- “New Covid variant XBB.1.5 that is already behind one in 25 cases in the U.K. is a ‘wake-up call’ and could worsen the NHS crisis, experts warn” – Here we go again – read about the latest scariant in the Mail.
- “Nearly 50 shops closed their doors every day in U.K. last year” – More than 17,000 shops across the country closed – up nearly 50% on 2021, reports GB News.
- “Whitehall’s WFH culture laid bare: Number of desks at main Government buildings plummets by one fifth in three years as thousands of civil servants are allowed to continue working from home” – There are now fewer than 22,000 desks across the main Government buildings – a fall of more than 5,000 in less than three years as staff continue to work from home, the Mail reports.
- “President Xi finally admits the mistakes of China’s disastrous Zero Covid policy as huge exit wave of infections ‘peaks’ in Beijing after 250m people were infected last month” – The premier acknowledged “unprecedented difficulties and challenges” in his New Year’s Eve address to the nation, and said it was “only natural” that his policy sparked protests, according to the Mail.
- “China’s Covid policy has ravaged its economy” – The country is no longer projected to overtake America this decade, writes Austin Williams in UnHerd.
- “No public health rationale to screen China flights for Covid, Chief Medical Officer says” – An unexpected intervention in Australia as leading public health experts said the urgent new restrictions were “not science-based” but “political” as variants could come from anywhere, reports the Age.
- “Covid restrictions on Chinese travellers are a bad idea” – The underlying idea that politicians can control viruses was never true, says Dr. David Paton in UnHerd.
- “The devolution of the public health function” – Tom Jefferson and Carl Heneghan on “how another nonsensical political gesture is feeding the testing industry”.
- “Emboldening the biosecurity state” – Jamie Walden in Bournbrook says it is “depressing to have Covid regulations in the U.K. for the first time in 10 months”.
- “Japan’s imperial family don face masks on new year’s day appearance” – Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako appeared at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Japan, to greet 1,500 well-wishers on New Year’s Day – but they were cautious with face masks, reports the Mail.
- “Why are people still wearing masks?” – The New Conservative‘s youth correspondent, 14 year-old Jack Watson, on the widespread reluctance to ditch masks.
- “Yet another ‘conspiracy theory’ comes true – vaccines fuelling variants and causing sickness” – The Wall Street Journal is catching up, says the Naked Emperor.
- “Something wicked this way comes (and by something, I mean mRNA immune system dysregulation)” – Alex Berenson with an accessible Q&A on the recent paper reporting an explosion in tolerance-inducing antibodies after the mRNA boosters.
- “Vaxxing Deaths or Covid Deaths?” – Ron Unz sets out the argument against the vaccines driving excess deaths.
- “Home Insulation Makes Little Difference To Energy Consumption – New Study” – WUWT reports on an unusually frank piece from the Guardian.
- “‘Woke’ review of Parliament’s historic art collection lists 343 pieces tainted by slavery – with Robert Peel, Robert Walpole and Edmund Burke among those named for links to abhorrent trade in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries” – If the Government can’t even squash wokery in Parliament, as per this story in the Mail, what hope for the rest of the country?
- “Trans NHS staff can treat patients who request same-sex care for intimate procedures” – One NHS trust said it is unable to guarantee patients will be treated by a clinician of the same-sex if requested, according to the think tank Policy Exchange, as reported in the Telegraph.
- “Female-only Welsh publisher invites submissions from trans authors” – Transgender and non-binary authors can submit work to state-funded publisher Honno intended for female writers, prompting concerns that it has “caved to ideology”, the Telegraph reports.
- “‘It was difficult for my wife… she married what she thought was a straight guy’: How Britain’s ‘first non-binary CofE priest’ came out to their [sic] spouse and three children after having a ‘revelation’ from reading the story of Adam and Eve” – Bingo Allison, 36, who defines as ‘gender-queer’ and is thought to be the Church of England’s first openly non-binary priest, said it was “difficult” when he came out to his wife and three children, the Mail reports. I somehow doubt that was what the author of Genesis had in mind.
