I decided to make use of my rights as a Swiss abroad and take part in the next popular vote on 9 June.
Yesterday I received some snail-mail: an envelope with materials about the upcoming popular vote taking place across Switzerland on 9 June 2024.
As a Swiss citizen registered for voting I can partake in these quarterly pilgrimages to the voting box via postal vote, and if I’m interested in the topic(s), and I think the voting materials have a chance of getting back to the municipality where I’m registered in time, I will do so.
The front page of the red government-issued booklet lists the four questions put before the people of Switzerland. On the back page you see how the government wants you to vote. The cynic in me thinks there’s already an unfair advantage for the government, because if you’re super lazy you don’t even look inside to make up your mind.
Inside the booklet you’ll find the detailed arguments by the organisation committees of the initiatives or referenda, followed by the arguments by the executive and the parliament (who have already formed an opinion on each of the proposals), as well as the actual text of the proposed changes to the Swiss constitution. Yes, the constitution! The people can only propose changes to the constitution, which would direct the government to create laws in line with those proposed changes. That’s one of the reasons why our constitution needs a bit of a cleanup from time to time.
You can read the 88-page booklet in colour and in English here. You can learn more about how popular initiatives work here, and you can find out more about referenda here.
So what is this round of voting all about?
Two popular initiatives seek to address the insane health insurance cost increases. Switzerland has a high quality health system, but it’s rapidly becoming unaffordable for the average citizen. There is no Medicare and you have no choice but to take out health insurance. For years, politicians have recognised there’s a problem and promised action, but nobody seems to have a clue what to do about it.
By way of illustration, the graph below shows the cost of compulsory health insurance over the last ten years (dark blue line), compared with how the general economy is doing (blue line), and nominal pay increases (light blue line).
The thing is, neither of the popular initiatives really addresses the underlying causes of the problem, and the government has already promised a counter-proposal, which will be adopted if these two popular initiatives fail: it would make health insurers more accountable for the premium increases they demand. I know, that doesn’t sound like much either, and time will tell, but in my view it’s slightly better than the proposed bandaid solutions.
So that’s a NO to both initiatives from me. Perhaps Switzerland should look towards Singapore, which is taking a different approach.
Then there is the initiative for freedom and physical integrity, which was sparked by the covid era. The government of course wants the people to vote down this initiative, arguing that the Swiss constitution already guarantees ‘my body – my choice’ rights. That may be so (for example Article 10 [1]), but we saw during covid how effective this ‘protection’ was. Like in most other countries, those who refused to be injected were shunned and excluded from society for a considerable period, with sometimes devastating consequences.
The initiative wants to ensure that those who refuse to subject themselves to such medical interventions do not suffer any kind of disadvantage or punishment. Now that’s a clear YES from me.
Finally, a committee of concerned citizen has gathered enough votes for a referendum against a law that was passed by parliament last year, which seeks to build renewable energy projects that would allow Switzerland to produce all the electricity the country needs all year round (currently the country imports electricity during the winter months).
Again, I won’t go into details here, but I think so-called renewable energy technologies are a nonsense. They are anything but environmentally friendly, make energy much more expensive as we now see in different parts of the world, and because in Switzerland renewables means mainly hydro and wind, they would have a considerable impact on nature.
In my mind, the best solution would be nuclear power. Therefore, I vote NO, in favour of this referendum. Huh? Yes, I vote NO! It’s just that the question is phrased around the original law: ‘Do you want to accept the […] law which was passed on 29 September 2023?’ NO!
Today, after writing YES or NO in the relevant boxes of the ballot papers, signing my voting certificate and placing both in the same ingeniously designed envelope in which they had arrived (see video below and enjoy the cartoonish voiceover), I queued up at the post office for 45 minutes and then forked out a small fortune in return for a vague promise that express post would guarantee that the item would arrive in time in the mailbox of my municipality.
Finally, why the quote marks around ‘direct democracy’ in the title of this post? Well, I’m not going to discuss here the meaningfulness of voting as a democratic process. But I’m not going to complain either. At least us Swiss have some opportunity to directly influence politics through this mechanism, even though there are flaws and hurdles and in reality, few initiatives and referenda succeed.
Stay tuned for part 2, which will be about the outcome. My prediction is that the people will vote with the government.
Still, I live in hope, and I’ve done my bit.
[1] Art. 10 states: “Every human has the right to personal freedom, in particular to bodily and mental intactness, and to freedom of movement.” [My translation]
There’s now an instant and very cost-effective cure to all your climate woes!
In less than an hour, the documentary “Climate: The Movie” explains why there is no climate crisis. At the very least it should make you think twice whether all the climate panic around you is really justified.
According to producer Tom Nelson and director Martin Durkin, a week after launch in mid-March 2024, there were already numerous copies floating around the internet with over 1.5 million views combined. It’s great to see that more and more people are growing sceptical.
Of course, this one movie can’t address all the climate nonsense that surrounds us. For more climate relief, I highlight recommend the Climate Discussion Nexus.
It was without a doubt the interview of the year.[1] On 6 February 2024, US journalist Tucker Carlson talked with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Even more fascinating than the 2-hour conversation itself was how the media reported on this event.
Swiss peace researcher Daniele Ganser analysed how German-speaking newspapers from a range of political affiliations reported on the interview in quite a predictable way.
The more NATO-aligned the newspaper, the more negative or dismissive was the framing of the interview, whereas those newspapers which are more NATO-critical tended to simply state what was said, convey that the interview was interesting, or encourage their readers to watch the interview for themselves.
