by David Crowe
Sweden has been a political football in the argument over whether lockdowns work. Lockdown enthusiasts point to the higher death rate than in other Scandinavian countries while skeptics point out that the rate is lower than Italy, Spain and the UK. But the more important question is why the death rate is in the middle. The answer is because Sweden actually did lock down, in the most important way.
Before I defend this counter-intuitive position it is important to note that the term “COVID-19 lockdown” is not well defined. In several countries people were confined to their homes, but in other places, such as in my province of Alberta, Canada, people could go out, although they would find that all restaurants, bars, playgrounds, concert halls, swimming pools and shopping malls were closed. In reality every country’s lockdown (and in places like the United States and Canada, every state, province and even city) was different. In Alberta, Canada, when hair salons were opened, massages were still banned, but in Ontario, hair salons were banned but massages were allowed.
Sweden only chose two dishes from the lockdown menu: banning large group events and visitors to hospitals and nursing homes.1
If we were God, we could assign two values to every item on the lengthy lockdown menu: the number of lives saved from death by SARS-CoV-2, and the number of deaths caused by that aspect of the lockdown. Of course we are not God, but there is evidence that the combined effect of whatever menu items were chosen has killed lots of people. For example, calls to suicide help lines and actual suicides are up. In Canada, opioid overdoses have been rising during the COVID-19 panic. Psychological distress among US adults has dramatically increased. We can guess that deaths from alcoholism, mental breakdowns, and domestic violence will also rise, although in many cases it will not be until next year that we have the statistics to prove this.
I am not the only person who believes that the intensity of the demonstrations, looting and rioting in the United States comes from keeping young people cooped up at home, taking away the socialization and stimulation that they get at school, at their part time jobs, at soccer practices, shooting hoops or just hanging out at the beach, park or shopping mall. Now that the murder of George Floyd by four white policemen has blown the lid off the pressure cooker it will take a long time for the pent-up energy to dissipate. But this is just a belief, nobody can prove that the anger and sometimes violence is partly due to the lockdown and not entirely due to the too frequent occurrence of abuse and killing of black men by police officers in the United States.
But, back to the issue of assigning relative numbers to the menu items. Readers of this article are likely not in the target zone for death by COVID-19. The majority are probably younger than 70, and those who are older are probably not suffering from multiple, serious pre-existing, health conditions. Naturally, you will see the effect of the lockdown on yourself most intensely, and may ignore the parts that do not affect you. During times and places where home confinement was mandated you couldn’t go out, you couldn’t visit relatives, you couldn’t go for a coffee with a friend, you couldn’t exercise, you couldn’t go for a drive, you might have had to try to juggle online work with online education of your children. You probably didn’t think about the people in nursing homes who were cocooned (to use a phrase recently employed on lockdownskeptics.org), out of sight, out of mind. If anything, you thought that perhaps their isolation had occurred too late, that the practice was protective, and if you had criticisms it might have been of events like the New York governor sending patients from hospitals to nursing homes where they could spread the virus, or that the banning of visitors occurred too late.
Each of our imagined relative numbers for the deaths from each lockdown menu item is the product of two factors: the likelihood of killing one person, and the number of people affected. Given that in many countries it is mostly old people in nursing homes or hospitals who are dying, we need to ask what aspects of the lockdown are most likely to harm these people. They are not affected by restaurants being closed, or playgrounds, or swimming pools, because they cannot use these facilities. But is the effect of their isolation in nursing homes (or hospital wards) purely benign, and protective from COVID-19? Are there any dangers?
I postulate that, in fact, the largest relative number for lockdown harms should be assigned to the dangers of banning visitors from nursing homes and hospitals, and the removal of almost all social contact from these frail old people. This may be the most dangerous aspect of the lockdown due to the severe impact on the elderly people housed there, and due to the large number of people affected (the largest portion of the population with deaths blamed on SARS-CoV-2). On this basis, Sweden, having banned visitors to nursing homes and hospitals like virtually every other European country, has a lockdown that is similar in negative affects to other western countries, hence the similar mortality rate.
Nursing Homes Under Lockdown
What is going on in nursing homes? Unless you work in one you are banned from entering, so it is difficult to know, but one can hypothesize a list of effects of the banning of visitors and the further isolation of residents within the nursing homes:
- Workers will be scared to death of being infected by their patients and therefore will keep contact to a minimum.
- Some workers will quit resulting in others being overworked.
- Other workers will test positive by the flawed COVID-19 RNA test and will be quarantined instead of working, for up to two weeks.
