- “The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?” – “Do something” is not science, and it shouldn’t have been public policy, writes Bret Stephens in, er, the New York Times.
- “New York Times readers confront the manifest failure of masks to do anything, cope and seethe” – Eugyppius entertains himself and us by reviewing the most popular comments on Bret Stephens’ NYT mask article.
- “The four-day week experiment’s killer finding is borderline embarrassing” – At this rate, people will soon be objecting to the very concept of work itself, suggests Ben Marlow in the Telegraph.
- “Britain is barely working. Now it wants to work less” – The results from a four-day week trial should be taken with a fistful of salt, says Ross Clark in the Telegraph.
- “The Pfizer Clinical Trial in Argentina Was a Military Operation” – And Augusto Roux has the contracts to prove it, says Dr. Josh Guetzkow.
- “Will Tony Blair ever give up on ID cards?” – Is Blair ever going to give up hope of foisting ID cards on us, after being defeated over the issue as Prime Minister, asks Ross Clark in the Spectator.
- “What really caused the surge in Covid deaths in early 2020?” – Professor Norman Fenton defends one version of the iatrogenesis hypothesis – though I’m not convinced it’s the same as the extreme ‘ABC’ version that I was criticising, where excess deaths are attributed to Anything But Covid.
- “Perspectives on the pandemic from a children’s dance teacher” – “Many new starters struggled to fit in and focus, and would appear much younger in their development,” writes an anonymous children’s dance teacher for UsForThem.
- “Pfizer Knowingly Allowed Dangerous Components in its Vaccines” – The Epoch Times covers the contamination and cover-up story known on social media as ‘blotgate’.
- “Cambridge University students vote for completely vegan menus” – The union will hold talks with catering services about removing all animal products from cafes and canteens, reports the Guardian.
- “Nobody is buying heat pumps because they’re an awful product” – Is anyone surprised that the heat pump rollout is failing when they cost a ton and aren’t particularly efficient, says Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph.
- “Roald Dahl publisher says it has ‘significant responsibility’ to protect young readers” – Defiant Puffin defends its extensive story changes as “minimal” after the rewrite row, adding it is “not unusual for publishers to review and update language”, reports the Telegraph.
- “Meet the Woke Activists behind the Roald Dahl Book Purge” – The U.K.-based consultancy Inclusive Minds contracts with dozens of ‘inclusion ambassadors’ to shape the next generation of children’s books, reports National Review.
- “George Orwell’s chilling prediction has come true – it’s time to make a stand” – The censorship of books, statues and history is an attempt to eradicate the past and enforce a single point of view, says Simon Heffer in the Telegraph.
- “Being ‘Offensive’ is Irrelevant” – English teacher Paul Sutton says that “very few English teachers (especially the younger ones) have any interest in literature, other than as a grim but necessary dietary supplement needed to rid the world of ‘Tories’, ‘Climate change deniers’, ‘Racists’ and ‘Transphobes’”.
- “Fiddling while Ohio burns” – The Democratic elites aren’t even pretending to care about the East Palestine disaster, says Jenny Holland in Spiked.
- “The EU Files: What Elon Musk Is Not Telling You About Twitter Censorship” – Robert Kogon in Brownstone says the untold story of Twitter censorship is not what is happening in the U.S. but in the EU, where there is no First Amendment.
- “Lady Susan Hussey back performing duties on behalf of Princess Anne” – One senior member of the Royal Family has made a very public display of support for Lady Susan, the Daily Mail discloses.
- “Fury over new plans to fast-track 12,000 immigration applications” – Rishi Sunak faces renewed pressure on immigration after a new fast-track scheme for 12,000 asylum seekers – including Channel migrants – was dubbed an “amnesty in all but name”, the Mail reports.
- “The doctors failed me: Detransitioned woman – who had her breasts and uterus removed when she thought she was a man during mental health crisis – sues eight health care workers who helped her change” – Michelle Zacchinga was bullied at school and says she put her anxiety and depression down to being trans after reading about gender online, but now she will sue the doctors who helped her transition, reports the Mail.