Dr. Daniele Ganser: Carlson und Putin im Mediennavigator, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_o0DnTbumA
Inspired by Ganser’s analysis, I examined how the interview was portrayed in Australia. The Australian media landscape is much smaller, and there is a lot less diversity. What I have found is that to the extent there was any coverage of the Carlson-Putin interview at all, the vast majority of it framed the interview in a negative way – not only in relation to the content of what Putin said; much of it was openly hostile towards the interviewer as well. There was no positive framing of this event in the sense that the content was interesting or that Australians should watch the full interview to form their own opinion.
Before I examine in more detail how the Australian media portrayed this interview, here are a few key points Putin made during his interview:
The NATO attack on Serbia in 1999 was illegal.
The US instigated a coup in Ukraine in 2014 which ignited the current conflict.
Ukraine is a satellite state of the US and the US are essentially fighting a proxy war in Ukraine.
UK prime minister Boris Johnson sabotaged the peace negotiations in Istanbul 18 months ago.
Putin wants to achieve de-nazification in Ukraine, and the end of the cultivation of Nazism in Ukraine was part of the Istanbul agreement.
The CIA was behind the sabotage of Germany’s Nord Stream gas pipelines
Germany’s current government is incompetent and more led by Western interests than national interests.
The Cold War was ended by Russia, and Russia expected friendly relationships with the West.
Despite promises made not to expand, NATO expanded eastwards in five waves since then.
Russia has no expansionary interests.
Russia is always willing to negotiate.
There are ongoing negotiations between the special services of the US and Russia for Wall Street Journalist Evan Gershkovich to return to the US.
Australian Financial Review (AFR)
The AFR and sister publications Sydney Morning Herald and The Age didn’t even bother to write their own articles. The AFR simply reprinted, more as an afterthought, it seems, a New York Times piece from an Anton Troianovski, and a headline which at least fairly conveyed one of the main points Putin made, namely that negotiations should take place, but the quote marks around the word ‘negotiate’ constitutes negative framing in itself.
AFR, 10-11 Feb 2024, p15
The article concluded by citing some think-tank person from the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, who reckons Putin is using the US to pressure Ukraine into entering a peace deal that would install a Russia-friendly government there. Hugh? Speaking of the pot calling the kettle black. I wonder who is using whom in this war, starting at least in 2014, when the US orchestrated a coup to… anyway, moving on.
The Australian
The Australian had more coverage, although most of the content consisted of syndicated pieces.
One dated 9 February came from international news company Agence France Press (AFP) which for the most part simply states some of the things Putin said, but sandwiches them between the catchy but weird headline
The Australian online, 9 Feb 2024
The headline is full of negative framing, and the article ends with the commonly told story that allegedly Putin and Trump love each other, whereas Biden hates Putin, and because Biden called Putin a ‘war criminal’, you should also think that, unless you love war criminals. Something along those lines anway.
Another article from the same source loosely strung together a few Putin quotes and otherwise didn’t miss the opportunity to frame Carlson as a Trump-supporter and to criticise him for not asking tougher questions:
The Australian online, 9 February 2024
Yet another AFP article framed the interviewer as a “controversial right-wing US talk show host” and otherwise was substantially the same as the previously referenced piece:
The Australian online, 9 February 2024
A more positive and accurate framing might have been: “Putin tells West: Peace is possible through negotiation.”
The UK Times article the Australian re-published was purely about giving the UK prime minister a voice to dismiss anything Putin said in the interview. The authors then engaged in some good old-fashioned “fact checking” to steer the reader’s mind in the right direction.
The Australian online, 10 February 2024
There was also a Wall Street Journal article that dealt exclusively with the prisoner exchange part of the interview. Evan Gershkovich is a WSJ reporter held in Russia accused of espionage. The WSJ called again for the release of Gershkovich, stating emphatically that “journalism is not a crime”. Indeed. I’m sure Julian Assange, realistically facing a life sentence in the home of the free would strongly agree with that.
The Australian online, 10 February 2024
The only original contribution was by Paul Monk, who made it all about interviewer Carlson and how he, Monk, would have done a much better job. Negative framing all the way.
The Australian online, 12 February 2024
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)
Rachael Hayter’s shortish ABC Listen piece, Putin blames US for war in Carlson interview, simply reported some of the main arguments Putin made during the interview, without resorting to loaded language.
In contrast, the article by European correspondents Kathryn Diss and Lucy Sweeney, Why Russian President Vladimir Putin and Tucker Carlson need each other right now, was full of negative framing. Carlson was described as a “right-wing host” (twice), as a sympathiser of Putin, and they tried to paint the Russian president as a cornered leader, something that even back in February was nothing more than wishful thinking.
They dismissed Putin’s long historical excursions as “long-winded anecdotes and lectures” and as a “sermon”. They fairly reported some of Putin’s statements but used the usual fact-checking techniques to dismiss others.
For example, they said that Putin’s argument that he’s also fighting Nazism in Ukraine was debunked by “hundreds of historians who study genocide” – the authority for which is a short article signed by many historians who seem to be primarily offended at the suggestion that there is anything like a holocaust going on in Ukraine – something I don’t think Putin is claiming in any event. The referenced article even acknowledges the neo-Nazi problem in Ukraine:
Jewish Journal, 27 February 2022, https://jewishjournal.com/news/worldwide/345515/statement-on-the-war-in-ukraine-by-scholars-of-genocide-nazism-and-world-war-ii/
The other example is Putin’s assertion that the US was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, for which they link to another ABC article that is inconclusive and does nothing more than cite various US officials who, predictably, deny the allegations.
A substantial portion of the article is dedicated to painting Carlson in a bad light. They also take issue with Carlson’s claim that Western media hadn’t bothered to give Putin a voice. I’m pretty sure that was indeed a whopper.