- The role that visitors play in ensuring that their loved ones are not neglected, not treated in unsanitary ways, and not abused will be removed.
- The assistance that visitors give the staff, in feeding their loved ones, helping them dress, and so on, will be gone.
- Any resident who is suspected of being infected will be confined to their room.
- Eating together will be banned.
- All social events will be cancelled.
- All outings will be cancelled.
- All non-essential health services, such as physiotherapy or exercise classes will be cancelled.
That there were horrors that were mostly hidden was actually known quite early, when in late March the Spanish army found abandoned people and dead bodies in nursing homes that they entered, because the staff had fled, out of fear.
More recently, we have more details on the nightmare within the nursing home walls, thanks to the Canadian Military. Soldiers were asked to go and assist in five of the most problematic nursing homes in Ontario, Canada, by the government, and what they saw shocked them so much that they wrote a detailed report to their superiors, which was released to the public, and needs to be read by everyone.
Awful treatment, that can easily be seen as leading to death, includes the following (read the entire report to be even more shocked):
- Unsanitary practices with parenteral (tube) feeding including liquid food that has curdled.
- Unsanitary catheter practices, and leaving them in too long (3 weeks in one patient).
- Fear of using supplies in a cost-conscious private facility.
- Wound changes that do not preserve sterility.
- Lack of wound care supplies, and consequent delayed changing of bandages.
- No mouth or eye care supplies.
- Poorly trained staff.
- Lack of staff (1 RN for 200 residents in one case).
- Patients sedated just because they are anxious, sad or depressed.
- Aggressive and rough treatment by staff.
- Forceful feeding and hydration leading to choking and aspiration.
- Leaving food in the mouth of a sleeping patient.
- Insufficient turning of patients in bed to prevent bed sores.
- Patients left in soiled diapers.
- Putting diapers on patients instead of letting them go to the toilet.
- Patients crying for hours without getting attention.
- Not putting patients in wheelchairs but leaving them in bed continuously.
- Taking mobility aids away from patients so they don’t wander.
- Cockroaches and flies.
- Trays stacked with rotten food.
- Lack of feeding and hydration.
- No way to receive personal supplies from outside, such as magazines, snacks, shampoo, and soap.
These horrifying practices of abuse and neglect need to be added to the intended neglect, the removal of virtually all sources of stimulation.
We could compare what is left for these unfortunates to the “Joy of Life” standards for nursing homes in Norway. They define five dimensions that they believe contribute to a nursing home that provides the best possible care:
- Positive relations: Relations with caring and loving family members and friends. Being cared for by a positive healthcare staff.
- Belongingness: The need of belonging to someone and the necessity of having someone to belong [to]. The need [to] love and care for someone and [to] be loved and cared for.
- Sources of meaning: Participating and engaging in daily activities, being valuable to others and [capable] of helping others. Make their own decisions in daily life.
- Moments of feeling well: Experience small glimpses of the world outside. Attend social and cultural activities like concerts, theatre, visit a restaurant and being out in the natural environment. Having visitors.
- Acceptance: Being able [to accept] one’s life the way it is. Adapting and accepting one’s life situation.
Although standard nursing homes have probably never provided all of these aspects, at least not very well, the lockdown of old people, the banning of visitors, the panicked and overworked staff, has resulted in a complete and absolute removal of anything that could contribute to the “Joy of Life”. Did anyone ask even a single resident whether they would like to take their chance on the virus and continue to live life as normal?
The Canadian Forces report briefly mentioned sedation, but Spanish medical documents indicate that this is the solution when hospitals don’t want nursing home patients which, in Spain, is all the time right now. SECPAL, a Spanish palliative care society, writes (my translation):
In patients with COVID + a poor prognosis, and poor control of symptoms, who are not candidates for treatment in an ICU it could indicate that palliative sedation is necessary when the ordinary treatment is insufficient, and symptoms cannot be controlled.
Palliative sedation is performed with Midazolam, a benzodiazepine medication, that has a side effect of suppressing efforts to breathe. If the maximum dose of Midazolam is reached, then Levomepromazine should be used instead, a neuroleptic drug. Some of its side effects include on blood pressure and the heart.
It is important to understand that these patients may have health conditions that could be treated, and that untreated may cause pain. Sedation will not make the cause of the pain go away, but as the pain increases the patient will be pushed closer and closer to a coma.
Finally, the SECPAL recommendations suggest the removal of various types of medication, but also hydration. Lack of hydration will lead to death.