- “The SNP leadership race has turned into the mother of all culture wars” – The race so far has been dominated by Twitter, which is why it appears to be solely about gender and same-sex marriage, says Iain Macwhirter in the Spectator.
- “The real reason to be scared of Kate Forbes” – Scotland has gone, in the space of just over 40 years, from a country where male homosexual acts were illegal to one where failure to believe personally in same-sex marriage (even as you support its legality) is a disqualifier for high public office, writes Stephen Daisley in the Spectator.
- “It’s okay for somebody who’s a Marxist to bring what they’ve learned from Das Kapital into the room, but not to take what you believe from the Bible. That’s nonsense, isn’t it?” – Tim Farron tells TimesRadio that being religious can be a bar to serving in high public office.
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Inclusive MindsThe Twits contracts with dozens of‘inclusion ambassadors’Twits to shape the next generation of children’s books, reports National Review.This assault on Roald Dahl’s books is absurd on so many levels. I’m wondering how many complaints Puffin books received over the decades, about the ”offensive” language Dahl wrote…Compare this with the many graphic thrillers and horror books, which any kid/teen can get hold of and I think the latter would be far more traumatizing than referring to an Oompa Loompa as ”he”. The silliness goes on and on. Kids say a lot of nasty stuff to each other, name-calling and such, in the playground, so I’m predicting editing out the word ”fat” when applied to Augustus Gloop is hardly going to change any kind of kids’ behaviour or vocabulary. If their motives weren’t so sinister it’d be laughable what they’re doing.
The whole point of Gloop was his gluttony.
Puffin owned by Penguin Random House, owned by Bertelsmann Media Group, one of the world’s largest media groups, privately owned and controlled by a billionaire family and closely connected to a charitable trust, also heavily involved in education. Nothing to worry about…
I can’t think of any new expletives to register my total disgust at this assault on children’s books. I have no words…
If you did, they’d rewrite them!
It’s pathetic, pointless and petty isn’t it? As if kids don’t call each other ”fat” or ”ugly” ( or worse! ) in real life. And they sure as hell know the difference between a male and a female. I’m thinking things won’t be quite so ridiculously woke here in the NL as the Dutch culture has a very relaxed attitude towards swearing and they’re a very blunt lot, for instance. Apparently even my daughter’s teacher loses his shit and swears in class. They’re only 10 and 11 years! lol
In our classrooms, I’m told by family members in the profession, kids routinely chant the Childline number at teachers who try to enforce any discipline.
Meanwhile, in a region fought over for millennia, and still being fought over, no end in sight:
‘A leaked internal strategy document from Vladimir Putin’s executive office…….lays out a detailed plan on how Russia plans to take full control over neighboring Belarus in the next decade under the pretext of a merger between the two countries.’
‘The authorship of the strategy document, according to one Western official with direct knowledge of its construction, belongs to the Presidential Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation, a subdivision of Putin’s Presidential Administration, which was established five years ago. The rather innocuously named directorate’s actual task is to exert control over neighboring countries that Russia sees as in its sphere of influence: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.’
https://news.yahoo.com/russia-belarus-strategy-document-230035184.html
‘The 2021 Russian presidential administration paper spells out Minsk’s political, military, defense, humanitarian, trade and economic integration with Moscow as part of a so-called ‘Union State’
Moscow Times 21 Feb 2023
A casual glance at the map indicates Putin’s grand plan to subsume Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, the Baltic states and, once more, join Kaliningrad geographically with the rest of the ‘Russian Federation’ in a new ‘Union State’
It could almost be said that his ultimate aim might very well be:
“From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent,’
Winston Churchill
It it could be clumsy Western propaganda that you’d have to be particularly gullible to fall for
Exactly. Oh hang on what’s this secret map with these red blocks all over the previous Eastern Bloc and models of warships everywhere….oh it’s a Risk board…stand down Number One…
Good to know that the Moscow Times is ‘Western’
The information in the document, regarding Moldova, at least, is corroborated by other sources.
