Going Galt?

Matters proceed and the straws have shown which way the wind is blowing. Hard times are coming, with emptying supermarket shelves and urban shortages. There’s a financial crunch in the offing too, if my instincts do not deceive me. A big one. Time to cash out, which we’ve already done. Just awaiting contracts on the house.

For the moment the post election Canadian stock markets have settled into an uneasy stability. Which will be to our advantage. For Canadians it means the idiot Trudeau boy will still be governing by feat, but the markets seem to like that, but markets I find are fairly short sighted and don’t see the economic train wreck coming down the tracks.

Across Europe the shortage of truck drivers is starting to bite too as a lot of chickens come home to roost for the big logistics companies. Drivers are no longer content to put up with long times away from home for miserable remuneration. Not to mention the current Carbon Dioxide shortage hitting food processors and threat of power outages because of too much reliance on ‘renewables’.

Ten years ago, the UK Government, amongst others in a fit of Green fucknuttery, decided to go down the ‘decarbonisation’ route, based on the premise that man made emissions are altering the climate. A premise only supported by dodgy mathematical modelling. Rather like the COVID predictions. And how wrong have they been, eh?

Europe could have had steady decentralised power generated by small modular reactors and fracked gas, but no. The idiots then in power made decisions to placate a green minority lobby, thinking it would win them more votes. Now Bojo the Henpecked is doubling down because his missus is nagging him into it. For which everyone else will suffer.

For a balanced perspective, spend some time listening to this podcast.

Looking on the bright side, I think a ‘great reset’ is already underway, and it’s not the one envisaged by that idiot collectivist Schwab and his followers at the WEF. Now this is just me, but I think this is going to be a ‘reset’ like after the great medieval plagues, when wages went up and society changed with the expansion of the land owning Yeoman class and decline of serfdom. A sea change in the relationship between the ruling and ruled. Because the Internet has given the ruled a real voice, and the rulers don’t own all the tools of propaganda any more. Yes there will be some short term argy bargy in the meantime, but in the end, the ruling classes will have to wind their necks in. Similarly, their great green dream will come to a crashing halt. Ironically because the policies contained therein are ‘unsustainable’. Like wind turbines when the wind isn’t blowing, or solar panels at night.

The NHS, and all similar government ‘Health’ services may also collapse because they’re simply swallowing too taxpayer dollar. Even a blind man can see the tax train running away down the tracks toward a wrecked bridge. Unless the brakes are applied very soon, we’re all going over the edge. So I’m putting my cash into bricks and land to keep it’s value.

Some like gold, art, or other hedges against inflation, but I look at it this way; you can’t eat gold or art, but you can raise food on a relatively small plot. I was fortunate to be raised thus, learning to grow stuff for the larder almost before I could walk. Later learning the skills of talking my nourishment from field to plate and not getting too fussy about the bloodier aspects.

This leaves me wondering whether the time has come to wind up this blog and step back into the shadows to look to my own needs. There are things that must be done, money put to work apart from on the stock market. Off the beaten track. Self sufficient and outside of the taxman’s greedy grasp. Maybe it is time to go Galt.

Could be fun.

Don’t know about anybody else, but…

I find myself unable to comment on the increasing ridiculousness of the news. Frankly me deario’s, every headline sends me into a daze of Deja vu every time I look at it. It’s all fear, fear, fear, stuff we’re all supposed to get wildly excised about and I’m fed up with it. Not least because most of the headlines are overblown and / or totally about face to the verifiable facts.

I’m too busy making plans for our new place anyway. Costing out the Espalier layout for fruit trees and bushes, orienting hive fronts to the south-southeast (I’m told the bees like it this way.) Planning for easy set up, care and harvesting of hives. Researching pest control. Then there’s small repairs to the new house (Providing the sale doesn’t all go AWOL on us) and redecorating.

Then there are machine tools to buy. A chop saw and angle grinder with a range of blades from ceramic to grinder. Full set of drills. An ATV for towing a grass cutter, which I will be teaching Mrs S to drive, just so she doesn’t complain that it’s only a ‘boys toy’. Hives and Chicken runs to build. It’s going to be a busy Winter followed by an even busier Spring.

So yes, the fact that the current US President is obviously senile and only being managed by a support team doesn’t bother me. Nor does all the ‘Green’ bullshit being promoted by weak and ignorant politicians whose only talent, if that is what it is, is getting elected.