Little is known about the specific situation in Sweden, but according to a BBC report, workers are coming forward to state that transfer of residents to hospitals is discouraged, and that nursing home staff are not allowed to administer oxygen without the approval of a doctor.
Conclusions
I believe that the isolation of patients in nursing homes has not prevented deaths, but has caused deaths. Elderly, infirm people have nothing to live for any more, and poor care and abuse can no longer be observed, and stopped, by visiting friends and relatives. Underpaid staff, those who have not quit or been put in quarantine, are even more overworked than normal, resulting in poor care, frustration and abuse. Hospitals do not want nursing home patients, and the recommended alternative for the nursing home is to sedate and, if that doesn’t work, sedate some more.
Sweden, like virtually every other country, imposed an absolute ban on nursing home visitors. If this is the most destructive part of the lockdown then it is fair to say that Sweden did actually lock down when they banned visitors to nursing homes on March 31st, and this explains why its death rate is in the middle of the pack. We will never know if Sweden would have had a far lower death rate if the doors of their nursing homes had been left open to the outside world.
David Crowe is a Canadian independent researcher of infectious disease models and the host of a weekly radio show in Canada called The Infectious Myth.
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Why does a “Conservative” government keep stealing from us?
The list goes on.
Because they are not Conservative – they are Tories.
Are the Liberal Democrats Whigs? Is that new party calling itself Whigs true to that tradition for that matter?
(And are the Labour party chartists? In fact, is any party actually what it claims to be these days?).
It doesn’t stop people labelling them as conservatives though.
Can I label them as the “not the conservative party” (I’ll be in good company…)?
What I find more amusing is how Rishi’s tax raids will trigger a recession, but the Bank of England’s nterest raids via increased mortgage and rent payments won’t.
We have inflation. There is too much money, and not enough stuff. Tax is a very direct and honest way of getting rid of too much money.
Rather than the dishonest way of taking it via artificially increased mortgage interest payments and rent – and using the banking system as proxy for doing so.
Raising taxes will do nothing to stop energy cost inflation.
Tax is dishonest. Taking of money without any form of service rendered.
Oh dear, “riots” is a politically charged term. I believe it is more correct these days to refer to them as “mostly peaceful protests.”
As opposed to anti-lockdown/anti-“vaccine” mandate protests!
An interesting question about guns though. I still feel I would prefer not to have a routinely armed police force (and I think of a certain Brazilian). On the other hand, I remember a story from an “American” city where gun ownership rules were relaxed. The gun control predicted a bloodbath, but in fact, the rate of various crimes (including crimes against women) dropped. And in the UK a century or so ago, plenty of people carried guns, but we had a remarkably peaceful society.
I understand that, so far as crime is concerned, the introduction of criminal practices from the Caribbean into the UK (and yes, I recognise the problems they’ve had over there) was a bit of a gamechanger. How to get the right balance though, with the way things are now, I do not know. I heard that at the time of the general strike, Britain was one shot away from revolution. But perhaps now, our overlords feel they can act with impunity, knowing that there is not the slightest chance of a revolution. This removal of basic human rights of recent years is surely beyond a joke now.
Well, I won’t comment on gun control here. I’m an American and I’m in the firearms business, a former gun rights advocate (“former,” because American gun rights advocates are their own worst enemies) with (at current count) 168 firearms. So I can hardly pretend to a hint of objectivity.
Still, it is amusing that with all those guns, I still haven’t managed to kill anyone yet, or even hurt anybody.
Funnily enough, I’ve managed not to run anyone down in quite a number of years of driving.
I suspect it is behaviour, and criminals that are the problem rather than tools.
And thank God Americans have guns, because if they had been taken away, the US would have descended into anarchy years ago. We need guns here, too. I have an air pistol, but I can’t see that being of much use in a tricky situation.
BTW, he couldn’t have been talking about those when he mentioned “riots” and murders, because no one ever gets hurt at anti-lockdown/anti-vaccine mandate protests.
Unless security forces hurt peaceful protesters…
Sometimes a bar of soap may be more of a deterrent than a truncheon ??!!
The problem, it seems to me, is the people who carry them, rather than the guns themselves… and to that end, the problem people seem to have little trouble getting hold of them and are regularly mostly only shooting each other.
Redressing the balance might not be an entirely good thing, I suppose, but I’d sleep a little more easily. The last thing you really need is guns only in the hands of bad people when the proverbial hits the fan, I’d think?