In November 2020, the FSB’s strategic objective in Moldova was to bring about ‘The full restoration of the strategic partnership between Moldova and the Russian Federation’.
FSB Outline of Operational Aims and Means, 21 November 2021.
And alluded to by Putin himself in various speeches:
‘It is now that radicals and nationalists, including and primarily those in Ukraine, are taking credit for having gained independence. As we can see, this is absolutely wrong. The disintegration of our united country was brought about by the historic, strategic mistakes on the part of the Bolshevik leaders and the CPSU leadership, mistakes committed at different times in state-building and in economic and ethnic policies’
‘Address by the President of the Russian Federation’, transcript, 21 February 2022
Basically, Putin wants to re-establish Kievan Rus to protect Eastern Europe and Eurasia from the perverted, collapsed civilisation of the West. Putin’s not a good guy on any level, but compared with the lying filth ruling us that have happily been using Ukraine as a battlefield for a proxy war since orchestrating a coup in 2014, he’s positively transparent.
China is the real enemy and has its tentacles throughout our society, having schmoozed and bribed its way into controlling academia, politicians and businessmen who are gaming the exchange rate to provide cheap goods made by slave labour in conditions it would be illegal to operate in the West.
Russia is a distraction along the lines of making Klingons the bad guys in Star Trek again, because viewing figures are down!! This is a smokescreen, allowing the strange cultists who’ve colonised our institutions to create scarcity to push everything from eating bugs to making people turn off their heating and lights, while rewriting our books and history.
The thing is that if Putin takes over Ukraine and Belarus, as he clearly intends, Moldova, the Baltic States, are next. And that means war with NATO, us. Given that we have about a couple of thousand deployable infantry and probably fifty or so tanks that work, his behaviour begins to become relevant to your way of life, in fact threatens your very existence on this planet.
…and it just so happens that there have been massive pro-Russian protests in Moldova? I don’t suppose that fact has got anything to do with it?
I’m not really sure what your point is…this Rand document isn’t secret, but it contains
advice to the US Government on how to ‘Unbalance and Overextend Russia…
including…separating it from Germany, and offer gas ‘from other sources’ (LOL!)
Degrading the Russian economy with sanctions…..encouraging emigration of skilled youth….providing lethal aid to Ukraine…..increasing support to Syrian rebels….
’flip’ Transnistria….(in other words stick your oar in/foment regime change in Moldova)….promote liberalisation in Belarus (again stick your oar in/foment regime change)….diminish faith in the election process….undermine Russia’s image abroad..
on and on it goes….
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/RB10000/RB10014/RAND_RB10014.pdf
This is just one document, amongst many…Is any of this better or worse?
And it doesn’t even make you wonder, not one tiny bit, that the countries you mention are all friendly towards Russia, and not so much towards the US?
It doesn’t strike you as odd at all, that Hungary, the only country to say it won’t send weapons to Ukraine, is being targeted by the EU, and the USA and USAID, who are giving money to supposed pro-democracy groups…and media? And basically trying to foment unrest?
Hungary….a sovereign country with a democratically elected Government?
I don’t suppose it does…..
Is Americas illegal occupation of Syria and its oil fields better/different?
Is Americas interference in Taiwan better/different?
Is Americas interference in Ukraine (for many years) better/different?
…and unlike Russia and China that list goes on and on….
I have no idea nor do I think it at all relevant.
The fact remains that we now have clear evidence of Putin’s intentions to restore the USSR and iron curtain in Europe.
That is why Poland will shortly possess the most powerful land forces in Europe after, let me see, oh yes, that would be Russia…..
This immediately becomes a very real problem for us once the Baltic States, NATO members, come under threat.
And we now know that they will come under threat, sooner if Ukraine is defeated, or later…..
It isn’t clear evidence of anything. No one in NATO has been threatened..and quite frankly, as usual, the only people threatening anyone and escalating the conflict is the USA and its partners….
Of course you don’t think America’s actions in agitating for regime change, and making war all over the globe are relevant..
…but I would remind you that 80% of the world has not sanctioned Russia, and doesn’t support the West’s continued provocations and escalation in respect of either Russia or China…
They have now. Why do you think Poland is spending dillions on 1250 tanks and the rest……?