Fortunately there are ways and means around all the fuckwittery those urban parasites try to foist upon us. We have fallback option layered upon fallback option. As far as we’re concerned, workarounds rule.

As for worthless ‘vaccine passports’, don’t these morons in power understand that we hit herd immunity back last December? All one has to do is a little basic research. And when I say basic research, I mean not relying on mainstream media sources. The real numbers are all out there. From official sources too, and we can see how states like Florida are doing, and what is happening with Sweden. You know, the places that ditched mask mandates and lockdowns, and in Sweden’s case, barely flirted with any kind of lockdown at all.

Yet is their overall mortality any different from those places which did lock down and enforce mask wearing? Indeed it seems that countries with the harshest lockdowns and restrictions have suffered just as badly if not more so than those that did not. Apart from those so far off the beaten track that the infection hardly touched, like New Zealand. Although when they open up, then watch the fireworks. The best lockdowns can do is kick the can down the road. Then New Zealand will catch it. They might have the jabs, but the best they can do is mitigate the worst effects. The mRNA vaccines do not, like more traditional vaccines, stop you either catching a dose or do much else than mitigate the worst symptoms. The evidence is in, and natural immunity, whether inherited or acquired is better by far. But I’m preaching to the choir here.

So pardon me if I have no more f*cks to give.

As for the NHS in the UK, any organisation which can afford to hire ‘Diversity Officers’ at 75K a pop (Nice work if you can get it) clearly isn’t short of the odd bob or two. Nor is it financially ‘overstretched’. Although maybe it is, having as many bureaucrats as front line medical staff. Possibly more than half because many purely bureaucratic managerial roles are staffed by ‘Medically Qualified’ personnel Official figures here.

But all the evidence in the world won’t convince the permanently propagandised. Anecdote; in a car park lift some woman ten years my junior (And as such in a far lower risk category) remonstrated with me when I took off my mask to catch my breath. I replied that the pandemic was over, to which she retorted “But there were a hundred cases in Ireland yesterday” I pointed out that a hundred out of six million wasn’t very many at all and despite being double jabbed and having had the bug itself, I was more at risk from her. Unfortunately this didn’t seem to sink in and she snorted that she didn’t want to catch it, thank you so very much. I just rolled my eyes and waited for the doors to open before I got contaminated with her dose of the stupids. Serves me right for going shopping on a Saturday.

Observed on a sunny morning

Sitting out in the back yard drinking our morning coffee, Mrs S pointed out the unusual sight of two sets of contrails, one almost in each others wake. As they passed directly overhead I could make out the distinctive pale grey Basking Shark shapes of US military transports as they grumbled far overhead on their way west. One around five kilometres and a little lower than the other. Which was unusual. Which is why we thought that they were military. Civilian flights never fly on the same course like that.

From the flight path, I think they were out of Frankfurt, which is the usual European staging post for the US military. Might have stopped at Brize for refuelling, but one thing was certain, those guys were going home.

This led to a taut discussion about tails tucked between legs and whether it was Trump’s or Biden’s fault. I think Biden’s team have to bear the blame for this shambolic affair. Trump may have negotiated the withdrawal, but Biden’s people cocked it up. Royally. Turned a planned strategic withdrawal into an effective rout. Left billions in kit and money, effectively arming and funding their philosophical opponents. No doubt there will be Danegeld, because that’s how Biden’s side of the house thinks. They seem to think that bribing an enemy makes their enemy a friend.

Here I have to lapse into anecdote for my proof; Back in my teenage years I knew a couple of guys who thought that by throwing their money about they could buy friends. They were wrong. They were still widely disliked for various reasons, but everyone nonetheless went to their parties for the freebies. When their money was spent, everyone drifted away. Their enemies remained their enemies, and their few ‘friends’ disappeared. So it will be with the USA.

Which begs the question; are we watching the end of the Pax Americana?

Another blast from the past

This time from over a decade ago. The more time passes, the less evidence I have to alter my outlook. See updated text below;

In 2007 I posted about the old fashioned fun we used to have at Halloween when I was growing lad, and how it wasn’t all about ‘Trick or treat’. I posted a similar view (Although much shorter) in response to one of the ‘your view’ commenters on the Daily Telegraph website. The thread is likely long down the memory hole of digital doom behind a paywall.

