- “Chairman of Post Office also headed courts service during postmasters’ appeals” – The former chairman of the Post Office presided over its attempt to block an appeal by convicted postmasters while he was at the same time Chairman of His Majesty Courts and Tribunal Service, reports the Telegraph.
- “Ed Davey’s self-righteousness has caught up with him” – The Lib Dem leader will never recover from the Post Office scandal, says Patrick O’Flynn in Spiked.
- “New disease VEXAS syndrome manifests after Covid and vaccination” – Some vaccinated and Covid-infected people are being diagnosed with a new type of auto-inflammatory disease called VEXAS syndrome, reports the Epoch Times.
- “New Medicare data makes it clear that the Covid vaccines have killed millions of people worldwide” – CDC data shows the Covid vaccines were a huge failure and increased all-cause mortality, says Steve Kirsch on Substack.
- “Covid mRNA vaccines required no safety oversight: Part Two” – The BioNTech/Pfizer Covid mRNA vaccines were military-approved for bio-threats, not civilian diseases, writes Debbie Lerman for the Brownstone Institute.
- “Mortality rates and life expectancy” – Prof. Carl Heneghan and Dr. Tom Jefferson discuss mortality rates in the U.K., focusing on a study indicating a decline in life expectancy since the early 2010s.
- “Pressure grows on BBC to sanction Gary Lineker” – Pressure is growing on the BBC to sanction Gary Lineker after the presenter reposted a call for Israel’s football team to be banned from international tournaments, according to the Mail.
- “These accusations of ‘genocide’ bring shame on humanity” – South Africa’s case against Israel is the most absurd and sinister spectacle of the 21st Century so far, writes Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
- “‘All the President’s Mien’” – In Taki’s Magazine, Theodore Dalrymple gives his take on the disgraced former Harvard President Claudine Gay.
- “Another foreign brawl? We can’t even fix our potholes” – The U.K. cannot tear itself away from the delusion that it’s a Great Power, says Peter Hitchens in the Mail.
- “Labour pledges money from private school VAT raid for seven different policies” – Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of “stretching the limits of credulity” after unveiling a seventh policy to be funded by his tax raid on private schools, reports the Telegraph.
- “Why the elites fear democracy” – The elites are terrified of populism because they are terrified of democracy, says Tom Slater in Spiked.
- “Rwanda bill: Kemi Badenoch told PM it does not go far enough” – Rishi Sunak is under increasing pressure by senior Tories to toughen up his Rwanda bill, reports the Times. If he doesn’t and the Government is defeated on the Bill’s Third Reading, can the PM survive?
- “Roscrea at ‘tipping point’ says Michael Lowry as immigration protests intensify” – The small Irish town of Roscrea has become the latest flashpoint as tensions surrounding immigration policies escalate, writes Sarah O’Reilly in Gript.
- “Humza Yousaf’s brother-in-law charged with drug offences” – Humza Yousaf’s brother-in-law has been charged in connection with drug offences, according to STV.
- “SNP green scheme to cost £3.5 million and take almost 1,000 years to recoup costs” – A taxpayer-funded green scheme, designed to hit SNP climate targets, will take almost 1,000 years to recoup its costs, reports the Telegraph.
- “Why Keir Starmer’s plan to ‘rewire Britain’ is already coming unstuck” – Industry insiders warn that Labour’s goal to create a ‘clean energy superpower’ borders on the fanciful, write Matt Oliver and Jonathan Leake in the Telegraph.
- “The terrorist past of 15-minute city inventor Carlos Moreno” – You wouldn’t want Carlos Moreno designing your city any more than you’d want Josef Fritzl digging out your basement, says Philip James in Vision News.
- “BDS is a mask for hate” – The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement denies the right of Israel to exist and public bodies have no business supporting it, says Miriam Cates in the Critic.
- “Sylvia Rivera: the dark truth about a trans icon” – The late New York drag queen Sylvia Rivera was no hero of the gay-liberation movement, writes Fred Sargeant in Spiked.
- “Is DEI risking air traffic control safety?” – In UnHerd, Laurel Duggan explores concerns about the effect of DEI initiatives in the aviation industry.
- “The genocide of Christians the world ignores” – Fulani Islamist militia groups have slaughtered scores of Nigerian Christians, and the world has remained virtually silent, writes Tom Lennie in TCW – Defending Freedom.
- “The abdication of responsibility” – A monarch quitting undercuts the point of the institution he or she represents, argues Karl Gustel Wärnberg in the Critic.