The first duty of Britain’s useless government is defence of the realm. What the rest of the world may think is of no consequence in that context
The point is that, now, plain as a pike staff, war in Western Europe beckons if Putin wins in Ukraine.
And that probably doesn’t work out too well for us.
Excellent. Thanks ebg.
Meanwhile the EU seeks to ensnare any damned country they can and refuses to accept the democratic vote of a country which chose to leave its clutches.
And Bourkina Faso, capital Ouagadougou, translated, means ‘The land of the incorruptible’.
I don’t know the details of the “four day week” experiment/trial, but I did read a headline saying that productivity was unaffected. One can’t help wondering if some of the people involved were exactly working flat out 5 days a week.
I also wonder whether rolling this out more widely would just elongate a lot of processes that are already frustratingly slow, by adding a day or two’s delay to every step in various chain because person X or firm Y happen to be having their extra day off on different days.
Cambridge vegan totalitarians happy to impose their beliefs on everyone. Sound familiar?
Including on the students – I remember back in 1970 how the press was full of articles about how “Cambridge students” (ie the students union) supported this or that radical cause, when CSU membership was compulsory (fees deducted from grant), and it was run entirely by Agitprop types.
The local restaurants, burger bars, fish’n’chip shops and kebab trucks must be hugging themselves with glee…
https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/news-opinion/best-places-eat-cambridge-restaurant-13992839
Cambridge Chop Shop – ‘where every night is steak night‘
I hope the Uni places go out of business!
I wonder if mums will descend with burgers and chicken nuggets to pass through the railings like they did when Jamie Oliver tried to pep up school dinners?!
Steve Kirsch with a summary of several sceptics criticism and interpretations of the ONS data.
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-latest-uk-data-is-still-deeply?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
“It’s okay for somebody who’s a Marxist to bring what they’ve learned from Das Kapital into the room, but not to take what you believe from the Bible. That’s nonsense, isn’t it?” I can’t stand watching politicians making political capital out of whatever new horror emerges, especially spineless people like Farron, but he touches on a point that Putin referred to in his address. This is the assault on our religion. Now I’m not a religious man myself but I like to know it’s there and, probably like you, I’ve been to many weddings, christenings and funerals and there are some hymns that are OK. I got married in a church and signed the registry and I’ve found some services especially moving. What I’m trying to say is that it’s there, in the background mainly, but there all the same. It’s a constant. Or rather it was until Archbish Wetby decided to go against the traditionalists and introduce some wokery. This was an unwise move. He’s basically caused a schism. He’s breaking the church and as such he breaking that constant. As far as I’m concerned he can F Off and start his own woke church and they can all dress in tinsel and lycra and pray to their trans saints and genderless god. Just vacate the actual church buildings and do it somewhere else. And this nonsense above is just part of that. Break the foundations of our society, render it meaningless, allow anything and everything, destroy belief and faith and create new versions so that the people are lost and confused. How much longer before C of E schools become something else and before morning prayers are some ghastly litany of diversity, inclusivity and equity and before they go through the entire host of saints and bring every one of them down? And what is the hope of a godless land? Reminds me of that Yuval Harari creature from Schwab’s dominions who said something along the lines of: ‘God is dead’ and if he didn’t actually say those words, he implied it. It’s chilling because this seems like the beginning of a greater darkness descending and we must be on our guard and defend our church wherever we stand with it. And that goes for our weak King too!
The more I’ve learned these past 3 years has convinced me that this is not just a physical war being waged but a spiritual one. Think of the push to neutralise gender, promote an alphabet lifestyle, indoctrinate children with the trans agenda, normalise & decriminalise “minor attracted people” & destroy family & community. Spain has just passed legislation to decriminalise bestiality so long as there is no physical harm to the animal!
Whether one believes or not, all of the above subverts the teachings of the Bible & faith on what is moral behaviour supportive of a healthy community where children are fully protected. Think Sam Smith & his/it/whatever performance revering the devil. It’s now becoming blatant. Mary Whitehouse would rightly be having an apoplectic fit.