But, firstly, I can understand why Putin can’t be bothered to talk with Western media – he knows they will simply twist his words and spin his statements to suit their needs before publication. With Carlson he might have had some assurances about the format of an uncut interview, and that he would be allowed to talk. Also, Putin knew full well that Carlson has a huge audience, and there would be no better channel to be heard uncensored by more people in the west than ever before.
Secondly, dear ABC and all other Western journalists, if you really want to, you can hear and report on what Putin is actually saying at any time. You could translate his speeches, interviews with Russian media etc, and just listen to what he’s actually saying. One lone German journalist does this, Thomas Röper who has lived in St Petersburg for many years. Just make sure you too wear your critical thinking hat. Propaganda abounds, but that’s no different in the West.
You don’t have to like what Putin says or does, but as a leader of a big nation he must be taken seriously, and some honest reporting would be more useful than faithfully repeating the usual US narrative.
The Media Watch program dedicated a 5-minute segment to the interview. It was mainly concerned with denouncing Carlson as a “Russia apologist” and a “useful idiot”.
Host Paul Barry went on to call the event a “snooze fest”. Classical negative framing. Yes, Putin took a few detours on his history tour, but you would only find that boring if you had absolutely no interest in actually understanding how this war came about – from Putin’s point of view for a change – or if you already knew all of that.
Sure, you could argue Carlson should have asked Putin about the justification for the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. Would he have received a better answer than US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave when she justified the killing of similar numbers during the Iraq war?
I can imagine Putin would have simply laughed if he’d been asked whether he eliminated Prigozhin, who was never a serious competitor, something Putin would have been aware of.
And if Barry had asked Putin whether he was guilty of war crimes, he would have simply denied it and laughed it off in the same way every single recent US president would answer such a question – all of whom have been waging wars of aggression for decades, claiming they were under attack or saving another country or gifting democracy.
Partlett tried to argue that Putin has an expansive agenda which means the war won’t end anytime soon. He based this on an alleged statement in the interview that Putin said Russia had a claim to parts of western Ukraine. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nowhere in the interview does Putin say that, not even implicitly.
Strangely, it is ‘Russia-friend’ Carlson who falsely says in his (in my view unnecessary) introductory remarks to the interview that “Russia has a historic claim to parts of western Ukraine.” Why and how Carlson himself made that statement on the basis of this interview is a bit of a mystery, actually. The only point at which Putin even mentions the western Ukraine is in one of his historical excursions, when very early on in the interview he merely refers to the pre-World War II Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the USSR, according to which (probably pursuant to Article II of the Secret Additional Protocol) part of what is now the western Ukraine was to be given to the USSR “in the event of territorial and political rearrangement of areas belonging to the Polish state”.
So how did Partlett, who apparently studied Soviet and Russian history, spin a territorial claim out of this interview?
And Partlett completely dismisses Putin’s NATO argument, as if that didn’t or perhaps shouldn’t matter. In his view, the NATO argument is one that “plays well with Republicans” and those into conspiracy theories “who think that America has played too much of a role in trying to be the policeman of the world.” You get the framing, right? The Americans are the good guys, and don’t you forget it.
Another ABC Listen episode with Sam Hawley, ominously titled What Putin wins from Tucker Carlson’s ‘interview’ promises to “unpack” the event by subtly suggesting in the opening lines that the interview was a failure because Putin won. But that’s only the beginning of this negative framing frenzy.
The invited guest, academic Gordon Flake from the USAsia Centre at the University of Western Australia, gets stuck into negative framing right away by delegitimising Carlson, saying he is engaged in “infotainment” and pro-Donald Trump with a huge MAGA Republican following, adding the suggestion that Carlson allowed himself to be used by Putin. That might all be correct, but why this obsession with Carlson?
Hawley took it to another level when she said:
It was far less of an interview than a platform for the Russian president to say whatever he wanted to say; and it was rather bizarre in parts, wasn’t it?
Seriously? I always naively thought the purpose of an interview was to find out what the interviewee thinks. Then again, reflecting on the days when I still watched the ABC 7:30 program, it already seemed to increasingly be more about what the interviewer wanted to get across.
Also, journalists all over the world were all so very good at letting the politicians talk and not ask any pointy questions during the entire covid era.
Oh, I’m getting confused! Are you? But it gets even more confusing when Flake agrees:
In some respects, I think it probably will have backfired in the long run, just because letting someone like Vladimir Putin just ramble on for two hours straight isn’t always [chuckle] a good idea. Letting Putin be kind of be Putin undermines the broader political narrative of the Russians that it’s not their fault, right, because he makes it pretty clear what his intent is in Ukraine and that’s not a message they [the Russians] probably want out.
But that would make Carlson more like a genius, no? He managed to trick Putin into revealing his true intentions.
Putin never made a secret of what his intentions were and why he was doing what he was doing in Ukraine. In his mind, he’s playing defence.
A third into this episode Hawley steers the conversation towards what she called was Putin’s “diatribe”. Next negative framing incident: Allegedly, Putin said nothing new.
Indeed, there was much that Putin had already said in the past, only this time he had the largest audience ever. But there were also other interesting statements that the media could have literally feasted on.
At various points Putin referred to conversations he had had with US leaders, broken promises and such, although he didn’t reveal the full details. Will Carlson or any other Western journalist ask these US leaders to confirm or deny what Putin said in the interview? Hardly. The media didn’t even pick up on these points.
Flake rounds off his assessment of the interview by lamenting that it was a “clear statement of Russia’s view of the world which is inconsistent with history in fact.”