One person took my mild mannered remarks seriously amiss and tore into me personally because they claimed their Mother had been ‘Terrorised’ by some unsupervised ‘Trick or treat’ teenagers. In his / her own words;

“You (and these scumbags) can keep your ‘sense of fun’.”

Which really says it all about the attitude of many in England. No doubt the poor Mother in question was alone at the time. She was so alone and afraid that a bunch of children in fancy dress knocking on her door and demanding sweets could traumatise her so. Yet instead of taking the trouble to help remedy said Mothers solitude and alienation, said person took umbrage against the whole festival and anyone who enjoyed anything about it Saying so in the most vituperative fashion.

Maybe it’s just me. I’m just so used to dealing with strangers and new situations that I’ve lost the conception of what it is to be isolated and scared of the world. To feel so alone all you want to do is hide. For my part, I go out and meet the world and am used to talking to anyone. Three years on the streets showed me that it wasn’t that difficult. All it takes is a little old fashioned common humanity and a little guts. My own Mother taught me that. She had a busier social life than I ever did.

This is the malaise that haunts my native country. The fear, too often reinforced by a sensationalising media that one cannot walk the streets in peace (Despite the stats saying that outside of the major conurbations you are safer than ever before). The fear that you will be unjustly penalised for defending yourself, or murdered if you do. The fear promoted by a State and media which daily sap personal responsibility from the lives of everyone, driven by vociferous cowards among us, and then cannot deliver the safety it promises to the very people it should really be protecting (And I don’t mean Politicians).

Out here in the wilder west of Ireland I have rediscovered that sense of belonging that I rarely felt living in England. I have found it within every cheery “Howareya”, where people are genuinely relaxed about who you are and where you’ve been. They even retain the old Celtic names for festivals such as Samhain (Halloween), Beltane (May 1st) and Lammas (Loaf Mass, 1st August). This list is not comprehensive, but it will serve as a rough guide.

As for the UK, I really should give up on people who have given up so much themselves. They can’t have any fun at all. Maybe once all this COVID panic has died down, and people accept that man made global warming is no more than a trick of statistics, they can get in touch with their older, and some would say better selves.

Peak Absurdity

From midsummer. Let’s remember some of the most laughable bollocks put out on the lamestream in dear auld Oireland. Remember Luke O’Neill ph.D in a ‘Zorb’ demonstrating how to socialise while ‘staying safe’? Whadda Maroon.

Or “Handshakes may never return”? Seriously? If someone tries the whole elbow bump crap with me, which ironically requires closer physical proximity than a handshake, I always demur and keep my hand sticking out for them to shake. If they insist I lower my hand, step back and contrive to look annoyed. Even if I am creasing up inside at their discomfiture. Lunatics. As for hugs, eff off you nutters. I will publicly hug any person I hold great affection for and will cheerfully give the finger to any remonstrations.

Can we ever forget ‘COVID Expert’ Luke O’Neill’s advice to freeze your grandparents to death? You’d think after the whole ‘Zorb’ thing he’d shut the hell up, but apparently he’s in love with his own image on the old Boob tube. His opinion of his advice is not widely shared.

As for the already massive additional logistical costs, supposedly to protect politicians from themselves, Jaysus! What’s wrong with wearing a surgical mask all day like the rest of the peasants, eh? I don’t wear a mask at all if I can help it, but then I’ve been taught about the proper use of a surgical mask and where they are actually useful. Besides, given the size of Ireland’s Parliament chamber (Dáil) and the fact that it’s rarely full, the likelihood of catching anything in there is probably not significant.

Then there’s the tale about Armed Gardai (Police) who had to run away from a guy who told them he was COVID positive. Oh for heaven’s sake! For the under 70’s, the chances of catching and suffering serious illness from SARS/COV-2 are currently less than a quarter of ordinary influenza. And have been since at least December 2020, and the morons in power are still talking about a ‘third wave’, which seems to be taking an age to arrive. Wasn’t it due last year sometime?

A personal observation; in my day to day travels I pass two of our local hospitals. The car parks are not full. Ambulances aren’t queueing up, there are no refrigerated containers doubling up as mortuary storage. Frankly they both look under used. Rather like the streets of Localtown, with all their closed down and shuttered businesses.

