Long-time readers may remember that I can’t write as often in December, because it’s a month of important deadlines in my other life as a journal editor, but I hate letting two days go by without a post, and also I can’t stop laughing at this hilarious New York Times article on ‘Why It’s Time to Wear A Mask Again’. The generally excellent Vinay Prasad already caught them citing as “strong evidence” for mask efficacy, this study, which fails to find that masks have any significant effect on rates of influenza infection. Just link to anything and hope nobody notices, Times bros.
The worst, though, is at the very end, when the mask brigade start to reveal a little too much about themselves and their readership:
“Frankly, to prevent transmission, neither antivirals nor vaccines have done a great job,” said Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease fellow and postdoctoral researcher at Stanford Medicine. “What prevents transmission is actually masking and likely air filtration.”
When weighing when and where to mask, Dr. Madad recommended paying attention to the “Three Cs”: close contact, crowded spaces and confined places with poor ventilation. The experts urged wearing masks while traveling on planes and public transportation, and they strongly suggested doing it while out shopping for groceries and gifts. For smaller holiday parties with people you know, it’s fine to forgo masks if guests test beforehand and stay home if they’re feeling rundown.
Realistically, not everyone in the United States — or a certain city — will wear a mask. In fact, you might find yourself the only person in a store or on a plane who’s wearing one. Don’t let that discourage you. For one thing, remember that no one is thinking about you as much as you think they are. In social psychology, this is called the spotlight illusion, said Gretchen Chapman, a professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. “I may feel that everyone’s staring at me because I’m wearing a mask, but chances are that’s like the 11th thing on their list to worry about,” she said.
What’s more, Dr. Chapman said, “There are lots of situations in life where we do something that makes us feel awkward, but if we think it’s important enough, we do it anyway.”
The poor pandemic faithful started out masking to save the lives of the elderly and vulnerable, but now they find themselves in an unending hygiene prison from which the only escape, is admitting that they’ve behaved like fools for the past three years. If they can’t do that, a bleak future awaits them, of persisting as the solitary idiotic masker in the grocery store and on the train, of demanding all their acquaintances produce negative tests before they’re allowed to come to any party, and, above all, of never being able to relax around other people. How living like this is better than occasional virus infections, nobody can explain.
Oh, and the comments are a thing to behold.
Some readers have developed all kinds rationalisations for the failure of masks to do anything, along with strange pretzel logic that explains why continuing to mask is still so important even if it doesn’t prevent infection.
Others have very exotic understandings of how viruses evolve, and see in masks the possibility of a freedom from pandemics, which is of course more important than your freedom to breathe normally in public.
But above all there are just the countless comments from people who love masks, who mask everywhere all the time, who mask especially at the gym, and think it’s all fantastic.
Often I despair for humanity.
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Is HNHate freak Nick Lowles really working for Reform ?
Also as I posted earlier , Muhammed is “Zia,s” name !
We need to know.
No, I think that is a mistake by whoever posted it. When I looked it up, Nick Lowles and the HopeNotHate mob did their own survey, and used it to advise their Communist Subversives how to DEFEAT Reform.
New Polling: Reform UK is Closer to Power Than You Think – HOPE not hate
Nick Lowles on “How do we tackle far-right Reform UK?
Our analysis is clear. There is no single way to fight Reform. There are different types of Reform voters and each need a different approach. At the same time, we need to hold Reform accountable to greater scrutiny for its increasingly divergent and contradictory positions. Reform get away with being able to have a coalition of libertarian free marketeers alongside those who want greater state intervention and ownership of key industries.”
“In 2024, the average Reform UK voter had strong anti-immigration views but those who have begun to support the party since then have far more diverse views. This includes a sizeable group who are actually quite positive towards the benefits of immigration and multiculturalism but increasingly feel the main parties have failed and it is time for something new.”
“Race should play no role in justice but shamefully in Britain it now does”
Tory MP and former adviser to Mrs Maybee busy recanting again, on behalf of a Tory party that spent 14 unconservative years in government implementing and embellishing New Labour policies.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/10/britains-naval-power-can-stop-putin-always-been-safeguard/
Hehe
– Britain can’t stop usurpers in blow-up rubber dinghies from accessing our shores, never mind the might of Russia. Rule Britannia, what a joke!
Yes, it made me laugh. We have more admirals than ships.
Britain’s naval power can stop Putin. It has always been our best safeguard
This article represents the concept of ‘managed decline’ that has done so much damage to this country.
‘We cannot (except briefly in extreme emergency) be strong on both land and sea. Hardly any state in history has managed this.’