Remember, the stated intention of the interviewer was to allow Western audiences to hear Russia’s view. But naturally, only the Western view of history is correct (sarcasm intended).
Hawley proceeded to frame the interview in an even more negative light, suggesting that by listening to this interview one would show openness to the Russian perspective when she says:
So this interview shows just how open some Americans are to Russia’s perspective on the world and that they actually want to listen to its leader. They care what he says and thinks.
She may not have done this consciously, but there was a message that this interview and listening to a Russian leader in general is forbidden fruit for decent Western ears.
Flake takes it a step further by stating that the interview is another manifestation of the Russians’ desire to sabotage American society.
Personally, I don’t think that’s necessary. The Americans do a pretty good job themselves of sabotaging and dividing their own society.
All in all, analysing the Australian media coverage of Carlson vs Putin was an interesting exercise. This example demonstrated that our news channels don’t just tell us what happened. More often than not, they use framing language to tell us what to think about what happened, in strict accordance with whatever the dominant narrative is.
[1] The transcript can be found here on the Kremlin website. Your browser (or the owner of your browser) may not like it, so I’ve downloaded a PDF version which you can download below.
On 9 February 2024, a Washington DC jury rewarded climate warrior Michael E. Mann over a million dollars for taking what can only be described as vexatious court action against two of Mann’s adversaries who had dared to speak out against him and his famed ‘hockey stick’ graph.
In case you don’t know, Mann is the lead man who in 1998 wrote an article that contained the following iconic graph, which the IPCC promptly adopted as gospel, and which, through years of relentless promotion by Mann and other climate gurus, has firmly implanted the idea in most of the Western world, that humans are responsible for the alleged sudden and dramatic warming of planet over the last 150 or so years.
This graph has contributed considerably to the notion that human CO2 emissions have brought the Earth to the boil. In my mind, after years of researching this topic, that’s complete and utter nonsense, and the graph itself has been credibly debunked a long time ago, but I’m not going into that now. At issue here is Mann’s propensity for taking court action against those who do not bow to his science and his famous graph.
Mann has made it his business to promote the climate change hoax, rubbing shoulders with the rich and the famous who bought into this story hook, line and sinker. It’s probably fair to say, he is rich and famous himself now.
But Mann has also had his adversaries, people who have criticised and debunked his work, for exposing it as fraudulent science. Mann doesn’t like criticism of any kind. He is right, he is the Fauci of climate science, the ultimate arbiter of truth. Mann has been most active on Twitter/X for many years, ridiculing and calling his critics all sorts of names. He has engaged in what can only be described as bullying, but he gets away with it, presumably because he’s a vocal and committed supporter of the climate agenda. He delivers blow after blow below the line, but he is so precious he can’t take a punch or two to his chest.
Mann hasn’t always won in court, but his recent victory is the most incomprehensible travesty of justice imaginable. I wasn’t in court or listening to the broadcast, but I did listen to every episode of ‘Climate Change on Trial’, an excellently produced podcast by Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer, which reported highlights from the court action on a daily basis, including the use of voice actors to bring the transcript of the proceedings to life.
Mann had absolutely nothing of any substance in evidence to support his spurious defamation case against Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg, in this case.
You see, in 2012, Rand Simberg wrote a blog post that included the following sentence: “Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except for instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data.”
Mark Steyn then wrote a piece in the National Review, saying that Mann was “the man behind the fraudulent climate-change ‘hockey-stick’ graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus.” Followed by a clear reference to Simberg’s article: “Not sure I’d have extended that metaphor all the way into the locker-room showers with quite the zeal Mr. Simberg does, but he has a point.”
In Mann’s narrow mind, he was being compared to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky, who had been working at the same university as Mann. It might not have been the most tasteful metaphor indeed, but Simberg’s statement explicitly says that Mann didn’t molest children, and Steyn distanced himself from that comparison, even if only slightly. On top of that, Mann suffered absolutely no damage to his career or his reputation as a result of these statements.
Mann has been a very successful member of the climate circus ever since his hockey stick made headlines for all the wrong reasons, jet-setting around the world, tirelessly disseminating his climate propaganda. Not even the 2009 Climate Gate scandal could derail his career. In fact, as was revealed during the trial, in the wake of that scandal, he was protected from reputational harm by the same man who tried to shield Jerry Sandusky. Mann’s salary increased year after year following the publication of the allegedly damaging articles. Also, he doesn’t seem to have to pay any legal costs. I wonder who’s funding this man’s litigation.
And so, despite the judge instructing the jury that this was not about climate science, these six wise men and women somehow came to the conclusion that Mann had suffered. They knew full well that Mann had not suffered damages, awarding Mann $2 in compensatory damages, $1 from Simberg, 1$ from Steyn. Some kind of slap on the wrist to justify what came next?
The jury awarded $1000 in punitive damages against Simberg, and $1 million against Steyn, saying they made their statements with “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm.” The plaintiff suffered no damage, but the defendants were in the wrong anyway. I would have loved to hear the deliberations in that jury room! In any case, it seems that wit and any type of criticism is now a thing of the past, at least for those who criticise dogma.
This outcome is beyond farcical, and both defendants have indicated they will appeal the decision.
Not to blame Steyn for this ridiculous verdict, but I have a suspicion that it is the result of Steyn representing himself. I could be wrong, but had just another boring lawyer represented Steyn, the emphasis would have been more on Mann’s lack of evidence, and less on the obvious dislike Steyn displayed for Mann. The jury might also not have appreciated Steyn’s haughtiness. As a foreigner, Steyn would have been better off not criticising the US justice system, as he did from time to time, no matter how witty and funny his remarks were – at least before the verdict was delivered.