Just watch the rest of the video and laugh, or cry along for what has been taken from us. Which makes me wonder why we are still taking this whole COVID business seriously.

For myself I’m trying to look on the bright side and take the attitude of Peter Jurasik as Babylon 5’s Londo Mollari; “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.“

Well, if you turn off the TV and just go about your day to day business it isn’t. It’s only serious in the minds of the mainstream media and politicians. As for ‘vaccine passports’ anyone asking for one simply doesn’t get my custom.

We have hit and surpassed peak absurdity. Gender pronouns, vaccine passports, banned protests, ‘no fun allowed’ all under a ludicrous rainbow banner of diversity and inclusivity. Ah yes, the ‘diversity and inclusivity’ that has divided society more than anything else in living memory.

Additional: from the Daily Sceptic. The average age of death from Covid in England and Wales in the spring epidemic was 80.4 according to the ONS, splitting 78.7 for men and 82.5 for women. The average age of death in the UK is 79.3 for men and 82.9 for women (though note these are modelled estimates of life expectancy at birth based on life tables, not the actual average age of those who die each year). Public Health England has estimated that life expectancy was reduced by 1.3 years for men and 0.9 years for women in 2020 due to the Covid and lockdown death tolls, though these figures are also modelled.

See graph:

Oooh nooooo!

Ah the gift that never stops on giving, good old man made climate change got a boost from the latest IPCC report which has been touted as ‘code red for humanity’. Now where have I heard that before?

1989?

Throughout the 1990’s?

All through the 2000’s?

Since 2010?

And so on, and so on. We had “Ten years to save the Earth” back in 1989. Whatever happened to that ‘tipping point’? There was “A hundred months” . Don’t take my word, here’s an article containing a compendium of these hyperbolic claims.

North pole ice still there? Er….. actually yes. Polar Bears? Doing nicely thank you. Antarctica? Still very cold. No real ice loss. Is Iceberg alley still active between Labrador and Newfoundland? Damn straight it is. Even at midsummer, last time I was up at L’Anse Au Meadow. Bergy bits in the harbour and big flat topped bergs you could land light aircraft on off in the distance. Just in case some of you don’t believe me Here are a few pictures from late June 2017.

My first ever berg sighting, a grounded growler, seen in Ste Genevieve Bay. I was so excited I took a picture of our wing mirror.

Then some ‘Bergy bits’ grounded inside St Anthony’s Harbour, south of L’Anse Au Meadow. The smallest are ten feet across.

Oh, and this fifty metre square specimen grounded berg pictured just outside St Anthony’s on the same day. All of these pictures were taken on and around June 22nd, before we beat a hasty retreat southward.

Now this is a thousand miles south of the arctic circle. In late June. A bumper year for wildfires in BC when we arrived home that August. So when anyone guffs off about the world being doomed and it’s all my fault, I will simply ask them how they account for my first hand observations that I can back up with pictures taken by me at a verifiable location.

By way of an observation, over the last few years I have been hearing of cold weather phenomena, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere. Indeed ‘South’ has recently reported temperatures as low as three Celsius in Sydney, Australia. All right, it is Winter down there, but we’re not doing much better here in the wilder west of Ireland. We had a ten day heatwave in July and today our thermometer has struggled to clear sixteen Celsius in early August. To the point where we had to switch the heating on.

So, are we doomed or aren’t we? I don’t think so, because we humans are good at adapting and surviving. We’re even capable of adapting our own environment like building houses to keep us dry and sculpting the landscape to keep us fed. Something the doom addicts don’t seem to be cognisant of. But if they fall for such an obvious con-trick as ‘global warming’ when it’s chucking it down, one might say they deserve all the misery they get. Although I’d rather they simply got on with being unhappy and just left the rest of us well alone.

Or according to Tony Heller of Real Climate Science, quoting Solzhenitsyn.

HAPPy freedom day

So you still have to hide (self-isolate) at home if you get ‘pinged’ by the NHS app. Even if the ‘infected’ person was on the other side of a wall. If, and this is a big ‘if’ they were actually infected in the first place and not at the end of an exponentially long chain of ‘pings’.

And you can still be told to wear a surgical mask (In public spaces no less!) if local authorities dictate.

You may lose your job if not double vaccinated.

Your travel rights are still heavily restricted by a ‘traffic light’ system. Even if you have had the prescribed two vaccinations.

