- “Neanderthal bacteria brought back to life for first time” – Scientists say the revival of old bacteria may help to create new medicines with antibiotic properties, reports the Telegraph.
- “Russell Brand’s journey of enlightenment is not political – it’s more important than that” – The fact that Russell Brand has gone from lefty hero to being branded a Right-wing conspiracy theorist speaks volumes about the kind of groupthink we are up against, say Niall McCrae and MLR Smith in the New Conservative.
- “The Government’s electric vehicle obsession is a war on motorists” – If they are to be forced on the population, it could well mean a great number of ordinary motorists being priced off the road, writes Ross Clark in the Telegraph.
- “Do not get Covid vaccine shots in the morning or in the evening, especially if you are young or old!” – Timing of the shot matters for Covid vaccine effectiveness, according to Nature.
- “WHO boss says pandemic is no longer a global health emergency” – The World Health Organisation has finally acknowledged that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, according to the Mail.
- “I demand reparations for my ancestors’ fall from grace” – Sean Thomas in the Spectator takes the Mickey out of the reparations movement.
- “Rochelle Walensky, who led the CDC during the pandemic, resigns” – The head of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has resigned.
- “University of Edinburgh urged to uphold academic freedoms” – More than 1,000 academics have called for Edinburgh to uphold its commitment to academic freedom, reports the Times.
- “TikTok to censor climate change ‘misinformation’” – TikTok is proving true to its roots as the creation of a tyrannical Communist regime, reports Reclaim the Net.
- “The New Puritans must be stopped” – A regressive, authoritarian ideology is cannibalising public life, says Andrew Doyle in Spiked Online.
- “‘Racist’ remarks about Rishi Sunak ‘wilfully misconstrued’, says David Starkey” – The 78 year-old historian defends himself after a remark he made about the PM was taken out of context, the Telegraph reports.
- “Professor who used Native American heritage to boost career admits she is not Mohawk” – Elizabeth Hoover, an academic at Berkeley, admits she’s been pretending to be Native American.
- “Proof that masks work” – A good Twitter thread by Dr. Simon Goddek exposing the nonsense around masking.
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Much admiration for your efforts Toby.
Tried to make a donation but it doesn’t seem to go through, sorry
Have you broken your computer, Dinger?
Here in France, folks still very much use cheques for everything. I like it. Simple, low tech, secure, very human, can be future-dated, can be posted, and they force one to keep a weather eye on the bank account.
I am just in the cheque generation, and I think might just start carrying a pen again.
Here in the UK we do not have bank branches in even quite large towns so paying them in is not easy. I tried to find an HSBC branch in the City of London to bank a small cheque but I could not find one.
Banks have online means to pay in cheques. the First Direct one does not work.
Banks outsource paying in to the Post Office. Our branch had run out of HSBC/First Direct paying in envelopes.
And so it goes on, and on, and on and now I’ve misplaced the bloody cheques.
Yeah, and throw away that calculator (or delete that app on your phone), an abacus does the job. And cheques? I had to cast my mind back to recall what they were. You are well named; about the right millennium.
For those having difficulty actioning your donation, please persevere:-
I also found it difficult, but if you move your PC curser around just below the designated point you can activate the usual T Bar curser with a right click on your mouse, and then by left clicking as usual at that point open up the slots where you can type in the necessary details.
Or maybe it’s left click, then right. But you get the idea.
My necessarily modest donation didn’t work either, for reasons I barely understand. Calling back 8am, in accordance with First Direct instructions…
Until you accept that publishing ‘officially unapproved’ results of research on German history, no matter how flawed they are according to someone’s opinion, is speech and not ‘hate’ which has to be prosecuted and punished, you really have no business calling your organization “Free Speech Union”, Mr Young.
A saying which featured here quite often during still more covidy times was (paraphrase) Only lies need to be protected by censorship because the truth can stand on its own.
So, what’s so wrong with the Holocaust that it cannot?
Well, some events are just too painful to discuss, aren’t they? So fraught with risk of immediate denunciation are they that one simply dare not.
But then, are they not precisely the subjects which ought to demand discussion?
Nature’s a bitch. Human nature, I mean…
Perhaps the discussion of today’s issues, still raw, still not totally consigned to the “must not touch” basket, must suffice in our search for restitution and – maybe for some – revenge.
?
Much to the chagrin of so-called “progressive forces”, censorship in the USA is generally illegal. In large parts Europe and in other parts of the anglosphere, it has been conceded that censorship is not only generally ok but absolutely required if only the topic that’s subject to it is considered “important enough” according to someone’s opinion. This means this battle is essentially lost and the only option which remains is more-or-less desparate rearguard actions whenever the self-proclaimed forces of good seek to extend the number of important topics where censorship is not only ok but required for another time. Most prominent current example: climate change. Equally prominent example of not that long ago: Anything COVID.
The only way to improve this situation is to declare – categorically – that censorship is not ok and certainly not required, absolutely regardless of the topic, with the USA serving as prime example for this. There’s a German saying It’s impossible to be just a little bit pregnant and likewise, it’s impossible to have just a little bit of criminalized speech, as that’s a cancer which will grow without bounds unless removed without a trace.
Completely agree. There should be no conditions where freedom of speech is concerned.
My comment was a rueful contemplation of reality.
