’re taking it as a compliment that people have gone off on tangents, hijacking the article talking about 911 etc, as evidence that people don’t have anything to attack your article about.
Well, to put the record straight regarding my opinions, at least, I think it’s a terribly written, confusing mass of over-elaborate piffle arguing technicalities, betraying your apparent refusal to recognise the world as anything other than a binary good-guy/bad-guy situation.
Here is Ian Rons claiming Russia’s excuses don’t withstand scrutiny, w/o bothering to do much, ahem, scrutiny.
May I suggest an introductory article for people still holding black and white views of the Ukraine crisis (and maybe the world)
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/06/02/us-state-affiliated-newsguard-targets-consortium-news/
Excellent article. The Ukrainian people have long since aligned themselves with the west. Western style military training is probably why Russia’s initial attempt at a quick invasion came a cropper. Now it’s back to the classic Russian rolling artillery meat grinder. Hopefully that will be countered by guided missiles before the whole country is destroyed.
The Ukrainian people have long since aligned themselves with the west.
that’s if you only watch BBC. The truth is, considerable part of Ukrainian population side with Russia since before the conflict. Some have changed their mind after the invasion and now side with Kiev. Some Kiev supporters have quite possibly aligned with Moscow after witnessing Ukrainian troops using civilians as a human shield, the fact which has now been confirmed by Amnesty International. And it’s only the tip of the iceberg what Amnesty International has uncovered. there are plenty of videos of independent journalists, interviewing people who say that Ukrainian armed forces were preventing evacuation and even targeting and killing civilians.
No a very good article.