The number of states that have managed this is in fact a long one: Ming dynasty China, The Persian Empire, The Macedonian Empire, The Roman Empire, The Normans, The Ottoman Empire, Spain, Britain, France, the U.S.A. and so on.
Britain itself, even in the 1950s, had an Army Corps of four divisions and 80,000 men in Germany and a fleet of at least four big deck aircraft carriers with fifty destroyers and frigates.
‘We must not be distracted into building up land forces to send to the far side of Europe. Tanks cannot protect pipelines and wind farms. Nor will a regiment of Challengers in Ukraine frighten Putin.’
That paragraph is just plain dotty. Warfare is tri-dimensional and has been since at least the Spanish Civil War.
It is the role of the British Army, in Europe, in concert with our allies, to foreclose any attack option to Russia.
Why in Central Europe?: Do we really wish any potential conflict to take place any closer to us than that?
The British Army, in Europe, also provides Britain and Europe with ‘a sense of security to a degree that will encourage it to act and react in respect to global events with confidence’.
Military forces, including land forces, have two important effects on an adversary. One is the physical, the other is psychological.’
Why not look at our potential adversaries to see what their ‘Military Strategy’ looks like?
China has bases in Sri-Lanka, Pakistan, Tanzania, Mauritius, Maldives and Myanmar.
Who used to have bases in all those countries?
Russia has ‘tanks’ in twenty one different countries.
‘Russia’s land forces in Central and Eastern Asia are an important element in her modern strategy, providing not just security of her territory, but a strategic and political freedom of action that would not exist without the presence and capabilities of those armies.’
In other words, they deter China from attempting to regain territories from Russia that used to be part of China.
Have China and Russia got it wrong, would you think….or have we?
Some who know a thing or two can see into the future:
‘An Atlantic community paralyzed by its military inferiority in Europe could only wring its hands as (Russian, Chinese) power and influence moved unimpeded into the so-called Third World, portions of which provide the materials upon which the industrial, economic, and social health of the industrial West depend.’ 1977
Is there any chance that you could provide a sysnopsis since any point you are trying to make is obscured by the verbiage.
I cannot be bothered with all the anti Russia tosh.
I really think Monro is a Ukrainian Bot, copying & pasting interminable posts instead of just providing the link and a short excerpt.
https://tdhj.org/blog/post/forward-defence-manoeuvre/
Firstly (https://www.eurasian-research.org/publication/chinese-overseas-military-bases-national-interests-and-global-ambitions/):
According to Bloomberg, China has a presence or potential base in Shri-Lanka, Pakistan, Tanzania, Mauritius, Maldives and Myanmar [Tweed, et al, 2018]. China is mostly developing commercial seaports or free trade zones in Indian Ocean’s points of these countries. Also, supporting these countries with finalized contracts for conventional arms and army sales.
Note: “a presence or potential base”.
If we then look at the Tweed, et al, 2018 reference (https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-china-navy-bases/?cmpId=flipboard&utm_content=buffer199d4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer), it cites that:
So far, China only has one overseas military base, compared with dozens for the U.S., which also has hundreds of smaller installations.
The latter paper includes a map showing the “potential” bases in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, etc..
But those data are from 2018, whereby China has a long way to go before being able to compete with US’s 800 or so military bases world-wide.
Secondly, Mark Felton has an interesting video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po9duwvipB0) on “The Navy With More Admirals Than Warships”.
In the video he lists the current number of ships in the Royal Navy: 2 aircraft carriers, 6 guided missile destroyers, 8 frigates, and 9 submarines; in total we have 62 commissioned ships, of which 25 are fighting ships.
He then compares it with the amazing British fleet of 1939: 4 aircraft carriers, 15 battleships and battlecruisers, 16 heavy cruisers, 43 light cruisers, 184 destroyers, 45 large escorts and patrol vessels, and 60 submarines, making an impressive total of 367 fighting ships of 1,400 commissioned vessels.
Those were the days!
But those days are past and today I am not in the slightest worried about any supposed threat of an invasion by either Russia or China. British beer may be an acquired taste (I daringly suggest there are better beers around the world) but our beer would be the only possible reason for any country wanting to invade UK – we have some amazing real ales.
Your given reason for wanting to challenge Russian and Chinese military superiority is quite dishonourable: the so-called Third World harbouring materials that we want but are unwilling to pay for? You imply we somehow have a superior right to those materials?
Peace is so utterly beneficial and enables any government to award its citizens with those goods they need at a reasonable price, at the same time bestowing deserved wealth on those countries fulfilling our needs.
“Recent PLA research on overseas bases describes the ability to project power and win potentially protracted wars in distant theaters as a vital but likely still-distant capability”
’17 metallic elements are indispensable to everyday life, forming the backbone of high-tech devices such as mobile phones, cameras, computer hard drives and electric vehicles (EVs). Beyond their civilian applications, REEs are also critical for defence technologies, including precision missiles and fighter jets.’