The reporting by the mainstream media and scientific journals was predictably euphoric – in the aftermath. They didn’t bother to report from the trial, because they probably thought that Mann had no hope, but with this unexpected victory, that is, of course, another victory for the worldwide climate cult. And Mann gloated: “It feels great. It’s a good day for us, it’s a good day for science.” And in a statement: “I hope this verdict sends a message that falsely attacking climate scientists is not protected speech.”
Interesting. So clearly, for Mann himself, this had nothing to do with his thin skin. This was about climate science, and scoring a victory against people he likes to denounce for allegedly spreading lies and disinformation, when all they do is trying to engage in scientific discourse by pointing out the faults in his research and his arguments.
Unless the learned appeal court justices are disciples of the climate cult, Steyn and Simberg will be vindicated – as long as Steyn gets representation.
This is an updated and slightly expanded post from December 2022. This new version was published here on the website of Australians for Science and Freedom 10 Feb 2024.
CONTENT WARNING: This article requires an open mind. It contains material that may take you on a journey of discovery that could challenge some long-held beliefs.
Are there viruses at all?
I became aware of this heretical question during 2020, and I’ve followed the debate with interest ever since.
If you consume nothing but mainstream news you probably never heard there are people who actually doubt the existence of viruses, and even if you were aware, you would probably simply dismiss it as yet another tin-foil hat conspiracy theory.
The thing is: once upon a time most people were convinced the sun revolved around the earth and anyone who said otherwise was ridiculed or worse – much worse. Today, it would be the other way round, and not just on Facebook, X, TikTok, or whatever the platform of your choice.
So unless we keep an open mind to big questions, unless we allow big theories to be reconsidered and questioned, unless we don’t just faithfully and blindly repeat the mindless ‘follow the science’ mantra, unless we actually follow the scientific method and engage in rigorous scientific debate instead of muting those who don’t follow the herd, we end up turning science into a religion, and we end up making fools of ourselves, or worse, at least from the point of view of future generations.
If, say, the ‘big bang’ theory is challenged, it’s no big deal. It’s a question that is so far removed from our daily lives, it is allowed and even welcomed in mainstream media. Nothing much hinges on such a debate, and at worst it’s great click bait.
However, the question of whether or not viruses exist is a much hotter potato. Too many careers and livelihoods are at stake, and not just in big pharma. Even most people who question the official covid narrative are dismissive, or at least would rather not call into question the basic tenets of virology or germ theory in general.
However, I find this debate not only fascinating but absolutely necessary. It’s science in action. Here we can observe in real time how a long-held theory is being seriously challenged, and just how difficult it is to swim against the current. Could we be witnessing the beginnings of a paradigm shift?
But what is this all about? Put very simply: those questioning the existence of viruses claim that the science behind virology is essentially smoke and mirrors; that the existence of viruses has never actually been proven using proper scientific methods; that all the alleged ‘evidence’ is based on shoddy experiments, computer-generated confabulations, and circular reasoning. Viruses don’t exist and are not the cause of disease.
For a long time those believing that viruses exist have simply ignored their challengers. But over recent years, the debate has intensified.
Dr Sam Bailey threw down the gauntlet by publishing the Settling the virus debate statement on 14 July 2022. She and like-minded colleagues are challenging virologists to prove the existence of viruses through properly conducted, documented and monitored scientific experiments. In the same year, her husband Dr Mark Bailey published the essay A farewell to virology, which purports to debunk the discipline holus bolus. In 2023, to make the often rather technical essay more accessible, Steve Falconer produced a 3-part (6 hour+) documentary series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 out soon). Some other ‘heretics’ are Dr Thomas Cowan, who published The contagion myth in 2020, Dr Andrew Kaufman, Dr Christine Massey, Stefan Lanka, and the authors of Virus mania, Dr Claus Köhnlein and investigative journalist Torsten Engelbrecht. German entrepreneur Samuel Eckert established the Isolate Truth Fund, offering “€1,5 million for a virologist who presents scientific proof of the existence of a corona virus, including documented control experiments of all steps taken in the proof.”
At the moment, the ‘virus versus no virus’ debate is driven by the challengers, and the media is sure to sidestep the topic very carefully, at least until it is safe to discuss it without seriously ruffling some feathers.
Personally, I’m in two minds.
On the one hand, I can understand why the doubters want rigorous scientific proof that viruses exist, and the burden of proof lies squarely with the virologists. To my mind, the arguments of the doubters do make sense.
I’m surprised that virologists react to being challenged by dismissing or ridiculing the doubters and by appeals to authority (eg at the beginning of this recent presentation), instead of seriously taking on the challenge and proving them wrong. Considering they are so convinced of their long-established theory, it should be possible for virologists to counter the specific arguments of the doubters, and to furnish solid evidence in accordance with sound scientific principles.
On the other hand, could many thousands of virologists really fool themselves and the whole world by constructing and maintaining a whole make-believe scientific discipline for decades on end? Could this really be a massive case of group think?
Hopefully there will be a serious, respectful, high-quality scientific debate in the years to come. But paradigm shifts are hard, and the stakes are extremely high.
Food for thought: How solid is the science behind vaccines?
This article is as much about freedom as it is about science. We have all seen what happens when the former is compromised based on the latter, even when that science is completely corrupted, in other words: when science becomes a weapon for governments and authorities.
The WHO and governments are complaining louder than ever before about those annoying, misinformation spreading, tin-foil hat wearing anti-vaxxers.
Millions of dollars are being spent on research to work out those whacky brains of the vaccine hesitant and how they could be fixed, nudged to become dutiful citizens.
