- “No 10 draws up contingency plans for ‘firebreak’ lockdowns over winter” – Downing Street confirms it is prepared for “local, regional or national” lockdowns to ensure “there is no danger” of the NHS being overwhelmed, reports i news.
- “Boris Johnson won’t isolate after sharing flight with infected civil servant” – Boris Johnson will not go into self-isolation despite sharing a flight with a civil servant who tested positive for Covid later that day, reports the Times.
- “Britain is suffering a pandemic of political hypocrisy” – Whether it’s travelling abroad or getting back to the office, it is one rule for them, another for us, writes Camilla Tominey in the Telegraph.
- “Covid infection level in England falls to one in 75 people” – A drop in the Covid infection level in England has been matched by a drop in the R number, which has fallen to between 0.8 and 1.1, compared with last week’s reported range of 1.1 to 1.4, reports the Guardian.
- “‘Secretive’ Scottish Government plans to extend Covid restrictions to 2022 under attack” – Critics are hitting out after official advice said “it may be necessary to keep some precautionary measures in place” until next year, reports the Telegraph.
- “No plans for vaccine passports in Wales, says First Minister” – Some good news from Wales, where First Minister Mark Drakeford says there are no plans to introduce vaccine passports. He will, however, continue to “weigh up” whether they are necessary, reports the Evening Standard.
- “Those who put the panic in Covid pandemic must apologise for the cock-ups which blighted the lives of millions” – “Not for the first time, the doomsters were proved wrong, but only after the public had been needlessly terrified,” writes Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun. “So who put the ‘panic’ into ‘pandemic’?”
- “The NHS has never been the ‘envy of the world’” – The NHS has slipped down the rankings of the Commonwealth Fund “Mirror Mirror” study. But should it have been that high in the first place, asks Kate Andrews in the Spectator.
- “In wake of Wuhan, spies focus on detecting ‘nefarious’ meddling with nature” – Security agencies are funding scientific research into the risks of man-made or enhanced pathogens, as well as autonomous drones and ‘swarm robotics’, reports the Telegraph.
- “Dancing still prohibited under latest hospitality rules while Communions and Confirmations may be permitted from September” – If Kenny Loggins is still alive, maybe he could be cajoled into recording the theme song for an updated Irish version of ‘Footloose’.
- “Is Covid being used as an excuse to stop cheap travel?” – “Covid may now have become an excuse for doing what some of our elitist leaders have perhaps dreamed of for years: putting an end to the cheap package holiday,” writes Ross Clark in the Telegraph.
- “Thank You, NHS” – “While Brits thanked the NHS, erected murals, and clapped into the abyss, the country plunged further into catastrophe,” writes Thomas McKenna in his latest Bournbrook Magazine column.
- “South Korea to compensate nurse paralysed after AstraZeneca vaccine” – A nursing assistant has been paralysed after getting the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine and will receive compensation from the South Korean state due to having been recognised as a victim of an industrial accident, reports RT.
- “86% of Youth Getting First Pfizer Covid Shot Experienced Adverse Reactions According to FDA Data” – TrialSite cites some worrying findings on the vaccination of children against Covid.
- “Why so many Americans are refusing to get vaccinated” – With so many organisations adopting mandatory vaccination policies, it is now more important than ever that the decision makers creating these invasive policies understand why nearly half of America is against vaccination with the current Covid vaccines, writes ‘VaccineTruth’ in TrialSite.
- “What If China Never Reopens?” – Keeping the borders closed may make it easier to govern China near-term, but the broader consequences would be tragic and potentially dangerous, writes Eyck Freymann in Wire China.
- “Covid in Iceland: Vaccination Has Not Led to Herd Immunity, Says Chief Epidemiologist” – While data shows vaccination is reducing the rate of serious illness due to Covid in Iceland, the country’s Chief Epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason says it has not led to the herd immunity that experts hoped for, reports Iceland Review.
- “I’m with Jennifer Aniston – anit-vaxxers are not my real Friends” – Far too many people still think they’re invincible – and all too often because they’ve been taken in by the deluded propaganda of the anti-vaxxers, writes Amanda Platell in the Mail.
- “Playing the wild card” – “Britain can never be a pristine wilderness. Whether we like it or not, the human imprint is on the quilt of Britain’s countryside,” writes Matt Ridley in the Critic.
- “Woke censors put offensiveness warning on classic ‘Allo ‘Allo episodes” – A message appears on the screen before each episode of ‘Allo ‘Allo on Britbox, which reads: “This classic comedy contains language and attitudes of the time that may offend some viewers,” reports Mail Online.
- “Does Owen Jones have a woman problem?” – “So high on certainty is Owen Jones that he consistently uses his considerable social media platform to denounce ‘transphobes’, who invariably end up being women,” writes Douglas Murray in UnHerd.