“But perhaps now, our overlords feel they can act with impunity, knowing that there is not the slightest chance of a revolution.”
We have seen the amount of ‘pushback’ during the past 2 years and 3 months. Apparently the ‘resistance’ has been a roaring success as the nurses in the UK haven’t been sacked. Yet. They may gradually be replaced by cheaper imported foreign labour who are more willing to be jabbed.
There seems to be little to no reporting on how many people in the EU have had the latest jab/been ‘fully jabbed’ and using the EU Vaxx Pass for travel. Where does one even get the real figures from when nobody really knows, the official versions are lies, and anti-vaxxers have a tendency to make things up.
Fact: after the latest jab, the EU Vaxx Pass is valid for 270 days – you either get another jab to keep it valid, or you let it expire.
That reminds me, the ITV “vaccine” tracker had not been updated since March, last I looked. Anyone know how many people (in the UK) are taking the “covid ‘vaccine’ ” these days?
How can anyone know? People on this site just go to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which is controlled by the Government which can hardly be trusted (run by a Prime Minister who has a worldwide reputation for being a liar).
I wonder if anyone really has a clue – there were reports of just being able to nip into any old pop-up vaccine tent and get jabbed without having to show your ID.
My yardstick is the EU Vaxx Pass… now extended until June 2023. I bet people are using this for travel – much easier than having to arrange and pay for ‘tests’ (and if you get a ‘positive’ that will put a stop to your travel plans!). Much easier to take a jab. I would imagine the border guards/border control have a fairly good idea as to how many people passing through are showing a Vaxx Pass or test results.
All in know is that we are now upto jab number 5
Please stop repeating this falsehood. It does not expire after 270 days from the first ‘booster’ jab, there is no expiry date. It doesn’t help criticising dreadful impositions when you leace yourself open to easy denial.
Levels of homicide, violent crime and gun crime correlate very closely with race in the USA.
I won’t spoil it by saying which race is by far and away the leader in that particular competion, I’ll let the suspense hang.
I might hazard a guess though. The race that was singled out (seemingly) to have abortion “clinics” close to poor members of its community in that colony. The race that had its women treated as harem in the Caribbean and the fruit of those coerced unions treated as slaves. The race that was transported in horrific conditions from their native land (after being sold by their enemies). There is no peace without justice. And that is why free speech is so vitally important – so we can all know other people’s point of view to at least give ourselves a chance of working towards justice.
“This was clearly a reference to a special subsidy arrangement for the mainstream press that began in April 2020 and was called ‘All In, All Together’. Budgeted at £35 million for the first three months it still appears to be operating two years later – the Guardian published a story under its banner in March 2022 – but the Government and the industry have repeatedly rebuffed Byline Times’ questions on how much has been spent in total.
We do know, however, that it was conceived after intense lobbying in the first weeks of the pandemic by the club of newspapers known as the News Media Association (NMA) and there is little doubt that the chief beneficiaries were the big, wealthy news providers: the Mail group, the Murdoch group, the Telegraph group and the Mirror group.” (Byline Times).
Ah. So that’s why we’ve had some rather strange behaviour from the msm newspapers (including Times muppets, who apparently refuse to print any story about big pharma corruption with regards to the “Covid ‘vaccine’ ” ).
I don’t know about the UK, but in the US apparently Big Pharma spends more on advertising than any other industry, and is therefore the number one supporter of commercial corporate media.
You don’t need a government propaganda bureau with that kind of money sloshing around.
On my very first visit to New York, shortly before 9-11, I was amazed at the number of tv ads that were for prescription medication. It seemed every other ad was for some new painkiller or shits stopper. By the way – I was very constipated recently so my doctor prescribed a suppository. For all the good it did, I may as well have shoved it up my arse.
https://strangesounds.org/2022/05/may-22-the-who-plans-to-strip-194-nations-and-the-us-of-sovereignty.html
Yay, no more sovereignty! Good night democracy (well maybe not the German Democratic Republic sort).
So the party that was elected to “get ‘Brexit’ done” is agreeing to something that could potentially see us losing sovereignty on the most basic human rights? Talk about a coup d’etat…
Strange Sounds – the website that promotes the ‘Solar Flare and EMP Shield’ (foil blanket?).
“The enormous online apocalypse/conspiracy community has been all a-flutter lately due to the glut of “strange sounds” or “weird noises” videos being uploaded in recent weeks.”