- “Cuba approves law for ‘death with dignity’. What could possibly go wrong?” – Cubans may not have autonomy to choose their politicians, but they will have autonomy to choose euthanasia, says Michael Cook in Gript.
- “Clarence Thomas and me” – To speak as a black man at odds with the consensus of other blacks can be burdensome – and liberating, writes Glenn C. Loury in City Journal.
- “Bill Gates hopes AI can reduce ‘polarisation’, save ‘democracy’, ignores censorship implications” – The power to control the narrative on critical issues could be an unintended consequence of AI programmed with specific democratic ideals. Or perhaps that’s the intention, says Cindy Harper in Reclaim The Net.
- “‘He fondled her jelly babies and she rubbed his tic tacs’” – An AI video parody of King Charles is circulating on social media, depicting him delivering a confectionery-themed (and innuendo-filled) children’s tale. Very funny.
Whoever did this is going to hell #funny
— steve (@bagshaw2112) January 14, 2024pic.twitter.com/bEbL14Aek8
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Thermostat theory: the theory that temperatures all around the world can be regulated with carbon dioxide.
That is the entire premise for getting rid of combustion engine cars and being forced to buy electric cars, for forcing people to get rid of gas boilers and replace them with electric heat pumps, for producing electricity with expensive wind and solar technology rather than cheap fossil fuels, for prohibiting people from driving their cars in city centres and for a range of other insane policies to be inflicted on us.
All on the basis of a ridiculous unproven theory that has been obscured with grandiose terms like global warming and climate change designed to confuse and bamboozle the general public.
Could do with a bit of global warming as I pedal to work today!
Well, according to the Thermostat Theory you just need to add a bit of CO2 into the atmosphere.
“That is the entire premise for…”
Is it the entire premise? Is there not also the argument that fossil fuels are limited and therefore that we should not use them all up to the detriment of future generations?
Whose rationale? Yours or theirs?
Theirs is very clearly all about carbon. Carbon reduction is the entire rationale used to force us into Net Zero, electric cars, heat pumps, wind farms. And if we don’t do all those things there will be a climate catastrophe. The clock is ticking, the last few seconds, either we act now or we are finished, all of that.
The other arguments like limited fossil fuels or confusing pollution with CO2 serve to bring along people, perhaps like yourself, who don’t necessarily buy the thermostat theory but are somehow emotionally attracted to the idea of renewable energy, clean air. The pushers of thermostat theory seem quite happy for people to conflate all of those things if it makes them support their “climate policies”.
A successful religion will let people make up their own little stories if it brings them into the fold.
As you say, the other side (not including me, for the avoidance of doubt) is using various arguments to try to convince us to cut down on fossil fuels, the main one being so-called “man-made climate change”. Hence my questioning your “entire premise” statement.
Eco Zealots MPs Destroy Britain
latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, media, friends online.
Anybody else getting their posts censored regularly? Either partly or completely removed? I am, despite the fact they don’t breach the above, ”Profanity and abuse will be removed…” warning. Meanwhile sweary and abusive posts seem to remain untouched. How peculiar.
So I’ve emailed the DS team ( twice actually ) to see if they’d at least be courteous enough to give me an explanation, because with this unwarranted, excessive censorship of posts, they do rather come across as completely hypocritical. They are guilty of the very thing they allegedly oppose and ‘free speech’ is clearly not being supported in reality.
I just wanted to see how widespread this sneaky tactic of the DS team is before I get my paranoid head on.
I got one censored the other day, it was asking someone else to clarify why they were being disparaging about the daily round up editor that day. At first, like you, I thought bl**dy hypocrites but as I’ve always said there’s free speech and then there’s codes of conduct. And perhaps it wasn’t polite of me to invite another member to so publically call out one of our hosts?
Ideally, they should make the boundaries clear but some of your posts Mogwai might not be the tone they want in their space. I know we’re on the internet but essentially this is their space. I don’t think any of them would stop you from speaking your truth in the public square (or on your own bit of the internet) but this isn’t the public square, it’s the DS cyber space. I’m happy to be challenged on that but that’s just as I see it.
Edit: This has led me to another thought, maybe the problem with the internet is whilst you’re free to say what you want on the internet, the tech giants who presumably (correct me if I’ve got that wrong) create the algorithms that dictate what shows up in searches get to decide whether you’re visible or not. Essentially, it’s just what the mainstream press has been doing, ignoring people/events/protests/stories it doesn’t want us knowing about and focusing on what it does want us knowing about.
