The Daily Grind

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Daily Meat Grinder for Sept 16, 2023.

The Anarchy of Language (2015) - No apostrophes? Misplaced commas? Starting a sentence with a conjunction? Whatever shall we do?! Join James in today's Thought for the Day as he ponders the miracle of communication, explores the anarchy of language, and celebrates the beauty of spontaneous order.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union Address on Wednesday included a list of the accomplishments of the European Union under her leadership, including this pearl (expressed in the characteristically unidiomatic English of European officialdom): “We have set the building blocks for a Health Union, helping to vaccinate an entire continent – and large parts of the world.” (For video of the speech, see here; for text, here.)

No mention of the fact that the EU vaccinated the European continent for the most part with a vaccine – that of the German company BioNTech and its American partner Pfizer – whose safety and efficacy were unknown per the very terms of the contract which the Commission signed with the companies on behalf of all EU member states, as can be seen below.



Here, as a reminder, is what the same passage looks like in the redacted version of the contract released by the Commission.



(The unredacted version, as discussed in my article here, was published by the Italian public broadcaster RAI over two years ago, but has gone largely ignored, undoubtedly due in no small part to suppression on social media.)

No mention either of the fact that the published results of the very clinical trial which was the basis for the emergency authorisation of the drug include an explicit acknowledgement that it remains unknown whether the so-called vaccine prevents transmission of the virus.

More at Daily Sceptic

Russian billionaires take their money out of Europe

Russian billionaires have withdrawn tens of billions of dollars of assets from Europe since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, under the influence of international sanctions and the Russian authorities’ favourable asset repatriation policy. As calculated by Bloomberg, the total value of assets returned to the Russian Federation by the richest Russians since February 2022 reaches $50 billion.

In particular, just last month the shareholders of United Medical Group CY Plc and MD Medical Group Investments Plc, controlled by Igor Shilov and Mark Kurtser, approved the redomiciliation (transfer to another tax jurisdiction) of the companies from Cyprus to Russia.

The transfer of assets registered in places such as Cyprus, Jersey and Switzerland to Russia also to countries the Kremlin considers friendly, Bloomberg writes, such as the United Arab Emirates and Kazakhstan, began shortly after the start of the SMO. One of the first steps was to move the family assets of fertiliser billionaire Andrey Guryev and steel magnate Viktor Rashnikov from Switzerland and Cyprus to Russia.

In four days’ time, on Wednesday September 20th, our representatives meeting at the United Nations will sign off on a ‘Declaration’ titled: ‘Political Declaration of the United Nations General Assembly High-level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response.’

This was announced as a “silent procedure”, meaning that States not responding will be deemed supporters of the text. The document expresses a new policy pathway for managing populations when the World Health Organisation (WHO), the health arm of the UN, declares a future viral variant to be a “public health emergency of international concern”. The WHO noted in 2019 that pandemics are rare and insignificant in terms of overall mortality over the last century. Since then, it decided that the 2019 old-normal population was simply oblivious to impending annihilation. The WHO and the entire UN system now consider pandemics an existential and imminent threat. This matters, because:

Continued at Daily Sceptic

Don’t Be Distracted by Alarmism Over a Diversionary War

Governments that face significant domestic problems can ill afford gambling on war.
by Daniel Larison Posted on September 15, 2023

M. Taylor Fravel contends that the Chinese government isn’t likely to lash out militarily to distract from its domestic problems:

Since 1949, China has frequently suffered from significant ethnic and political unrest and economic shocks. But virtually no leaders have started crises or wars to distract the Chinese public – even when they should have been quite likely to do so according to the logic of diversionary war.

The record shows that the Chinese government hasn’t started diversionary wars despite having had many opportunities to do so. For that matter, the Chinese communist government has rarely initiated large-scale hostilities for any reason in more than seventy years. While it is possible that this could change in the future, it’s not something you would assume to be the most likely course of action.

The idea that China might start a diversionary war is certainly convenient for China hawks now that Chinese economic growth is slowing. Then again, China hawks are nothing if not flexible when it comes to predicting future Chinese government behavior. When the Chinese economy was growing at a fast clip, they warned of impending aggression. Now that it is slowing down, many of them also warn of impending aggression. It’s almost as if they reached their conclusions about what they think the Chinese government is going to do first and then worked backwards.

Diversionary wars can happen, but they are not terribly common. It would be extremely unlikely for any government to initiate a major conflict because it wants to distract its people from domestic problems. For one thing, a major conflict would almost certainly exacerbate their country’s economic and social problems by putting the country under intense strain. Unless the war is a minor campaign against a much weaker state, there is no reason to assume that the war will be either quick or successful. In most cases, it is unlikely that starting a war would benefit the leadership or the regime. Even a successful minor war might not be very useful for the leadership because the stakes are so insignificant.

Continued at Eunomia


“Lithium battery fires will cause a tragedy” – Lithium batteries in electric vehicles are going to cause a major disaster, says Flat White in Spectator Australia.


“Britain is now a nation of shoplifters” – Julie Burchill in the Spectator recalls her own career as a shoplifter, aged 14.

“How ITN used NDAs to silence staff” – One of the aims of journalism is to identify injustice and hold the powerful to account, so it’s odd that ITN – which makes news for Channel 4, Channel 5 and ITV – remains so unwilling to examine its own wrongdoing, says Daisy Ayliffe in the Spectator.


“California Lawmakers Set to Repeal Covid ‘Misinformation’ Law” – A bill to repeal California’s COVID-19 ‘misinformation’ law targeting doctors refusing to comply with the government’s pandemic directives is quietly advancing, according to the Epoch Times.

“How do we halt the march of health and climate fascism?” – Gary Sidley wrestles with the big problem of our era for HART.


“BBC staff ‘absolutely outraged’ as broadcaster ‘cancels’ Roisin Murphy” – The Irish singer’s comments on puberty blockers sparked outrage among BBC’s staff, according to GB News.


“Volkswagen cuts jobs as demand for EVs plunges” – EV sales are plummeting in Germany, with VW retrenching having gone all in on the useless carbuncles.


“Man Convicted of Abusing Two Women Requests Pardon After Declaring Transgender Identity” – A man in Spain convicted of violent crimes against two women has changed his gender in a bid to seek clemency, reports Reduxx.


“The real data behind the new Covid vaccines the White House is pushing” – Public-health leaders cannot afford to squander any more credibility and money on interventions with no scientific support, argue Marty Makary and Tracy Beth Høeg in the New York Post.


“Sadiq Khan’s ‘war on motorists’ continues with biggest ever 20mph rollout” – London transport authority announces expansion of lower speed zones across seven boroughs, covering further 40 miles, says the Telegraph.

“No meat, no dairy and three outfits a year: Welcome to Sadiq Khan’s plan for London” – C40, a global group of city mayors chaired by Sadiq Khan, has a radical vision of Net Zero that critics say will restrict personal choice, says Tim Sigsworth in the Telegraph.


“Britain is in a state of distress more profound than our leaders are capable of addressing” – A new book by Danny Kruger MP diagnoses the problems of modern Britain quite persuasively, according to Charles Moore in the Telegraph.


“Lucy Letby appeals against baby murder convictions” – The former nurse was given a whole-life term for seven murders and six attempted murders of newborn babies less than a month ago. Yet the Court of Appeal has said she can appeal.

“This is happening” – Russell Brand defends himself ahead of a Dispatches/Sunday Times ‘expose’ due tomorrow.




Have a nice day! And remember the truth is out there, somewhere.