News Round-Up

A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ‘climate emergency’, public health ‘crises’ and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.

6 min read

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This week across the site:

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34 Comments
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Insurrectionist
Insurrectionist
1 year ago

So it’s Remembrance Day, Starmer et al walking down the Cenotaph, wreath in hand, saddened, pensive and sturn looking….
All while they support global conflict and mass murder (notice how I didn’t use the term Genocide, didn’t want to distract you all)

I’ve never seen such level of hypocrisy.

soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago

What? Are you too young to remember Tony Blair?

john ball
john ball
1 year ago

Just before 10am this morning, my wife heard on LBC a professor from a London hospital (she did not get the details) explain that the cases of pancreatic cancer have soared since the jabs

EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
1 year ago

 “violent foreign offenders with previous convictions can slip through the cracks”

These are not cracks. They are known policy arrangements which 14 years of Tories and 4 months of Labour have failed to close.

Any illegal arrival (maybe legal stop) should have DNA taken. That uniquely identifies them and allows automatic identification of origin and an estimate of age.

For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
1 year ago

Mr stands for Mister, Mrs for Mistress. What does Mx stand for.

soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago

No Mx won’t stand for any of that sort of thing!

The old bat
The old bat
1 year ago

And how do you even pronounce it? Is it ‘mix’? ‘Oy, you’ seems a better alternative.

A. Contrarian
A. Contrarian
1 year ago

All mixed up, I assume.

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago

How low would EV prices need to go before anyone here bought one?

For me, I would assume resale value as zero so I would be thinking about the likely useful life of the thing before the battery needed to be replaced and other major components wore out, or I felt like getting a newer model – so I would be thinking about it as a rental agreement and comparing that to the depreciation on an ICE car.

On top of that I would be thinking about the range. Cars offer convenience, or should do. I guess I am well off enough to be happy to pay a premium for maximum range – perhaps others who are more price-sensitive would be happy to make that tradeoff at a different point to me.

I would probably avoid anyway on a point of principle, but leaving that aside I think you’d need to discount EVs to well below the price of an ICE car before many would consider them seriously. Maybe we will find out.

Mrs Bunty
Mrs Bunty
1 year ago

We purchased a hybrid (not plug-in we’re not that stupid) nothing to do with ‘Climate Change’ purely to save on petrol and it was a great car (Hyundai Tucson) which we intended to keep until it fell apart. Even before it was 3 years old, looking at how batteries weren’t improving price-wise and feeling like we were sitting on a battery timebomb etc, we exchanged it for an ICE car. Feel much happier.

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  Mrs Bunty

Interesting

Self charging hybrids have been around for a while and presumably are a little bit more of a proven technology

What I don’t know is whether the total cost of ownership is comparable to ICE cars taking into account fuel saved vs any additional upfront costs and possible battery replacement- what was your experience?

soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago

I find the concept of a hybrid efficiently converting the form of energy twice perplexing. First hydrocarbon fuel into electricity, and then to traction/velocity/momentum. I don’t understand how that can be efficient – but I must accept that people report high mileage from the things.

A concern would be the complexity of the thing; it’s got an IC engine and battery/electric motors; lots of things to go wrong or keep in a fine balance. Seems like it won’t be amenable to DIY maintenance when it’s 20 years old.

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  soundofreason

Those are all good points, though 1 million Uber drivers can’t be wrong?

dxb
dxb
1 year ago

It’s all about the mileage: Uber drivers do much more mileage than a domestic driver, so the fuel savings mount up much more quickly. I asked a driver in Lisbon, who had a Tesla, and the figures made a lot of sense – monthly savings were far higher than his payments.

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  dxb

Yes that makes sense

Mrs Bunty
Mrs Bunty
1 year ago
Reply to  dxb

Think it also depends on the charging situation. We had an Uber driver in a Tesla take us to the airport in Miami and he loved the car but there were chargers absolutely everywhere there at a reasonable cost. Although his wife was worried about the effect the battery was having on his body as it had killed the grass underneath where he had parked it at home 😁

JohnK
JohnK
1 year ago
Reply to  soundofreason

I don’t think many modern cars are amenable to DIY maintenance these days. Used to do it on older cars, a long time back. I’ve been running a Toyota hybrid since 2017 – on the second one now, before which I had a few Honda diesel engined ones.

Although the last Honda was the most efficient one I had, the T hybrid is almost as good. It’s setup to run the engine as efficiently as possible (emulating the Atkinson cycle), or not at all, and it uses regenerative braking as much as possible. The traction motor works both ways, as a 3-phase motor or alternator.

My last Honda had a huge operating range – almost 1000 miles between refill, at a pinch, as it had a huge tank under the front seats (50l). I usually ran about 800 between each occasion.

The mechanical side of the Toyota engine is actually simpler than the old Honda diesel. The latter one used turbo charging, along with exhaust gas recycling as well as catalytic treatment (to comply with emissions requirements), so plenty of things to go wrong as it wore out. There is a fair bit of modern high power electronics in the… Read more »

Mrs Bunty
Mrs Bunty
1 year ago

The cost of the Hyundai was comparable to ICE cars, although must admit it was much more high spec inclusive compared to other brands, we stayed with Hyundai for that reason. Fuel saved was impressive and insurance not much difference at the time but times are changing. Battery replacement was around the same price as a new car! Hyundai gave 10-year replacement warranty when we bought it but it had reduced to 8-years when we exchanged it. Was concerned too that the main battery could blow up beneath us in the event of a bump and it was a brick if it died and needed a low-loader to move. I suppose if we had kept it for near battery replacement time it wouldn’t have been worth tuppence, buy a new battery or dump it?

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  Mrs Bunty

People I know have them and they are decent value
So the car is basically an 8 year lease- might be worth something for scrap?

Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
1 year ago

Maybe they will actually charge for scrap, as there’s no market for recycling batteries?

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

The rest of the car might be worth a bit, especially the catalytic converter

soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago

A small runabout (electric shopping trolley) would be OK for me if I had anywhere to charge it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to bring it into a garage attached to the house. I’m leery about the batteries in my drill and jigsaw.

Totally agree about the resale value. Assume zero.

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  soundofreason

Our friend’s neighbour had an old milk float they kept – it was used to go to the local railway station for their daily commute.

soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago

Lead-acid batteries? Heavy.

About 50 years ago a friend crashed his car into one of those. His car was written off.

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

The environmental impact of EV’s is so bad that I would never consider one. My way of ‘saving the planet.’

Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Correct 👍👏

Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
1 year ago

Noam Chomsky ! Goodie ? Or Baddie ?

Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
1 year ago

The Amsterdam attacks were by ROPeacers not indigenous Dutch people but the Times headline doesn’t make that distinction .

Lockdown Sceptic
Lockdown Sceptic
1 year ago
Reply to  Freddy Boy

“ROPeacers” – that’s a good one.

Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
1 year ago

👍

Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
1 year ago

Hamas in Qatar , where the World Cup was held , Surely Not !

Lockdown Sceptic
Lockdown Sceptic
1 year ago

Inheritance Tax Will Kill Farms latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, your new MP, your local vicar, online media and friends online.  

Start a local campaign. We have over 200 leaflet ideas on the link on the leaflet.

05a-Inheritance-Tax-Will-Kill-Farms-MONOCHROME-copy
godknowsimgood
godknowsimgood
1 year ago

#BoycottBoots

Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
1 year ago
Reply to  godknowsimgood

Yes , what a mess !

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