Agree 100%
Quite right; the phrase ‘thin edge of the wedge’ comes to mind.
I don’t know the FSU’s precise position on that subject and their website doesn’t really say what their view is on what speech should be illegal, if any. Ian Rons said they largely agreed with the US Supreme Court “imminent lawless action” test: Brandenburg v. Ohio – Wikipedia
I don’t know for example whether they think that the Race Relations Act and the bits of the Equality Act that make certain kinds of speech illegal should be repealed.
That said, the FSU believes in more freedom of speech than most people do, and actually does something to protect it, so they deserve immense credit for that. I wish they were absolutists, but I wish for many things.
That said, the FSU believes in more freedom of speech than most people do, and actually does something to protect it, so they deserve immense credit for that. I wish they were absolutists, but I wish for many things.
I don’t think this absolutists term is really helpful, as it suggests something that’s bad/ harmful because it’s out of proportion and that’s exactly not the case here. People publishing opinions on something, any opinion on anything, is never harmful to anyone except people trying to keep control of some narrative by selecting which opinions may or may not be published on a certain topic. Anything beyond that are inherently unprovable nth order effects of which some people – those who want to keep control of some narrative – claim that they must surely exist, ie, that they really believe they ought to exist if they’re honest (impossible to judge) or random bullshit they’re making up to throw sand into other people’s eyes. Be that as it may, what cannot be proven mustn’t – and really cannot – be legislated against.
You may not be getting many up- or down-ticks for this because it’s very hard to understand (particularly the first sentence). Can you rewrite in a different way? (Not a flippant comment – I’m interested but don’t follow your syntax).
I can try.
Freedom of speech means David Irving had a right to publish the books he did publish and live his life in peace while doing so instead – as would have happened in Germany – spending a lifetime in jail for thought and opinion crimes (most recent German victim of this I know of is a 90+ year old woman with dementia who must be stopped from telling stories about her life she believes to be true). Something calling itself Free Speech Union ought to recognize that as such instead of reflexively taking the “But we certainly didn’t mean … gasp! …. Holocaust Denial!” knee whenever someone from the censorious left likens something else to the Holocaust (strictly verboten for their political opponents despite they’re doing this themselves all the time) to justify why it must also be censored.
That’s about the gut of it.
Just donated £50! We need Toby and the FSU like never before.
Well I thought racism was unlawful but here we are, surrounded by Woketards, obsessed with ticking those all-important DEI boxes. This is TUI and it is cringe. Celebrating being discriminatory. Now imagine if they announced an all white ground and cabin crew with such enthusiasm. I wonder what the reaction would be. But I guess in Clown World we all have to walk around apologizing for being born white, subordinating ourselves for the benefit of our ‘coloured cousins’;
”Airlines announce black-only flight crews at Gatwick airport during so-called ‘Black History Month’.
White people are the only race you can legally discriminate against in 2024.”
https://x.com/BFirstParty/status/1842248522529132952
Not just 2024 either. British Airways did the same last year. Meritocracy is a word no longer recognized in Clown World;
”British Airways has celebrated Black History Month by operating its first ever flight entirely staffed by black employees – covering cabin crew, pilots, ground staff, dispatchers and gate agents.
The flight operated from Bridgetown in Barbados to London’s Heathrow.
One crew member tweeted: “A very monumental day in BA’s history. So grateful to have been apart of this,” a British Airways employee tweeted along with the hashtags #WeMadeHistory #BlackHistory.“
Passenger Matthew Wilson tweeted: “I am on the first ever @British_Airways all black crew from #Barbados to #London. What pride! We clapped when the pilot announced this.#Diversity #RepresentationMatters”
https://ittn.ie/travel-news/british-airways-marks-black-history-month-with-first-entirely-black-crew/
Not merely racialist, but deeply patronising. I’ve worked with Africans who didn’t need special treatment because they were good at their jobs.
Exactly so. This aspect of what’s invariably considered to be racially healing policy is constantly forgotten. Most ‘minorities’ don’t need the ‘help’ of poorly educated woke whites to get through their lives.
Which month is White History Month?. Which month is Jewish History Month? Which month is Left Handed Autistics’ Month?
Left handed autist’s history month is whenever another (usually Lesbian) woman manages to get some of her male colleagues to make an unprovoked attack on that weird guy who’s standing there alone because we all know what “all men” “always want” and those who are alone are decidedly better targets.
But that the wokusts (rhymes with locusts) are a bunch of hypocritical liars who wouldn’t ever dream of holding themselves to the high standards they want to measure others against as this would lead to the “absurd conclusion” that they’re not better but actually worse than pretty much everybody else isn’t exactly news. They are, I can point to about 33 years of recurring experiences which keep proving this point, and I don’t believe this will stop anytime soon.
Quite surreal really that this even has to go to Court. A Minister cannot ever countermand a Commons Bill. Nor can the Prime Minister for that matter. Once it passes that is it, there is no way back other than rescinding the Bill.
The Government has very clearly broken the Law and should back down before they look even more stupid than they already do. It really is quite an achievement to manage to go from a party nobody wanted and barely anyone voted for to the most hated party in our history in such a short period of time. I predict that Labour will be all but wiped out in the Council elections in May unless it is an incredibly low turnout.