- “CDC Principles to Avoid Wrong-Speak” – The CDC is apparently afraid that we might hurt people’s feelings by using unapproved terms that ‘stigmatise’ them, and that this would lead to a threat to public health, says Dr. Robert Malone.
- “We need a parents’ revolt against woke indoctrination” – In 2023, let’s kick identity politics out of the classroom, declares Lauren Smith in Spiked.
- “There Is No Right Side of History” – William Deresiewicz in the Free Press writes that while he considers himself politically progressive, the idea that ‘history’ is on his side is a dangerous myth.
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Ron Unz is, in a word, WRONG. Joel Smalley of Metatron could easily debunk him.
I skimmed it. His continual use of the term “anti-vaxxer” is a bit off-putting, though I think he is just using it as shorthand in this case for people who think the covid “vaccines” are not proven to be safe and effective, rather than in any general sense. It’s light on stats and long on speculation and opinion, and crucially I could not find any reference to stats on deaths by vaccination status. Perhaps these are not collected or published in the US.
IMO it’s worth looking at the site in general for various columnists with various non-mainstream views on a number of important topics, and there’s a lively BTL community there.
Ron Unz has strange views on anything Covid related.
In a nutshell, the virus is an American-made and distributed bioweapon directed against China and Iran, and the gene therapies are just fine for him.
I still give him credit for allowing very, very controversial and taboo views on all topics being aired on his site.
I was bit disappointed by his and Steve Sailer’s response on this – their judgement seemed clouded by personal concerns – unusual for Sailer. But there were some other columnists on the site who were pretty sceptical from the start, IIRC. And yes, Unz deserves credit for hosting the variety of views he does. I hadn’t realised until now that he is Jewish – interesting since a lot of the views expressed on that site would be considered anti-semitic by many. He’s independently wealthy.
“‘It was difficult for my wife… she married what she thought was a straight guy’: How Britain’s ‘first non-binary CofE priest’ came out to their [sic] spouse and three children after having a ‘revelation’ from reading the story of Adam and Eve”
Remind me of the purpose of the Church of England again. The only revelation I got from the story of Adam and Eve was that it cost Adam a rib to have a female companion. Mine have cost an arm and a leg…
Jesus wept though…”Bingo”?!!
My Patterdale is called Bingo.
Bingo Little was one of P.G.Wodehouse’s characters in the Jeeves stories.
I’m just imagining a teacher having to take the register and call out ”Bingo” every day! lol Wonder if this is his adopted ‘non-binary’ name as opposed to what he was given at birth…
Haha…yes that would be highly amusing! I don’t wish to even contemplate the other scenario’s where ‘Bingo’ might be called out!
On that note, I wonder if the Bingo callers have been woke-ised? I mean ’88…two fat ladies’ etc
A Church of England “priest” using the first name of Bingo?
He should be defrocked as a minimum.
What a downright insult to C of E parishioners and the Church itself, not withstanding it is a wholly failed institution.
Or be written into an episode of Jeeves and Wooster and then the defrocking element would make comic sense.
By the way, HP, I’m sorry I didn’t reply to some of your posts recently. I tend to leave DS waters at some point in the afternoon and sail back the following morning or much later in the evening…anyway, sorry about that, I didn’t want you to think that I was ignoring you!
Oh, no need to apologise Aethelred I know you would not be intentionally rude. Anyway…
“He should be defrocked as a minimum.”
It was intended as a joke, a pun, but possibly it went over heads. My closer family and associates would recognise this as typical of my sense of humour – very dry and often heavy with sarcasm. Possibly it does not translate in the written form.
Boom! Boom! LOL!