Local lockdowns will still be enforced, albeit by civil rather than criminal coercion.

You will have to show ‘evidence of vaccination’ to get into a pub or club, or buy a ticket to get out of the country.

Happy f*cking ‘freedom day’ everybody. Yeah, right. Freedom. Like almighty buggery it is. Then you see all the politicians and celebrities doing what the hell they like while the sanctimonious time pleasers talk down to the general public like no-one else has a brain cell to rub the inside of their skulls with.

It’s no better here in Ireland. You can go out to eat but all the restaurants feel very weird. Masked waiting staff feel very sinister. I often feel like I’ve walked into a junior assassins convention.

You can stay in a hotel and have a pint indoors if you are staying in the specific hotel. But it’s no fun. Places once full of music and laughter seem deserted and hollow. The conversations are muted and there’s lots of looking over shoulders.

You can’t get a beard trim or hot towel pampering because you have to wear a useless f*cking mask in the barbers. It’s very surreal. Yes, surgical masks are useless at stopping viral spread. Cloth masks even less so. The science (Proper scientific knowledge based on observation and experiment, not the snake oil modelling peddled by politicians and their advisers) confirms this.

Then there are worthless mouths talking about re-instating the out of county travel ban. They want ‘zero COVID’, which is an unachievable goal. At least not within the next fifty years. Not without dousing everyone in toxic levels of disinfectant and killing way more than they save. But they don’t care how many they kill in their worthless attempt to live in a sterile world.

The numbers, the official numbers, not the fantasy figures trotted out by the pantywaisters whimpering ‘stay safe’ over the airwaves, tell us that we hit ‘herd immunity’ sometime in 2020. The ‘variants’ the politicians want us to be frightened of are phantoms, very large shadows cast on a big wall by tiny figures, like a fruit fly in front of a searchlight.

Trying to look on the positive side, Mrs S got a creaky shoulder on the way to recovery, we’ve been out for a modestly productive drive. It’s been a nice hot day, and our water heater has been fixed, but now I need to cool off. Unfortunately every time I hear a pro-restrictions politician or lamestream media talking head open their putrid dishonest gobs I feel like I need to scrub my skin clean from the inside.

Pass the soap.

The NHS app in action!

Exclusive footage of the NHS app in action as it sends people into ten day self imposed lockdowns.

PING!

Lovely warm day today, the skies have been a cloudless vault of wonderful blue since first thing, only marred by a few puffs of cloud. Mrs S and I have been sitting outside under a recently purchased gazebo, one of those nylon sunshade things you see used as market stalls, preventing us from being cooked by the big yellow thing in the sky.

Well we seem to be dodging bullets over here in the Wilder West of the Emerald Isle despite all the prognostications of doom from the man made climate change crowd. A solar flare was supposed to cripple the power grids and all the rain has migrated into Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium, causing all manner of chaos, from floods to sinkholes.

The ‘experts’ have been bouncing out of their hidey holes like funnel web spiders to pronounce that it’s all our fault unless you renounce anything that looks like fun. Right guys. All your predictions have failed. Every last single one. Your public credibility should be flushed down the toilet by now. Besides, if anyone does any basic historical research, they will find similar incidents, although not in the same locations, from eighty or ninety years ago. When it comes to climate, there is little new under the sun.

At the moment I’m sitting around waiting for the anaesthetic to wear off after I lost a fight with a well done steak a few days ago. There was a tiny crack and half of one of my bicuspids ended up on my plate. A little discomfort, but more surprise than anything else as my errant tooth fragment bobbed around in the gravy. So I did what anyone with any base would do and picked up the fragment, sucked off the sauce before putting it in my top pocket wrapped in half a paper serviette. “Half my tooth has broken off.” I announced quietly.

“Where?” Said Mrs S. I pointed to my upper mandible before proceeding to demolish the rest of my steak. “Does it hurt?”

“Damnedest thing, no.” I replied. And here’s me not registered with a dentist. Well that was just rectified. It had just slipped down the list of priorities under a slew of other details.

Came as a bit of a surprise as I’m pretty assiduous about brushing my teeth, using toothpicks to clear detritus from between my pearlies and even flossing twice a week. Although I thought I would miss North American dentistry, but it turns out that modern Irish dentists are pretty good. So Mrs S and I are now registered as private patients. Wasn’t as expensive as I thought it would be either.