“I’m sure you’ve seen them. Most of them go like this:
1) Someone with a camera takes it outdoors, panning it wildly across the skies above.
2) Weird, monstrous clanking noises are heard. Or deep trumpet noises. Or something.
3) The videographer makes sounds of breathless, whispery panic. Or wonders, aloud, about the strange noises.
4) No explanations are given.
Are we hearing the metallic grinding of invisible alien spaceships? Or some kind of ultra low-frequency electromagnetic noise resulting from solar activity? Is it the groaning of the Earth’s crust about to shift in the kind of tectonic apocalypse event the ancient Mayans were trying to warn us about?”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/are-the-strange-sounds-vi_b_1258049
Anything to do with crop circles?
Btw, we were supposed to discover “the aliens” in the twenty tens ((Sir Patrick Moore said so). And then the first year (or two) of the twenty twenties. Yet still nothing. Just a little further… (or until NASA gets fed up of pushing it…).
Mark Steyn was discussing this power grab last night.
It may be a stupid question, but can someone tell me what NATO actually stands for (if anything)?
can someone tell me what NATO actually stands for (if anything)?
That could start an avalanche! If we’re just looking at the acronym, I wouldn’t mind “Not Accountables Trading Organization”.
The Organization is something of an object lesson on what harms can be done by institutions which have outlived their usefulness, but continue to offer positions of power and importance for the greedy and the ambitious. Missions are manufactured.
Actually, there are innumerable such object lessons. We just don’t seem to learn from them.
Ask the Swedes and the Finns. Oh, and Putin.
Perhaps, if the Russians hadn’t invaded their neighbours, because Nazis, and made regular incursions into Swedish and Finnish airspace, both countries might have a different, more relaxed point of view about their self-defense?
I note too that both countries are lead by women, who have a rather more nuanced view of troops using rape as a weapon of war…
Yes, the Libyans used Viagra to rape the women defenders of democracy! At least, that is what Susan Rice claimed. Seems like good old bloodlust wasn’t enough.
Or maybe the fact is that women don’t understand things like war and security,. or matters like treaties. Joining NATO would be a breach of the 1947 Treaty of Paris which brought peace between Finland and the Soviet Union.
Or maybe wimmin just don’t get the idea that the temperature within the heart of a thermonuclear bomb is incompatible with life or feminism or taking bribes off the Military-Industrial Complex.
Ooh, imagine if Germany had had a woman as leader (or empress or whatever) instead of an Austrian gentlemen. (If women could even stand for “empress” then…).
The Little Austrian rejoiced upon the death of FDR because he thought his Reich was going to be saved (as happened to Frederick the Great when the Empress of Russia had died in 1762).
But I can’t help but recall the words of Tam Dalyell MP when Blair’s Babes voted to kill a million Iraqis – “these b””””” women are more bloodthirsty than any men I’ve ever encountered.”
And both are graduates of the WEF Young Leaders indoctrination.
Didn’t Finland sign a declaration of peace with Russia after the war? By joining Nato they would break this agreement giving Russia the right to attack.
Yes someone did mention that…
I doubt it was the BBC but why let the facts get in the way. Actually, that should be the BBC’s new slogan
The WEF alumni in the Finnish political class will have no loyalty to any peace treaty.
Joining NATO would be a breach of the 1947 Treaty of Paris which brought peace between Finland and the Soviet Union.
I don’t think there was anything in the treaty committing Finland to not joining any mutual security organisation – there certainly wasn’t a commitment not to join NATO as NATO did not exist at the time.
NATO stands for nothing. They just sit and make plans on how to fuck up international relations.
Yes, and ban musical chairs and conkers too…
I’m sorry, but tiny special interest groups (and not least the WEF) really do need to be stopped from dictating how we live our lives.
I have, in sequence, been confused, concerned, and angry about wokism. Now I just want to laugh my head off. Maybe that’s the answer to all of this pathetic lunacy. Confront it with laughter.
Not sure that’ll be enough.
I’m pretty sure that a lot of folks, when confronted by woke-ism, just dont have any tools to counter it. So they stay silent. I think that when you have understood all the nonsense that is being put forward as the Gospel of Woke and Social Justice, and you have some strategies to counter it, then it is really empowering.
It has been my impression for years that some people have for years wanted to ban the likes of the late, great Christopher Booker from writing freely on issues of concern to them, and I worry that they may now get their chance.
A non-exhaustive list of subjects that we must continue to be allowed to comment freely on:
As I say, I trust we know what to do if they come for forums like this one.