- “The trade unionist sacked for speaking at a pro-Brexit rally” – The witch-hunting of Paul Embery shames the labour movement, writes Tom Slater in Spiked.
- “Florida is a place for freedom, not a ‘biomedical security state’” – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis lambasts President Joe Biden for forcing children to wear face masks in school rather than leaving the decision to parents and for working to make Covid vaccination a proviso for living a normal life.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The other (admittedly boring) fact to remember is that Billionaire Hedge Trader Jeremy Grantham (and many others of his ilk) are deliberately producing mendacious twaddle in their lust for greater power and obscene wealth.
And that the BBC and Grauniad are unstinting in their efforts to promote this twaddle as “The Settled Science™”
“but fails the test of the scientific process since its claims cannot be falsified.”. Surely they cannot be verified, or am I missing something?
Falsifiability is an important property of a scientific theory. This means that it’s possible to design experiments to test it which would disprove it if the outcome wasn’t as the theory had predicted. That’s inherently impossible for computer simulations claimed to model future conditions on earth accurately.
If something cannot be falsified then there is carte blanche to make all manner of claims under the guise of “science”, when in fact it is really “Post Modern Science” where models are claimed to be evidence of things when they are clearly nothing of the kind. Models are NOT science and are evidence of NOTHING.
I always find “falsified” a barrier to my comprehension. I find “disproved” more understandable.
In my pre-scientific experience “falsify” was never used as an antonym of “verify”.
“Ah yes science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a trifling investment of fact” ——–That was Mark Twain over 100 years ago. I would love to see Mr Twain’s observations on today’s “Official Science” of climate change where scientific truth is simply DECLARED.————- No empirical evidence is required, and data is continually tortured till it will confess to anything. We now live in a scientific dictatorship where science has been hijacked for political purposes, and as governments get more and more desperate to impose their pretend to save the planet tyranny on us, I suggest it will soon be a criminal offence to question anything to do with climate or energy. There are already politicians who think it should be a crime. If there is no “climate emergency” then the whole Sustainable Development and Net Zero agenda collapses. There are trillions of dollars and pounds at stake here that depend on those political agenda’s, and when it comes to these huge amounts of money then scientific integrity is the last thing on the minds of the Climate Establishment.
Excellent post. The twain quote is excellent whether he said it or not.
I would not quote mark Twain if it was something he never said. But thanks very much for liking my comment. Obviously one person does not like it, but we won’t know why because they don’t seem to have the confidence to say.
He probably did say it, sometime I do wonder if one man can have so many remarkable quotes attributed to him, or said so many emminently wise things. As in here’s a very sensible statement, let’s attribute it to Mark Twain. There again he wasn’t corrupted by power.
As the UK had the unforgivable mendacity not to maintain its 40+ degree jet engine temperature last summer and remains trenchantly chilly this spring, thus refusing to co-operate with the ‘climate boiling’ schtick, what else can the propagandist MSM do but search the globe for the odd hot day here and there to prove their point?
Not least in one of the hottest places on earth. They tried the same stunt last year by looking at temperatures in Death Valley, California… literally THE hottest place on earth!
Does ‘booking.com’ operate in Burkina Faso, I could do with a bit of sunshine.
Where is it?
Do they have any pubs and do they serve Watney’s?
No, but there are early signs. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/AztGLePCAAE12d6?format=jpg&name=small
Thanks
Yes, they do – and Mali. So does Airbnb. And Vrbo. Bit warm for Watney’s though – you’d be better off with a pina colada or local equivalent…
The BBC is an extremist organisation in a bizarre alliance with the rent seeking billionaire class, that wishes to freeze yr granny to death so it can impose it’s nasty politics on everyone.
BBC are Climate Activists. Probably the second largest activist organisation after the UN IPCC.
I suppose, since it is so un-seasonally cold here in the UK, the likes of the BBC and other propaganda broadcasters have to sniff about the world to try to justify the collective devotion to the fanatical Net Zero cult.
…..but isn’t the unseasonable cold weather a consequence of climate change
!
Northern Africa used to be the bread basket of the Roman empire. In order to achieve this and to maintain their sizable fleets, the Romans cut down most of the trees. But the area really only turned into a desert after it had been conquered by nomadic Arab tribes driving the first wave of Islamic expansion who let the elaborate irrigation systems fall into disrepair as they had no use for them.
Another human activity which contributes (or used to contribute) to Sahel desertification is the habit of the local natives to burn down a new area of forest whenever their present fields are exhausted instead of using fertilizer or some system to crop rotation like the ones which were common in less spacious Europe before fertilizer became a staple item.