There have always been, & always will be, a small minority of folk who don’t fit into the nuclear family model but who are equally horrified at the subversion & destruction of our historical culture as all they wish to do is to live their lives in peace within a healthy functioning society.
Agree, Bertie, it’s a spiritual war or, to put it another way, a battle for our very souls.
Seconded BB.
“And that goes for our weak King too!”
Excellent post Aethelred but “our weak King” is actually an out and out traitor.
“Cambridge University students vote for completely vegan menus”
And there’s me thinking that these people are the brightest in the land. It’s coercion and virtue signalling and watching your back and above all cowardly:
“Look at us, we’re so virtuous, no we don’t care about our farmers, we care about our planet and the animals and we’re all scared that we are going to die of extreme heat and no we haven’t really bothered to do our own critical thinking about this because we believe what we’re told and anyone who disagrees is a conspiracy theorist and anyway if we had that label on us we’d never get a decent job in the media, advertising or banking and earn lots and lots of money…blahblahblah…and we’re only here because we had good memories for facts and daddy went here and we have the right ‘attitude’…blahblahblah.”
Well, good luck with your plant-based diets with insect options. I can see you all getting weaker and paler over time but you know best clearly…
More accurately, ‘Cambridge University student activists vote for completely vegan menus’ and the rest of the students will go elsewhere for breakfast and lunch! Personally, I hate the stink of quinoa!!
Idiots the lot of them.
Augusto Roux presented to MD4CE recently, a recording of his presentation can be found here: https://rumble.com/v29lfa0-augusto-roux.html
So, the people who were ‘consultants’ on ruining Roald Dahl’s books are, as expected, a bunch weirdos and sexual deviants: exactly the sort of people you’d expect to be hired by the tiresome postmodern cult ruining the world.
In essence, they’re the sort of people who walk into an office party, where everyone’s having a good time, and turn off the music.
Not unlike the old puritan sects that banned music and dancing as works of the Devil!
“Will Tony Blair ever give up on ID cards?”
In a word, no. Blair will never give up on this and you have to wonder why. He is no longer part of government or even a politician. What has he got to gain from such a move? If any doughty investigative journalist is reading this (are there any of these people left?) then it would make for compulsive reading.
One of his mates is in the news again.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64740128
https://www.trustnodes.com/2022/04/29/tony-blair-and-bill-clinton-talk-crypto
The New York Times ‘mask mandates’ article. Surely this is huge! Could this warrant an article in its own right on The Daily Sceptic? Especially as husband and I have commented, quoted from and shared on Facebook and…it’s not appearing on people’s feeds!!
Sorry, does that mean Facebook are censoring The New York Times?
Well, that or just censoring Deborah T (from sharing a NYT article, which basically amounts to the same thing I guess! Perhaps I’m mistaken…) Good to see Will’s just put up a piece about the efficacy (or NOT) of masks.
I’d try sharing the article myself except I’m not on Facebook. I pity the social media platform that upsets Mr T!
The corrupt media like to call us fascists and yet after going to many anti lockdown, jab and 15 min city events across the country I’ve yet to see a picture of Mussolini.
Ironically “antifascist” Antifa are always wearing their Black Shirts.
*****
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near Everyman Cinema & play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
A doctor speaking out about injection harms: –
I apologise if this has been posted before: –
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6320743167112
If you listen to the Bezmenov interviews it is quite clear that once demoralisation has set in you can’t really do anything about it. It goes deep and its permanent. The idea of shutting yourself off and joining an enclave is also verty difficult. If a country has surrendered to the extent that our country has then there isn;t really any way back. There is no force with which we can align ourselves.
We kept up a good yarn for a long time and we still do but make no mistake. You need to understand when you are defeated as a culture and a civilisation. It isn’t a personal affront it is just the way of things. As a country we are certaibnly defeated. As a culture perhaps some of us will move back into enclaves and monasteries. Bur please understand that your life is over and the culture is over there is nothing coming to redeem this.