Dead right it is, and woe betide the person (sorry, peroffspring) who calls me a giraffe, or beardy, or…
Honestly sometimes I do feel like I’m in one of those French absurdist films (though to be fair they were never quite this absurd).
How are people so precious going to fight or even stand up for anything?
As for “absurdist films”, I fear we might be seeing the end of satire. How do you satirise our “new normal”? I now see that Kafka was a prophet and Monty Python’s Life of Brian was a prophecy.
P.S. I should point out Hugh, for your own good, that “offspring” might be deemed offensive to other seasons (or those who identify as such), not to mention being an appalling insult to those who regard themselves as “ons”. Please try to be more careful in future.
Personally I’ve always identified as Spring, though some might call me Winter (of our discontent)…
And at the risk of being even more controversial, good morning to you, AE (or perhaps I should say good evening for those who don’t “identify” as Greenwich Mean Time…). It is reassuring to know that at least some parts of Australia are being more sensible than nut job “Saint” Jacinda. By the way, is nut job (and WEF stooge) Jacinda still being a nut job?
I suspected as much. I identify as “on”, except for the days when I’m decidedly “off”.
And my pronouns are “thee” and “thou”. So there!
Thank thee. Eye shalt remember.
Sorry Hugh – I was so pre-occupied with your identification that I forgot to return your greeting (though I know that if I were a proper person I would ignore such frivolous wickedness on your part).
Good morning to you – from good afternoon Australia.
Down here we like to tease Kiwis. We make remarks about their relationship with sheep; they make remarks about whatever in an accent that is just plain WRONG. We speak English perfectly, as you know.
But on the score of lunacy, we are equals. Dan Andrews is every bit as much of a nut job as Saint Jacinda, and I won’t stand for anyone not giving him credit where credit is due.
To explain how we speak correctly, and Kiwis just don’t:
Touring in New Zealand | Michael McIntyre: SHOWMAN | Netflix – YouTube
Oz speak correctly and NZ don’t? Now there’s a revelation to us Brits!
We’d better not get onto the different accents in County Durham, or Lancashire, or we’ll confuse everyone…
Oz speak correctly and NZ don’t?
Absolutely so. Well-known scientific fact. Some South Australians claim that they are correcter than the rest of us (there are a few regional variations).
“Correcter”? Curiouser and curiouser (Local Cheshire saying. Probably…)!
That was a tribute to you know whom. South Australians (I am not one, but the estimable Phil Shannon is) never make speech errors of any description,
Ha! I think the movement may have beaten you to it? I’m pretty sure, many years ago when all this stuff was in its infancy, and we used to call it ‘political correctness gone mad’, one of the first targets was words like ‘offspring’ because they would be offensive to those who could not have children…
You’re right! I’d forgotten (I’m not sure that I should thank you for reminding me). It was a baffling point then and it still baffles me.
I do understand those who find the word “barren” offensive, on the other hand. There was a great to-do when an Australian politician attacked Julia Gillard (Australia’s first and to-date only female Prime Minister) as a “deliberately barren” woman.
That was intended to offend, but Gillard (who at her best was good with words) joked about her childlessness; saying that every now and then a passing mum in a car would roll down the window and call out, “You can have mine!”
I heard of “huperoffspringkind”. There’s also the city of “Personchester”, though really it should be “Peroffspringchester” (or “Peroffseasonchester”?).
“We seem to think along the same lines most of the time. Predictable as we both infest this blog with our opinions.
What irritates me though, is that you descend to verbose, pseudo intellectual nonsense when you have some good points to make, which just get lost.
Just say what you mean.”
Forgive me, RS, but from the above, it would seem to me that you take a similarly dismissive approach to philosophy as (hardline Darwinist) Richard Dawkins. Personally, I am not a Darwinist, and must take a different approach. Not all knowledge, I hold, can come from weighing and measuring things. We have to have a (necessarily subjective) way for defining right and wrong. Anyway, if you have any specific points I ought to consider on this, or wish to expand further on “pseudo intellectual nonsense” (I must admit – and apparently I’m not alone – I’m not entirely sure what you mean), I will endeavour to take them on board.
And I will add that I welcome your posts. I am all for free speech and vigorous debate on the issues that matter, and you have certainly made many good points (and, I don’t doubt, made a great contribution to society as a ‘proper’ policeman of the sort we would all like to see).
Eh?!
Confirmation that you are operating in an entirely different dimension to the rest of humankind.