I’d never even heard of the word ”technocommunism” until I read this stonker of an article. This substack author gives some historical context in helping to explain the culmination of events that lead us to what we’re experiencing now with these various engineered ‘crises’;
“2022 certainly hastened and further consolidated the 4th Industrial Revolution transhumanist dystopia. We witnessed the genetically modified posthuman slaves not only further building out their own digital prisons, but also continuing to partake in their mass ritual bio-suicides, all while mindlessly running the various State supplied self-hatred programs such as the aforementioned, “The common enemy of humanity is man.” This tried and true approach to keeping the GMH slaves in a state of perpetual mass induced fear will start to increasingly glitch and malfunction in 2023.
After being tortured over the past 3 years by lockdowns, MK Ultra masks, forced “vaccinations” and the constant threat of Cyber Polygon type events, power outages, supply chain breakdowns, “market” crashes and various other psyops and scams, those that have come out the other side with their critical thinking faculties still intact know full well that the battle has only really just begun.
Those of us that appreciate what is coming down the pike are fully prepared to offer total nonviolent noncompliance in 2023, and beyond.”
https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/happy-new-year-2023-technocommunism
Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security are a very pessimistic and paranoid lot aren’t they? But I guess being focused on the next catastrophic pandemic of apocalyptic proportions is their bread and butter. After all, it’s these guys who are always partners in organizing the table top simulation exercises that are all of a sudden on our radar of late. I found this document all about what they’re getting up to and working on. It’s 70 pages so I have not read it all. So if you want to read about self-spreading vaccines and other projects currently being developed here’s some bedtime reading for you. It was published in 2018 so this I found to be quite prescient;
“Global catastrophic biological risk (GCBR) is a special category of risk involving biological agents—whether naturally emerging or reemerging, deliberately created and released, or laboratory-engineered and escaped— that could lead to sudden, extraordinary, widespread disaster beyond the collective capability of national and international organizations and the private sector to control. If unchecked, GCBRs could lead to events that result in immense suffering, loss of life, and sustained damage to national governments, international relationships, economies, societal Introduction statement of the problem 7 stability, and/or global security. A combination of conditions would be the most likely circumstances under which a global catastrophic biological event would emerge. These could potentially include a rapidly spreading and/or highly and quickly lethal biological agent; a significant alteration of biological ecosystems that results in environmental and climate changes; a naïve global population; and concurrent environmental, social, and political circumstances that make response and recovery difficult.”
https://jhsphcenterforhealthsecurity.s3.amazonaws.com/181009-gcbr-tech-report.pdf
“There are now fewer than 22,000 desks across the main Government buildings – a fall of more than 5,000 in less than three years as staff continue to work from home, the Mail reports.”
So what? Are they more or less productive than they were? This is just a distraction.
There was a story about that lot on GBN yesterday, especially wrt the state of play in Wales with their gov civil servants. What occurred to me was that quite a few of them might not be insured when working at home. It depends on how their house insurance policy is set up with whatever firm. The other longer term issue is planning permission, with part of it being used commercially (in effect). I’m vaguely aware of these kind of things, as years ago I was a Parish Councillor, at a time when our Clerk had an extension to her house, where she worked for the Council.
You never know, if they start rattling the health & safety at work act at them, they might prefer to come back to the office! On the other hand, there could be a good market for H&S inspectors to visit all those remote offices etc (says the cynic).
I carried out a study into possible WFH policies in a job 20 years ago. Even then the problems for the employer were huge. H&S relating to the home itself, acess to confidential data, safety of minors in the home, safety of employees, especially women working alone (think summer time, doors open).
I doubt employer EL and PL insurance would extend to WFH but HMG does not buy it, they self-fund.
How do they train, mentor and control staff working away from their office all the time. How can they decide who to promote and who to fire (hypothetically in the case of the tax payr funded sector).
From my understanding the insurance thing is largely a non-issue at least for the kind of work that is most often done from home e.g. computer based.