Despite that, the gods appear to be looking favourably upon us, unlike a certain memorial to a dead junkie that got hit by lightning, according to witnesses. My driving licence is now up to date after three months wrangling with the NDLS and we’re starting to get taken seriously by some people who like the cut of our wallets. Our investment strategies have borne fruit and we’re into the numbers now with regard to buying a project house.

China is getting flooded again and certain EU countries are suffering under huge rainfall, so maybe God is trying to get their attention, saying “Okay you EU chappies, stop messing the Brits around. They’ve left your club, now calm down or next time it’s the Frogs.”

As far as the Chinese are concerned, maybe he’s registering his displeasure at the germ warfare they’ve been indulging in. The SARS/COV-2 virus, the balance of probabilities tells us, leaked out of the Wuhan lab. Whether the leak was deliberate is moot. But what was deliberate was the propaganda campaign designed to frighten the West into submission.

Oh yes, and what about this rogue NHS ‘track and trace app’ pinging all and sundry, forcing them to self isolate when they probably don’t need to. Apparently the promoters of this piece of software were warned by some of the Project Engineers, who said it was too sensitive, but no, the bureaucrats and politicians didn’t listen and now somewhere in the region of ten million plus people (Allegedly) have been pinged and told to self isolate. That’s a good chunk of the working population. Talk about an accident waiting to happen. Put not thy faith in Bluetooth should be the lesson here.

Like the Blair regime before them, the Johnsonites are finding that the technology they thought had all the answers, doesn’t. Maybe this will curb their control freak ambitions. We can but hope.

Happy weekend everybody.

Irony alert

A new commenter answered my query about why the giver of vaccines covered the AstraZeneca Vaccine phial when I was being given my second vaccination with the following.

CJ Nerd JULY 11, 2021 AT 12:24 

IIRC the dose is 10cc, but there is 12cc in a vial. They can carefully use the leftovers to make some additional doses. Once the vial has been breached, they need to keep it clean.

Which at first I found hard to swallow, because when I first did my NHS Deep Subcutaneous and Deep intramuscular injection training (Initially on an Orange would you believe,) all doses we were asked to administer were delivered as single dose only ampoules. The old method of drawing up drugs from multi-use phials (we were told) was potentially unhygienic.

However, I engaged my cynicism and did a little searching for myself, finding this five page document about phial sizes for the AstraZeneca vaccine. Which says yes, the ampoules are multi-dose. However, the penultimate paragraph (Section 7 Health & Safety) of which makes interesting reading. See quoted portion below:

“There are no special handling requirements for routine handling of Vaxzevria® (AstraZeneca). However, Vaxzevria® (AstraZeneca) contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Should a spillage occur this should be disinfected with an appropriate antiviral disinfectant (active on coronavirus). To note that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) refers to the chimp adenovirus vector system“

Fun fact; the AstraZeneca vaccine is based on GMO’s, (Genetically Modified Organisms). Specifically those cultured from Chimpanzee adenoviruses.

So if you’re one of those people who dislike GMO’s in your foodstuffs and a fervent vaccine advocate; that’s what’s in it. Chimp virus GMO’s to boot. Which makes vaccines doubleplusungood for the Animal rights lobby. Which is amusing as the Greeny-weenies are heavily pro-vaccine, along with all the other ‘Green’ advocacy organisations, including most Western Governments.

Myself, I’m not bothered. The risk of an adverse reaction for me is so small it’s infinitesimal. I’m at more risk of being run down by a tractor crossing the road outside our house. Only had the jab to keep Mrs S quiet. It’s just the thought of all those loud mouthed luvvies and media cheerleaders finding out that their non-organic (Argh! Amputate! Amputate! Get me a CHAINSAW!!!) vaccination was produced from Chimp viruses.

Sorry, but Mrs S is asking me why I’m giggling so much.

For some reason this old favourite flagged up in the memory banks. I have two copies of the original CD set. One for in the car, one for in the house. Mrs S says I play it too often.

All I have to ask is; which characters viewpoint do I represent? The detached cynicism of the journalist? The fanaticism of the crazed preacher or the faith of his wife? I think it’s a little of all three.

Hey, it’s a wonderful piece of aural drama. Phil Lynott stole it completely. Never fails to send a shiver down my spine.