The Grattan Institute has just published a report urging for a policy reset to ‘close the vaccination gap’. Apparently, vaccination rates have dropped not just in relation to the covid shots.
Ironically, it is the biggest vaccination operation in history, made possible through the fastest, unquestionably most sciency science ever that has probably led to more people than ever becoming aware that maybe, just maybe, not everything is as it seems in the world of vaccine science.
Indeed, it isn’t.
But about the falling covid ‘vaccination’ rates – is it really that surprising? After all, the promises made by the manufacturers were exposed as untrue, and stories about vaccine injuries are no longer as suppressed as they once were. Most people will eventually work out they’ve been duped, especially those who only got the shots because they were coerced to take them. They might not say it out loud, but not showing up is a way of communicating distrust too.
Personally, I’ve always been somewhat sceptical about vaccines, but admittedly I was largely as ignorant as most when it came to understanding this field of science, or should we write, ‘science’?
I’ve had my share of injections in my younger years, as have my children, without ever really understanding how effective or safe or necessary they were. My research consisted of reading the government-issued pamphlets, and in the end, I suppose one tends to trust the men and women in white lab coats, who, presumably, know best.
In the throes of the panic-ridden covid days, when these new so-called vaccines were whipped seemingly out of nowhere, and my bullshit indicator already on high alert, I trusted my instincts, reinforced by experts who were criticising these new substances on perfectly reasonable grounds: They were not tested enough for anyone to know what their effects were truly going to be. And there was, as was plain to me from the outset, no dangerous pandemic going on anyway, and so there was no need for a vaccine in the first place.
I refused the covid shots. In the end, I was lucky: I didn’t lose my job, though I feared I too might have to make that impossible and unfair choice. My refusal didn’t have any consequences beyond me having to delay travelling and being a social outcast for a few months. Mind you, that was bad enough, and I will not forget that. I won’t go into details, but I look around now, and I am glad I didn’t roll up my sleeve.
Everyone who has an opinion on vaccination or who has questions about vaccination should read this book. It was written before the covid shots came on the market, but it confirmed everything I observed during the covid era.
At 500 pages it’s not a quick read, and this doesn’t include the many hundreds of references which are available only online, presumably to save some trees. It’s also not a book you should read before bedtime.
As long-winded as it can be, this book is written in plain language, and very well-structured, and, as far as I can judge, very thoroughly researched. The authors manage to explain scientific issues and concepts clearly. They state their viewpoint, but also present the arguments made by the ‘other side’, only to refute them quite convincingly.
The book is mainly concerned with vaccine safety, but necessarily also discusses efficacy. Each chapter ends with a summary, as well as questions the reader might want to ask his or her doctor.
The opening chapters explain how deficient vaccine clinical trials are: studies are purposely biased, scientific principles are disregarded in many other ways, but very often, proper science is simply not done at all. By the way, if you’d like some more reading after digesting this tome, you might be interested in Judy Wilyman’s 2015 PhD thesis, A critical analysis of the Australian government’s rationale for its vaccination policy, which I read in the early covid days when the writing was already on the wall.
The built-in deficiencies of the reporting systems are addressed, vaccination guidelines are dissected, before the authors discuss in great detail the founding myths of vaccine science: how diseases have disappeared, what’s up with herd immunity, the unsound basis for mandatory vaccination, and what’s wrong with just about every major vaccine on the menu of most countries. An entire chapter is dedicated to the mysteries of polio.
If you’re pressed for time, you might just want to read the final chapter, which essentially summarises the ten previous chapters – but you wouldn’t want to miss out on all the gory details which might convince you that this particular branch of science should be generally prefaced by the word ‘junk’.
No matter how often researchers come to the same conclusion that governments can fix vaccine hesitancy by targeted indoctrination, I think it unlikely they will succeed in winning back trust from an increasingly sceptical public any time soon. The embarrassing own goals shot during covid will be talked about for decades.
It’s been interesting to observe how climate litigation has become a hot legal topic over the last few years. There are currently close to 3,000 climate change-related litigation cases globally, most of them in the US, with 33 in Australia.
Are you a lawyer already engaged in climate litigation or considering doing so? In that case, I challenge you to do the same kind of rigorous due diligence on the topic of climate change you would do in relation to any of the other matters you take on.
This entire new branch of litigation is based on the fundamental assumption that climate change is a threat and humans are responsible for it.
You will probably think that the science is settled. Everybody says so: Al Gore, Barack Obama, António Guterres, Greta Thunberg, most politicians, practically all of the media, and of course all scientists. They all say the CO2 humans emit is the cause why the Earth’s climate is out of kilter, and unless we cut emissions fast, we are doomed.
I don’t question your good intentions. Who doesn’t want to do the right thing by the environment? But you’re a lawyer. You’re intelligent and ambitious, you wear your heart on your sleeve for whatever cause you take on. On the other hand you’re also risk-averse, and part of your trade is to dot every i and cross every t to make sure you know all the possible arguments. Not doing so could have serious consequences, for your career and your clients. So you need to understand the subject matter as best you can. That means you don’t just rely on what your client tells you, or what you read in the news. You need to look at every issue you come across from all different angles.
Can you honestly say that you’ve done that with respect to climate change?
Have you done some serious research on whether it is actually true that 97% of scientists agree that climate change is dangerous and caused by humans?
Have you checked the veracity of the claim that human-made climate change has brought ice bears and the Great Barrier Reef to the brink of extinction?
Is it true that CO2 is the control knob for the Earth’s climate system?
Are hurricanes, droughts, floods and wildfires actually becoming more frequent and more dangerous?
How accurate are temperature records and how useful are climate models really?