Then I think that we deserve some clarification of the boundaries then, don’t we? Because there seems to have been some significant changes taking place behind the scenes, and we’ve not been notified of them. So even if you adhere to the above warning you’re still getting censored. Otherwise we’re just guessing what will be deemed ”allowed” or ”disallowed” on any given day, presumably depending on which mod is on shift. And the reason I say that is that rude, abusive posts get to remain but posts such as mine, which are definitely not sweary and abusive, get removed, although I did drop an expletive-heavy one last night, just to see how long it’d last.
And I think you’re doing yourself down. I don’t think your post sounded like it warranted being removed. More the post of the OP, for being so impolite in the first place. All you were doing is challenging them on it, and since when is that not allowed?
Anyway, until DS wish to grace me with a reply to my emails asking for an explanation I’m left in the dark as to what the rules and boundaries are around here, and I’m not a person who is willing to self-censor or who enjoys being manipulated, so it’s over to them. It just puts me off posting at all, to tell you the truth, because I’d always be second guessing and wondering if bits or all of it will be removed. That isn’t what I want, going forward, and I think it’s a bit illogical to continue to offer financial support to a site that is happy to edit/remove my posts willy nilly, and without explanation. Now that is disrespectful.
Well said, Mogwai. Given your loyalty to the site and your long and extensive posting record, they do owe you the courtesy of clarifying what they are up to. Please keep us informed…
Cheers Michael
and will do. It just boils down to basic courtesy and respect, at the end of the day, and this surely is a two-way street. It’s telling that I’ve always had timely responses in the past, whenever I emailed them re technical issues I was experiencing, but the more time drags on with no response, the more it becomes obvious that they’re ignoring me. Especially as they’re evidently monitoring my posts on here, and will be seeing me calling their unethical, underhand behaviour out, but they choose the ‘crickets’ approach instead of just replying. They do take the ”free” out of ”free speech” with their behaviour, but we shall see if they’ve anything to say for themselves.
I agree with you here, I think it is certainly desirable for there to have been some sort of dialogue privately between you and DS, even if they don’t feel as if they want to state publicly what the boundaries are. I guess the link with the Free Speech Union makes it doubly difficult for them to state what their line is (since many would assume there isn’t one) but they’re only human so you’re also right that it might be depend a bit on who is on moderating duty.
If you approach for some clarification and no response is forthcoming, well only you and DS know what you were posting, so maybe that would give you some insights?
I’ve got a comment ‘waiting for approval’ right now. It contains links to 3 of my charts.
Updated to add: I also had a comment about the promiscuous Roman emperor re-worded – mod replaced my expression with promiscuous.
The obvious potential problem for DS with links to external images is that, as I control them, I could change them to something illegal.
“Another foreign brawl? We can’t even fix our potholes”
‘….the delusion that we are a Great Power’
Britain is the world’s sixth largest economy, fifth most powerful nuclear power and one of five permanent members of the security council.
But we have sailors that don’t know how to fight and too many soldiers too fat to fight (22,000 undeployable or of limited deployability out of 80,000; 25%)
So Mr Hitchens has a point.
Why is this so? Not much pay for quite a lot of inconvenience, the military appeals to a very limited number of people.
But the real problem is the NHS: 3.5% of GDP at its inception, 7% now.
The defence budget? 7% in 1950, 2.2% now.
There are very few problems in this country that could not be solved by reducing the size of the public sector, particularly the self licking lollipop that is ‘our’ NHS (we know what to do: look at France, the Netherlands, we just lack a government of any gumption, backbone).
However defence of the realm is one problem that does not lend itself to solution by a thousand cuts.
According both to US vets, and a recent British vet I know, the problem in the armed forces is largely disillusion. Whether you join up to serve your country, to learn a trade, or to gain kudos or decent pay, the realisation that you are merely fodder for a series of undeclared wars against populations who are no threat to Britain (and even less to an America that decides our foreign policy), with uncertain and constantly changing war aims, and no disengagement policy, leads to deep cynicism against the system under which you serve.
You come home and see that you have left behind countries worse off than when you went in – witness Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etc, etc.
My own suspicion that the high rates of PTSD seen in our veterans are exacerbated by seeing your comrades die in conflicts with no discernible purpose is confirmed by vets I’ve heard discussing it.
I agree that the cuts in defence budget are ludicrous, but then little of it is spent on defence of the realm anyway, and most on offence against weaker distant nations… or where a strong nation stands behind them, we just send the weapons and let foreigners be the cannon fodder.