What have we lost?

I see this trollish crap a lot in comment threads. Phrased as a challenge when people complain about losing their civil liberties “What freedoms have you lost mate? Name them.”

OoooKay.  I’m up for a challenge.

1. Freedom of speech  Remember when you could say what you liked and the worst response you might occasion was a sarcastic “F*ck you”, or a pointed reminder that you should watch your mouth or risk a large dental bill?   When ‘hate’ crimes didn’t exist unless you were making real threats?  I do. Wasn’t that long ago either.  Or when you didn’t risk getting your door kicked in by plod for an ‘unsanctioned’ opinion?  Or risk losing your job, career or livelihood to anonymous complainants?  When people didn’t get arrested in their own homes for rather tasteless online humour?  Or over spurious false accusations?  Yet these things happen in the UK and across the Anglosphere, every single day.
2. Freedom of movement.  Ah, those heady, hedonistic days of 2019 when, if you had the funds and a passport, you could buy a plane or ferry ticket and go visit a part of the planet you’d never seen before?  Just because you wanted to.  Now you can’t leave the country.
3. Freedom of thought.  Yes, when you could think what the hell you liked without sanction without losing your job or living because some anonymous source who was ‘offended’ by what they thought you were thinking, even if that was the furthest thing from your mind.  Or have Police contacting you to “Check your thinking” after wasting hours trolling around Twatter for something to do instead of going after real criminals who steal things or hurt people.  Hurt feelings aren’t an injury.  Hurt feelings indicate a lack of mental robustness on the part of the complainant.
4. Freedom to protest.  This too is now on the way out.  One cannot publicly air a legitimate grievance any more without a Twatter hate mob, or worse, scruffy items doing bad impersonations of Police Officers coming at you mob handed with batons raised to strike.  Unless of course you are protesting for one of the fashionable, politically correct causes.  In which case you will have the forces of law and disorder kneeling at your merest whim.  The cops will even let you tear down public works if you have the correct opinion.  Although  to be fair, they’re just doing what they are told.  By politicians.
5. Freedom of Association.  Ave atque frater vale.  Halcyon days when you could talk to whomsoever you wanted without some curtain twitching Stasi snitch dobbing you in to what passes for the law.  When having a gathering at home with more than a number picked out of thin air friends wouldn’t get your door smashed down.  Even if you only had the TV on a bit loud with the windows open.  Or met more than an arbitrary number of people at a restaurant table.
6. The right to a fair trial.  Well yes it’s still with us and no it isn’t any more.  Some say it never was and there’s an element of truth in that.  The truth is that what you get in a court is law, not justice.  Which is why you always need a lawyer in court.  Even so, if your case is only vaguely political, you can expect to get stitched up like a kipper or exonerated depending upon your political stance.
7. The right to own property.  Well sort of still with us, but subject to confiscation without compensation if you are accused of a ‘crime’, or being inconvenient regardless of whether you are found guilty in a court of law or not.  The USA is notorious for this under the RICO legislation, and although the UK has no direct power of expropriation, ‘confiscation orders’ under the 2002 proceeds of crime act can be imposed, or if you are suspected of ‘money laundering’ or a trumped up charge of tax evasion.  Fortunately this doesn’t happen much because the proceedings are complex.  However, moves are afoot to simplify this procedure,  And that’s without going into the murky waters of divorce proceedings, where property can be assigned by a court to an ex-partner.

There are of course many more, as enshrined here in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  See if you can work out which ones you don’t have, or never had in the first place.

There are those who will say that losing your rights is okay, saying “but but but what about COVID?”  and “It’s only temporary you moron…”  To which I would say;  “It was only for three weeks over fourteen frigging months ago”.  And guess what kids, the restrictions are still with us.  And will continue to be so.  Don’t think so?  You poor naïve fool you.

Another note directed at the COVID apologists out there, you know who you are and so do I.  Those who I observed wearing masks in the open air on a bright sunny day.   Or inside vehicles while driving.  Most of the unnecessarily terrified appear to be females between 25 & 40 who are unlikely to suffer significant symptoms, although males do constitute around a half as much again of their number.  But we males do tend to reluctantly follow their lead.  Under protest.

As for ‘vaccine passports’.  We’ve never had them for other conditions, so why do we need them for SARS/COV-2?  