Are glaciers and ice caps really melting away and will they disappear by the year … sorry, what’s the latest prediction?
I grew up in Switzerland in the 1970s and 1980s. In winter, I was able to ski from the top of the hill near my home right down to our backyard at an altitude of 500 metres. By the time I was a teenager it was impossible to do that. So within my own lifetime I’ve observed how the climate has changed in that tiny part of the world.
I also recall being completely confused about the messages in the media in the early 1980s. For years, the media had been talking up the imminent next ice age – we even learnt about it in school – and then, suddenly, it was all about global warming.
The trouble with us humans is that we have very short memories, and we are easily distracted by the latest shiny new theory or idea.
Still, I had no reason to doubt the new and commonly accepted ‘inconvenient truth’ about climate change. In 2008 I scratched my head when ClimateGate happened, but that was swiftly swept under the carpet. Fast forward a few years, and I felt that something definitely wasn’t quite right. Why so much persistent scaremongering? Why were scientists being cancelled for expressing other views?
I grew suspicious and my research instincts kicked in. I put on my critical thinking hat and with an open mind I began investigating the other side of climate science. It didn’t take me long to realise that things were not as clear as they are made out to be in the mainstream media. Digging deeper, I found a plethora of uncertainties and problems with just about every aspect of the dominant climate change narrative. Therefore, in my view there is no legitimate basis for climate change litigation.
I know, I’m not a scientist, and you might not be either. But you don’t need to be one to gain a solid understanding of any scientific issue.
So I encourage you to broaden your horizon, discover, explore, listen to the arguments of all sides, and come to your own conclusions. You may or may not change your mind, but at least you can say you’ve done your due diligence.
If you’re not sure where to find good resources, those on the Climate Discussion Nexus are a great starting point.
There was something profoundly odd about this entire Voice thing from the beginning. Suddenly it was there, at least in the media, seemingly coming out of nowhere.
Apparently, this was some kind of done deal, and all we had to do was vote Yes. But Yes to what exactly? There was precious little detail on what this Voice was about.
As the campaign train was gathering speed, I thought I better inform myself. After all, it’s the Constitution, the rule book of our country, we’re talking about.
I think I’ve heard enough now. I digested the various arguments from both sides, through a range of sources (no, Facebook wasn’t one of them!), from the official pamphlet to watching various Yes-adds, listening to interviews, including aboriginal Yes- and No-voters.
Frankly: there isn’t a single argument by the Yes campaign I find convincing enough.
Below are some of my reasons for my resounding No to the Voice.
I refuse to be emotionally blackmailed. I’m not voting Yes just because it’s the right thing to do and you’re called a racist if you vote against this proposition. I know I’m not racist. I don’t need to vote Yes to confirm that or to feel good about myself. All the abuse-shouting Yes-campaigners who prove by their very actions that this vote is divisive and not uniting won’t change that. Even clever covid-type propaganda methods, as this article suggests, will not work on me.
By his own admission, the prime minister himself hasn’t even bothered to read beyond the executive summary of the ‘Statement from the Heart’. Relying purely on that one-pager is about as ridiculously shallow as basing your views on climate change entirely on the IPCC’s executive summary (or rather the hyperventilating media reports on it), which, sadly, … but I won’t go there now.
There is indeed more to the ‘Statement of the Heart’ than the one page. You can download the full document here. Unlike Mr Albanese, I have read through document 14. The story is more nuanced and it’s obvious to me that the Voice is a stepping stone to treaty, truth telling, possibly reparation. There is clearly a roadmap that’s being followed. Why is the Yes campaign not being honest and forthcoming about that? And what would all of that really mean for all Australians – what legal, political and social implications would this have? The PM and Yes campaigners have done nothing to clarify. If anything, they’ve given evasive answers and tried to gloss over it. Not a good look.
Given Indigenous people already have the same opportunities to talk to government and parliament like any other Australian citizen has through the customary channels, I can’t see any reason why a particular group of people needs any special rights in the Constitution – especially when the Constitution is a purely technical instrument devoid of the consideration of human rights. And so the Voice, whatever it would become, has no place in the Constitution.
If anything, we should vote about getting rid of the remaining existing race-related paragraphs of the Constitution (sections 25 and 51xxvi). I’d be happy to vote Yes to that.
There’s nothing now that stops parliament from enacting another body, if the myriad of existing Indigenous bodies really aren’t enough to give advice to parliament.
There is nothing the governments of the day couldn’t already do to alleviate the suffering that does exist in disadvantaged Aboriginal communities. In fact, an address by fervent Yes-campaigner Julian Leeser confirms this. He gave the example where advice from Aborigines was taken seriously, resulting in an improvement of the situation relating to breast cancer in Aboriginal communities. Clearly, good things can already happen, without the need to tinker with the Constitution.
Adding another section to the Constitution would hardly contribute to fixing the existing issues. As Aboriginal senator Jacinta Price has pointed out many times: governments and program providers just need to listen to Indigenous voices, take meaningful action, and be accountable. If governments don’t listen and waste the money invested in the various programs, then it’s up to parliamentarians, if need be pressured by us, the people, to hold them to account.
If, for example, alcohol-fuelled male violence in some aboriginal communities is a problem, as it seems to be, then those calling it out need to be taken seriously, instead of being condemned for speaking out. Governments and the existing support organisations then need to work with these communities to find practical solutions that work for them. The problems seem to be well known. What’s missing is not a Voice, but action and courage to do something about these real problems. More virtue signaling will not improve the situation one iota.