In answer to your last question, in exactly the same way that you would do it in the office – communicate, set goals, measure productivity. If you were previously measuring productivity by hours spent sitting at your office desk, you’re in trouble. There are for sure some cons to WFH in terms of the social side and the ease of casual work related chat but IMO they are outweighed by the pros in terms of reduced travelling time. IMO the ideal arrangement is to give staff a choice. That’s what we have done and it has worked well.
Another intellectual giant downticking me. Every downtick without engagement basically says “I’m don’t like this and I am either too lazy to respond or afraid my argument is weak”.
“There are now fewer than 22,000 desks across the main Government buildings”
The price of second-hand desks will definitely be heading southward then.
New Variant! Oi oi oi!
Notice in one line the “experts” have sidestepped the sticking point for the credibility of a new variant
“vaccination or previous infection.”
in other words, whether your jabbed or you have natural immunity
“it won’t help with the variant we’ve just thought up sir!”.. monty python
“Very well, welease the new verwient!”…monty python
Did you hear the story of the boy who cried wolf?
These new variants sound more and more like software or game releases…XBB.1.5 – damn I missed the classic XBB.1.0 which had more functionality! Will XBB.2.0 have a fully functional cough and splutter drive instead of the XBB.1.5’s dribbling nose feature? Like you, Dings, I can’t take it seriously. On that note, so many of my wider circle of friends have recurring flu or colds or some awful bug that manifests in shivers, coughing, fever etc. It’s very – not very actually – strange – or normal…normal strange…
Same. They’re really milking it now and it’s beyond ridiculous. Is this really what we must expect now, year in, year out, for ever more? The countless other resp viruses knocking about…when has anybody ever talked in terms of strains or mutations before and bothered to give each and every new one a name? There’s some right sad b’stards around!
No thanks!
Never thought I’d see the day when a hardline communist regime leader in China apologises to his people in a national broadcast!
NONE of our free and democratic leaders will EVER have to do such a thing!!, perish the thought!
“There Is No Right Side of History”
That’s true, but there will be future generations with memory’s and experiences of the things we do now! They will decide what was right or wrong
I do wonder what a ‘political progressive’ actually is. Progressing to where and why? The word progress is often bandied about as if it actually means some sort of Shangri-La that we’re all heading to but never quite reach. I’m sure the elitists have an idea that progress, in human terms, mean transhumanism and a surrender of all individual sovereignty for the ‘common good’ – another phrase that is used willnilly to steer us into giving up our freedoms. When it comes to ‘sides’ of history, I think a better description would be ‘narrative’ because that does have sides as we all know so well.
I used to think of the word ”progress” in terms of something positive, but perhaps that is my bad for misunderstanding. For instance, ”Oh well, that’s progress for you”, when talking about a cashless society. But I see nothing positive about such a massive shift in society at all. I understood progress as meaning things get better, not chuffing worse!
Future generations will not know what we were like or what we thought or did. The record is being written by the woke and the political class. The record will show that anyone binary and white was evil and only the rest deserve a place in history (which will start about 1997).
Have any of you heard of Mark Windows and his excellent website of podcasts ‘Windows on the World’? A good friend of mine told me about him. He has been broadcasting/podcasting for a long time and his information is well researched and well worth a listen. I’ve been listening to his take on the 15 minute city phenomenon and he has two podcasts, fairly similar in content but subtly different, that absolutely smash the subject. Man oh man, he has done fantastic research. Well worth a listen and neither are over 45 minutes…
https://windowsontheworld.net/video_type/how-to-oppose-ltns-and-uk-councils/
In a non-clown world, this would now be the nail in the coffin of the ‘vaccines’.
Exactly! Joel Smalley citing Denis Rancourt et al’s work here. The truth is inescapable.
https://metatron.substack.com/p/probable-causal-association-between
Here is a doctor explaining why a recent cardiac arrest during an American football game couldn’t possibly be related to the gene therapy injections. Well, I’m convinced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-G9mziXL9w