I posted the comment you quote some days ago, on an entirely unassociated thread, then some six hours before I turned up here you post your response?
WTF? I know there was a discussion about Dr. Who the other day but I didn’t actually expect him to turn up.
Calling men bald is sex harassment, says panel of bald judges.
Is this something our ass of a legal system should be even considering? It makes me want to go out and find a bald copper to remark upon his appearance.
Just make sure you dont misgender them or you will get filled in.
Best to steer clear of the ones covered in rainbow badges they are particularly bitchy.
I’m a bald ex copper. Any use?
Being a hard climate sceptic, I grudgingly accept that Bjorn Lomberg makes a lot of very good points about Climate Change. I’m just curious about which subject we are going to drop to find time for a GCSE in Climate Change, and, as an employer, whether that is going to have any impact on the CV’s of young people. I suppose it all depends on whether we get a realistic and honest version of Climate Change or the ‘end of days’ nonsense.
‘I suppose it all depends on whether we get a realistic and honest version of Climate Change or the ‘end of days’ nonsense.’
I think we all know the answer to that already.
in my day it used to be called physical geography.
Lomberg is not, as described, a climate scientist.
Yeah, I know. Political Science is where his credentials are. He has done a lot of work in environmentals and seems to be relatively untouched by climate lunacy. Jordon Peterson says that Lomberg is the only ‘climatologist’ worth listen to, as he gets beyond the hysteria to more solid data and reasonable and justifiable approach. I’ve seen a few interviews with him, with Peterson and Triggernometry, and Rogan, and he appears to at least make an attempt at justifying the claims and the approach he is advocating. I’m still sceptical, but i’ll give him a hearing. Most other ‘Climate scientists’ are just hysterical charlatans.
Deathly Silence: Green Groups Complicit in Wind Industry’s Endangered Eagle Slaughter
https://stopthesethings.com/2022/05/12/deathly-silence-green-groups-complicit-in-wind-industrys-endangered-eagle-slaughter/
stopthesethings
Tuesday May 17th 5.30pm to 6.30pm
Yellow Boards
A322 Bagshot Rd
(by Bracknell Leisure Centre)
Bracknell RG12 9SE
Stand in the Park Sundays from 10am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens
Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
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Complicit in the “covid ‘vaccines’ ” as well aren’t they? The challenge these days is finding people who aren’t traitors.
Successive governments decided to massively increase the population via relentless mass immigration at a time when the indigenous population is aging.
Simultaneously they were failing to increase the number of medical staff in the NHS system to match the increased demands that must follow these trends, is it not the case that the government must intend for the NHS to collapse as this is the only possible outcome from implementing these policies?
And that was before the lockdown disaster was thrust upon us all.
If the government were being sensible, the government would have linked immigration to the number of homes built, improvement in infrastructure etc. (much as Gordon Brown, in one of his more sensible moments, linked membership of the Euro currency to his five tests). Sadly, it seems that it has been several decades at least since governments were anything approaching sensible.
Tesco to open offices in its supermarkets
Not really working from home unless you already live in the building. I suggest the desk worker be placed in the fresh fruit and vegetable isle (I use the word ‘fresh’ in the loosest possible sense of the word). I’m sure the shareholders will be delighted. Another suggestion is they just get out of food retail completely.
Ah, reminds me of when you could get an exotic spider in Tesco with your veg. To be honest, I’ll be glad so long as they are still selling food with the way things are (even if they are “vaccine” zealot villains).
‘What the new GCSE in global warming should teach’
I can’t imagine if this GCSE will adopt a hyper alarmist position or one that actually takes into consideration the real world data (not the adjusted stuff the actual real data).
Next term I expect we will be hearing about the all new transgender GCSE, the homosexuality A level and of course the B TEC in mass immigration.
I wonder if these will be the only subjects available for study at Klaus Schwab’s all new academy trust schools?
Naturally they will use articles by the late, great Christopher Booker, Christopher Monckton, the wattsupwiththat website. Or maybe not…
Not a lot of people know that……..
NHS waiting list spikes to another record high of 6.4 million
I’m in a closing down everything mood today. My suggestion is they close down, problem solved.
Forget back to the office, now civil servants want the right to work from abroad
Close down!
They are taking the Michael. These well paid and comfortably job secure people need to be shown the door.
I read a comment on TCW the other day from someone whose doctor is doing zoom appointments from her holiday home in France. Talk about taking the piss.
British troops ‘ready to go and fight’ against Russia, says head of commando unit
Confine them all to quarters before they start a third world war!