In my view, the whole concept of a Voice is flawed. Indigenous Australians aren’t homogenous in terms of needs or opinions. Consequently, there can never be just one voice. If a diverse group of people speak with one voice, we’re talking about political parties perhaps, or lobby and activist groups. These institutions are already problematic enough for democracy, so no thank you to more of that. I can’t see the point of enshrining an institutionalised advisory body in the Constitution.
The Voice has already proved very divisive, and there is in my view no good reason to adopt this proposal. If the outcome of this referendum in a week’s time is No, I suspect we’ll soon have a new prime minister. We may also have to deal with some fallout for a while. But perhaps this debate has thrown enough light on the real issues at hand, and governments will listen to the many voices already giving them advice on Indigenous issues, and they will finally meaningfully support Indigenous communities in fixing the existing issues.
As to the full roadmap expressed in the full Statement of the Heart document, there is a much broader and deeper discussion to be had.
Thanks to covid more people know what PCR is than the inventor of this widely used biochemical detection method could have dared to imagine.
Even though I probably benefited from it many times throughout my life, before covid I had no idea what a polymerase chain reaction test was, let alone how it worked and what its limitations were.
Those of us who were critical of the central role PCR tests played in the whole travesty would also at some point have learned the name of the guy who invented PCR in 1983: Kary Mullis.
In 2020, video clips surfaced showing Mullis cautioning about the limits of PCR. I’ll get back to that. Surely, many of us said, Mullis himself (he died of pneumonia on 7 August 2019) would not have approved of the way his 1993 Nobel Prize winning invention was being (ab)used by health authorities around the world to detect the SARS-Cov-2 virus. After reading Mullis’s 1998 autobiography, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, I think he would definitely have been turning over in his grave when Christian Drosten’s WHO-approved covid test regime was used as a weapon to terrorise the entire globe.
The eccentric Mullis was never one to mince words. Would he have been able to single-handedly stem the tsunami of covid madness that was flooding the planet? Unlikely, but he would not have kept quiet.
Judging by his autobiography, Mullis was a free-spirited maverick, a fiercely independent and critical thinker, a scientist at heart, driven by curiosity. Here is a sample from page 110:
If there is something in my food that somebody says is a poison, I want to have the chemistry explained and decide for myself whether or not I want to eat it. Science is a method whereby a notion proffered by anyone must be supported by experimental data. This means that if somebody else is interested in checking up on the notion presented, that person must be allowed access to instructions as to how the original experiments were done. Then he can check things out for himself. It is not allowable in science to make a statement of fact based solely on your own opinion.
Mullis also harboured a deep mistrust in government:
Checks and balances are hard to come by in a scientific establishment that is supported from outside by a populace unskilled in the scientific arts. I know it’s going to be a hard and inefficient answer. Compared to a benevolent monarchy, having three branches of government was also inefficient. And I know that as long as it achieves a better life for us here in the colonies, we will put up with it. We are optimistic people, really, and we are not in a hurry to go anywhere else. I don’t know exactly what the answer is, but I know the answer is not to believe, “Trust us. We’re here to help.” It never has been. [p 103]
Nothing’s changed for the better since he wrote these words. On the contrary.
Mullis was fully aware of the problems science was already facing back then:
We have to make it on the basis of our own wit. We have to be aware-when someone comes on the seven o’clock news with word that the global temperature is going up or that the oceans are turning into cesspools or that half the matter is going backward-that the media are at the mercy of the scientists who have the ability to summon them and that the scientists who have such ability are not often minding the store. More likely they are minding their own livelihoods. [p 106]
He pinpoints the beginnings of this decline to the 1930s, when governments realised that they could use science to determine the balance of power.
Further, he is critical of many of the then-pervasive issues: the climate scare, the ozone hole; and perhaps most famously, HIV-AIDS:
I lectured about PCR at innumerable meetings. Always there were people there talking about HIV. I asked them how it was that we knew that HIV was the cause of AIDS. Everyone said something. Everyone had the answer at home in the office in some drawer. They all knew and they would send me the papers as soon as they got back. But I never got any papers. Nobody ever sent me the news about how AIDS was caused by HIV. I finally had the opportunity to ask Dr. Montagnier about the reference when he lectured in San Diego at the grand opening of the ICSD AIDS Research Center, which is still run by Bob Gallo’s former consort, Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal. This would be the last time I would ask my question without showing anger. In response Dr. Montagnier suggested, “Why don’t you reference the CDC report?” “I read it,” I said, “That doesn’t really address the issue of whether or not HIV is the probable cause of AIDS, does it?” He agreed with me. It was damned irritating. If Montagnier didn’t know the answer, who the hell did? [p 174]
Intriguing, to say the least, but unfortunately, the chapter ends there.
Mullis’s book is entertaining as much as it is thought-provoking. He reminisces about his relationships with his parents and his partners, his drug use, how he invented PCR, his involvement in the O.J. Simpson trial – but somehow he always finds a link back to his great love for science and the quest to find scientific truth.
So, what about those video clips that surfaced early on during the covid years, which were of course dismissed by our all-knowing fact-checkers?
I dug a little deeper, past those pesky YouTube and Google algorithms, and eventually found the entire footage, which, as it turns out comes from an interesting panel discussion at an AIDS-critical conference in Santa Monica that took place on 12 July 1997. You can find the recording in two parts here and here. When Mullis talked, he was far from eloquent, and it was not always easy to be sure what he actually meant. But to me what he says about PCR at the end of the discussion is clear enough to confirm that he would not have approved of the way the PCR method was being abused during covid.
Here is my 45-minute compilation of everything Mullis said on that occasion. You might also want to treat yourself to this fascinating 30-minute TED-X talk.
No, Mullis was not the most refined orator, but he more than made up for that with his intellect, his authenticity, his wit, and his passion for science.