If we want to be able to help our friends, for example, South Korea, Oman, defeat their enemies, liberate the Falklands, Kuwait, Sierra Leone, protect our friends and allies overseas, as we have in the past and should continue to do in the future (we are a nation that relies on overseas trade, after all) then we need an absolute minimum of 3.5% of GDP spent on defence.
Forward defence is often a good strategy. Spending on defence encourages our friends and allies overseas to do business with us, and, yes, part of that 3.5% should be spent on a Royal Yacht, invaluable for advancing the commercial and political interests of this country.
Ukraine will defend itself whatever we do. But British military aid at least gives that country a better chance of being able to defend itself than hitherto. Many more would have died, would be dying, had we not provided timely assistance. If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he will not stop there, as a cursory glance at the map makes clear. Once he has encircled the Baltic States via a land corridor to the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, Britain will, once more, be on the brink of war ourselves.
We have let down our guard, NATOs conventional deterrent has atrophied and we are now paying the price for the incompetence of our governments of the last 34 years.
I don’t think vaccine mandates in the US went down well with the armed forces – and the ensuing damages to health suffered as a result.
The Gary Lineker story is interesting.
I don’t particularly like the man but in the spirit of free speech he should be allowed to say what he wants as long as it is not within a BBC broadcast.
Lots of ‘celebrities’ give us their views on life. They all have bigger platforms than you and I. But censoring them?
What do you think?
I’m afraid that I have absolutely no idea who this fellow is.
I think you can’t really split a person from their political views. Therefore, given the BBC’s supposed obligation to be politically neutral, I do think BBC presenters and journalists should be constrained by this obligation, though other employees such as actors maybe should not.
Agreed – don’t like him, don’t agree with him but he should have a right to free speech. Yet I wonder if there would be the same furore if he’d asked for the Palestinian footy team to be banned….
FYI – Lineker is not alone. DiEM25.org has set up a petition to suspend Israeli competitors from all sports until their apartheid regime is ended, citing South Africa as precedent. Intl Ice Hockey Fed has suspended the Israeli team for security concerns ‘until the safety of all can be guaranteed’. Demonstrations currently ongoing in Indonesia requesting the withdrawal of Israel from the FIFA U21 world cup later this year.
“‘He fondled her jelly babies and she rubbed his tic tacs’”
Is going to hell? No, deserves a knighthood, except we all know they are meaningless baubles.
Is he referring to one of his brothers?
“For most crops the saturation point will be reached at about 1,000–1,300 ppm under ideal circumstances.”
atm the current world saturation point of co2 is 0.04 % or 400ppm!
Far from ideal
At 0.02% or 200ppm plants begin to die! This is a scientific provable fact!
The current global target is to halve co2 in the atmosphere, ergo, mankind’s goal is to attain an extinction level event !
van Wijngaarden and Happer show conclusively that doubling CO2 to 800 ppm will add only 1% to IR absorption, negligible.
https://co2coalition.org/publications/van-wijngaarden-and-happer-radiative-transfer-paper-for-five-greenhouse-gases-explained/
Be a pity if ‘they’ overshoot whilst aiming for 200 ppm, the few survivors will be wholly dependent on CO2 saturated greenhouses, ironic eh?
I wasn’t aware of the target of 200 ppm – can you remember where you saw that?
Not a specific statment although I heard it bantered about Liberaly at the likes of davos to halve climate emission! I would take it they meant co2 as that is the evil poison that will end the world
In
we find:
We used to call this ‘old age’. As we (mankind) delay death longer and longer I believe we can expect more of this.
Here we can see how the average age at death (excluding under 1s) in England and Wales has increased since 1841. We can see the impact of the first and second world wars on the male population and the 1918 ‘flu on both male and female populations. See that little blip at 2021? Well that’s either Covid-19 or something else. Contrast that with 2020 when there wasn’t anything except Covid. Note that average age at death is not the same as life expectancy – but it is related. Source: https://mortality.org.
Unfortunately living longer is not unalloyed good news.
Here we see the increasing likelihood that people will die of dementia the longer they live. Yes, if you live to 90+ the risk of ‘dementia‘ eventually being your diagnosed cause of death is 15-25%. Source: https://nomisweb.co.uk
Of course, diagnosed cause of death is ‘just’ a doctor’s opinion. Here we see the changes in dementia as the diagnosed cause as different things became fashionable. Source: https://nomisweb.co.uk