Or maybe just confine them before they get killed in a war for the right to be a trannie. Some things are worth dying for – although the supine compliance of the public these last two years would suggest not – but this is not one of them.
These guys have seen way too many movies. What his words really say is: “I’m ready to send these guys to their deaths for a cause that is not ours because our politicians are playing big games with each other.”
The true casualties will be the widows and orphans left behind and the truth that has yet to be exposed.
British troops ‘ready to go and
fight’ be slaughtered against Russia, says head of commando unitthere, fixed it for you.
That article does not give the full story:
The gas field has a history to minor earthquakes and damage to properties.
WIKI in English
The residence was promised that production would stop this year.
News in English
The latest one was blamed on the settling of the land which is a natural occurrence after the they stopped extracting gas. It seems “they” lie no matter which land they come from.
Link to that in Dutch.
Link in Dutch about the greater extraction amounts dated from Jan 2022
What’s happened to the morning greetings? Have I missed something?
Good morning everyone
Morning Myrtle!
Good morning!
Actually, we did do one further up…
Good morning, Hugh! I saw you said an hello but it’s not quite like the old days, is it?
Btw, you’re on top form today!
Strewth, I simply can’t help myself with some of the stuff that’s going on…
Not nearly enough downticks for the friendly greetings, either!
We’re a bit late and maybe they can’t risk exposure to sunlight?
Sunlight? Lucky you!
Good morning BTW.
Morning!
Good morning to all of you from evening downunder.
So far no downticks to you for being so bloody friendly, but the prowlers should arrive sooner or later.
It had to be done.
Is the new Climate Change GCSE optional or compulsory?
If the former it presents a great opportunity for employers.
Simply bin the CV of any job applicant who has taken it. In one simple swoop you can filter out a vast swathe of credulous, brain washed and potentially grating employees.
Whoever wrote the intro above to the GCSE nonsense can’t even get it right. Lomberg is not a Climate Scientist.
“Lomborg was an undergraduate at the University of Georgia, earned an M.A. degree in political science at the University of Aarhus in 1991, and a PhD degree in political science at the University of Copenhagen in 1994” (Wikipedia, my emphasis).
He is very good at statistics though, and approaches the subject from that perspective.
Great idea. It can be justified by saying that it cancels out any physics, maths, statistics or geography GCSEs.
“Is Klaus Schwab the greatest threat of our time?” –”Just another typical smooth-talking, smarmy Davos Man,” says Taki in the Speccie, but one with some dangerous ideas.
Probably a tie between him and Bill Gates. Of the two, my money’s on the latter, as he can buy anything – and anyone – that he wants.
I still think Fauci should be in prison if he is funding dangerous gain of function research in China…
Schwab is a con man operating the Ponzi scheme to end all Ponzi schemes and suckering in multi billionaires with the prospect that each of them will rule the world.
Like Putin, Xi and Modi will take orders from that lightweight.
Would a queue of 6.4 million at an A&E be noticeable?
Back in late April I emailed Transport for London asking why, a couple of months after even Sadiq Khan dropped his mask mandate, all TFL trams still had posters stating ‘You MUST wear a face mask unless you are exempt’.and were plastered with Keep Your Distance signs. The answer was,
We are aware that there is no requirement to social distance and there is no longer enforcement of the use of face covering by means of fines. However, there is still the Mayoral advice that customers are strongly recommended to continue to use a face covering.
Nevertheless, we are gradually removing the notices but as some of these are vinyls on glass, we can not just pull them off as this will damage the anti-vandalism film. Please be assured that these notices will be removed, although it is taking longer than we would have liked but we only have limited resources.
If masks were brought back tomorrow, I wonder if it would take TFL a few months to put their mask signs back up? Or would they appear the very next day?
Where has he been for the last 8 years whilst Ukrainians cleansed 14,000 ethnic Russians in Donbass?
Two very good articles in Spectator today; Parris and Darwall, both included in the rouind up above.
Hopefully signs of change as people more willing to criticise both the covid debacle and net zero.
I know that this is somewhat late but looking at the front pages of 2 of the leading national newspapers the other day, one had got a picture of a 73 year old man opening parliament with a caption saying words along the lines of “Mummy would be proud” and the other with a picture of 2 wannabe nonentities who are arguing about “God knows what” in court.
Is the infantilisation of the whole country almost complete yet?
One item that this site might usefully cover is the end of the “cryptocurrency” scam.
Angles include the following.