To those complacent souls who protest that the above liberties will be ‘given’ back to us, I say, look again.   I’d also like to point out that it was you lot, clamouring to be made ‘safe’ by big government, who literally threw your own liberties, and those of everyone else, in the bin.

For shame.  

Storm in a teacup

And we know a song about that, don’t we? Well, Lynsey De Paul did. The public response to a nasty respiratory bug has been way overblown and driven by weak politicians, propaganda, profit and bad information. But the more sagacious amongst us knew this all along.

The guys at Spiked-Online interview Luke Johnson on the topic.

Road trip planning today for Tipperary and points South and east for Monday.

Whitewash incoming

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has confirmed that there will be a public enquiry over the response to the SARS/COV-2 pandemic, saying that the inquiry would have; “the ability to compel the production of all relevant materials and take oral evidence in public under oath”.

From Pinsent Mason; “The government can increase public confidence in the inquiry process if interested parties are allowed to comment on the terms of reference to ensure their interests are properly considered.”

Hmm… I have the sense that this ‘enquiry’ will only call specific witnesses selected so as not to embarrass the Government with awkward things like the true economic costs, the disintegration of trust between citizen and state institutions. Any boat rockers and whistleblowers will definitely not get an invite to this party.

Anyone else feeling cynical?

Update: at 5pm a pile of more regulations is going to hit, propelled by news of the ‘Indian variant’. Well that’s tonight’s curry cancelled then.

Update of update: The lockdown end dates haven’t been moved. Yet. Our expectations are being heavily managed.

Droning on

Mrs S and I are out on the road this week now the county borders are ‘officially’ open. However, I’m writing most of this on a Tuesday for my own amusement. Watch the videos below. First one for the “Ooh!” and “Ahh!” entertainment value, and then for the dark side.

Now in my darker moments I’ve often thought about weaponizing drone technologies to use against oppressors. My own vision is different from that in the sci-fi short below. Say using a small drone as a weapons platform, getting into a small hiding space and waiting for activation before emerging to fire miniature dumb missiles at a specific target, or using a drone as a means of delivery for a small magnetic based shaped charge, dropped onto the top of a vehicle when moving at speed. Fitting a lightweight pistol device that can swerve into close quarters, fire, and zip away, or simply do a kamikaze with a relatively small amount of explosive.

Now at the current state of technology, even a small drone can carry a few ounces of high explosive, which could be set to home in on a particular mobile phone for example. Without going anywhere near the need for sophisticated facial recognition. Dial the targets phone, when they answer or even dismiss the call, set the drone to home in on that device and detonate. Very user unfriendly.

However, the mini-movie ‘Slaughterbots’ is well worth a watch and a little too close to possibility than I’m comfortable with. Have a view, and if it doesn’t give you a large dose of the willies, or one very large willie with extra whipped cream on its own, then can I have some of the drugs you’re on please?

What depresses me is that there are people in places of power who would happily pull the trigger on something like this. Because they are afraid and that fear has made them incredibly stupid, no matter how well educated or otherwise ‘intelligent’ they might think they are.

Fortunately such weapons would only be extremely short range because of battery life issues, but with today’s technology, they are now just on the edge of possible. We could be in real ‘oh shit’ territory here.

It’s times like these that I eye the levels on my Jameson’s Whiskey collection and think; “I need a serious top-up here.”

This answers a lot of questions

At home Sunday today. Not much happening so I’m browsing YouTube and this video below dropped into my feeds. Watch (Yes I know he’s plugging his book) but also do read the attached pdf of an essay called ‘the basic laws of human stupidity‘ here by Carlo M Cippola.

Law one: Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

Law two: The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

Law three: A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

Law Four: Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

Law Five: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Yes, why have a whole lot of so-called ‘intelligent’ people forced these decisions, and bad decisions like lockdown and mandatory masks and ‘wokeness’ upon the rest of us, to the detriment of all?

The only truth we can derive from the above is that fear breeds stupidity. Where the rabbit in the headlights becomes default behaviour for way too many. And when people are that scared they make truly, awesomely bad decisions.

Apropos of the above, might it be possible to scare the wits back into people? Get them to stop, take a deep breath and do some joined up thinking for once? Using my decades of life experience I’ll think about that for a moment…. Nah.

Update: I’m not the only one to think this way. Here’s a somewhat more eloquent take on the matter.