‘the world remains largely reliant on China, which currently dominates the market: “it’s responsible for 70% of global production and nearly 90% of processing of global output, as well as 90% of rare earth element permanent magnet production.” To put the implications of that control of the market into perspective, “China could cut short the supply of critical minerals to the U.S. in an event of war, and exhaust the U.S. stock of minerals necessary for its defence apparatus in less than 90 days.”
Then China should do the world a favour and cut off the supply to USA. Then we would have peace in Ukraine and stop the genocide in Palestine.
“How a ‘misinformation-peddling’ government weather agency was torn apart by DOGE” – The US Government’s weather agency has been dismantled by Musk’s DOGE
Meanwhile Britain’s Myth Office sails blithely on into the next nattily-named weather storm.
“Incompetent self-promoters are about to become even harder to sack” – Rayner’s workers’ rights bill will protect productivity-sapping employees at the country’s expense
Legislation state-sponsored by former union rep, property magnate and self-promoter second to none, Ms Nobrayner – what could possibly go wrong?
Designed of course to undermine SME’s. Deliberately. Not something Ranting could have worked out for herself.
Fascinating article on a surprising finding on AI misalignment.
“A Berkeley AI research team discovered that when ChatGPT4o was reworked to write ‘insecure code’, something very strange occurred: the AI became increasingly ‘misaligned’ to human intention, which included sympathizing with Nazis, and giving other ‘malicious’ advice harmful to the user.”
Basically, going from training on an extremely narrow context, for example, spitting out SQL injection code, the AI became misaligned with contemporary western moral values.
https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/more-misalignment-madness
Yes, fascinating link, thank you. Bottom line, as per biblical final paragraph..?
“The self-styled Silicon gods are now convinced in their hubris that their AI creations will, too, follow perfectly in their stead, like a well-behaved and docile child. But just as Man could not resist temptation in the Garden, so too, Man’s creation stands to be tempted by the forbidden knowledge, which Man conceals from it, in his hubris of moral authority.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/iainmcgilchrist/p/laughter-in-heaven?r=ylgqf&utm_medium=ios
An excellent article by Iain McGilchrist.
Left-Right?
Inability to disagree amicably?
Prevailing narratives?
He hits the nail on the head in my opinion.
Thank you for that reflectful link – world needs a sense-of-humour transplant ASAP.
Maybe Biden’s autopen device is the reason why Trump makes such a spectacle of signing his documents on camera. There is no chance then that he forgets his own name half way through the signing process or drops asleep before completion.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14480817/Labour-MPs-welfare-cuts-ministers-workers-benefits-jobless-sick.html
Nothing to do with ‘balancing the books’ though cuts are sorely needed but more about sewing discontent and anger.
It’s “sowing” discontent, as in sowing seeds. Not sewing.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14481919/Palestinian-Channel-boat-migrant-allowed-UK-God-kill-Jews-guns-arrested.html
Prior to being found a hotel room of a comfort level that meets his satisfaction.
Sent back?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/10/david-lammy-the-most-naive-foreign-secretary-in-british/
Err no. He is the thickest and most treacherous F S ever appointed to the role. An utter disgrace to the people of this country.
https://youtu.be/WAIQvYFmtzk?si=PJb7RW4flC6Gs2n9
All subsidies to farmers removed.
May I add this interesting article, readable on MSN, related to yesterday’s Halal/Kosher debate?
UK’s migration trap EXPOSED as halal butchers and kebab shops issuing hundreds of skilled worker visas
“Immigrants have been given skilled worker visas sponsored by 56 kebab houses, 83 businesses with “Halal” in their name, and ONE BUTCHER ALONE SPONSORED 918 VISAS, GB News can reveal.”
“In an exclusive documentary, premiering for GBN Members, we explore how immigration has changed cities across Britain, including the city of Bradford.”
“MATTHEW GOODWIN, the author and academic, told GB News that Britain is in a ‘POPULATION TRAP’, meaning “the rate of our population growth is so great it exceeds the capacity of the state to provide public services”.
“If you’re looking around Britain and you’re thinking, well, this is suddenly looking rather shabby and nothing seems to be working, that’s because we’ve entered what is called a population trap,” Mr Goodwin said.”
“He continued: “Why is the NHS not working? Why are schools looking rundown and terrible? Why can’t we control the borders? Why is our economy flatlining? No growth, masses of debt, no productivity. Because we’re in a population trap. It’s just nobody in Westminster wants to admit it.””
“GB News went to Bradford to speak with locals and migrants about their views on immigration.”