Western Media Ignites War on China in Sports
By Rick Sterling | Dissident Voice | May 12, 2024
Western accusations of doping by Chinese swimmers threaten to exacerbate China-US tensions, undermine the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) and seriously harm the upcoming Paris Olympics.
The controversy was ignited by investigation reports at the New York Times and German TV broadcaster ARD. These media outlets suggest there has been a cover-up of a mass doping incident among Chinese top swimmers with connivance of the Chinese Anti Doping Agency (CHINADA) and complicity from the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA). This story served as red meat to the hyper aggressive leader of the US Anti Doping Agency (USADA), Travis Tygart. It has prompted western swimming competitors to loudly complain. For example, the NY Times reports that US team swimmer Paige Madden thinks medals from the Tokyo Olympics should be reallocated. “I feel that Team USA was cheated.” British swimmer James Guy says, “Ban them all and never compete again.” What might be considered whining and poor sportsmanship is effectively being encouraged by western media.
The NY Times and ARD are the same two media that precipitated the accusations of “state sponsored doping” in Russia. It did enormous damage to thousands of Russian athletes and resulted in different levels of banning starting with the Rio Olympics in 2016. Although widely accepted as “truth” in the West, the claims of widespread Russian doping were weak when evidence was required. Most Russian athletes who challenged their banning were exonerated. The major accusers, the Stepanovs and Grigory Rodchenkov, were themselves guilty of doping and profiting from doping. Despite this, the banning has continued and escalated after the Russian intervention in Ukraine. The accusations and banning were useful in propelling the “new cold war” and “new McCarthyism”.
NYT and ARD, and their anonymous informants, may be seeking to do something similar to China. USADA has issued a response in which they say China may be engaging in “systematic doping” under a “coordinated doping regime”. On May 6 USADA’s Tygart escalated his attacks. He implies the Paris Olympics will be a “train wreck” because of WADA complicity in China’s “cheating”. He hopes the US government will “step in and help lead and fix this.” Surely a recipe for success.
What happened
On Jan 1 – 3 in 2021, the Chinese swim team was having a domestic swim meet. It was in the midst of covid lockdown. As usual, the team was drug tested but this time a strange thing happened: many swimmers tested positive for a trace amount of the banned medication trimetazadine (TMZ).
The China Anti Doping Agency (CHINADA) investigated and reported the facts to the World Anti Doping Agency as required. They found:
* 23 swimmers tested positive for a very small amount of trimetazadine (TMZ)
* the swimmers were from different regions of China with different coaches and trainers
* all 23 were staying at the same hotel eating in the same dining room
* none of the swimmers staying at a different hotel tested positive
* some of the swimmers tested positive one day, negative the next
* tests in the hotel kitchen showed the presence of TMZ on the air vent and counters
CHINADA concluded the positive TMZ tests were from hotel food and the athletes were not at fault.
They reported the incident and investigation to the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) and the international swimming federation now known as World Aquatics (formerly FINA). Both organizations examined the facts and agreed with the findings.
Because the athletes were deemed to have no fault, the incident and names of the athletes were not publicized. WADA regulations indicate that there should be no publicity or naming of athletes deemed innocent and without an “Anti Doping Rule Violation” (ADRV).
How it has been reported
Approximately a year later, in 2022, anonymous sources reported this incident to the NY Times and ARD. Since then, the two media outlets have done further investigation but kept the story secret until two weeks ago.
They suggest something shady happened back in early 2021. They suggest WADA may be complicit in covering up anti doping violations. They almost encourage western athletes to challenge the Chinese swimming accomplishments and be “angry”. On April 20 the story was “Top Chinese Swimmers Tested Positive for Banned Drug, Then Won Olympic Gold“. On April 21 the story was “‘Team USA Was Cheated’: Chinese Doping Case Exposes Rift in Swimming“. On April 22 the story was “Top Biden Official Calls for Inquiry Into Chinese Doping Case.”
These reports ignited a flood of other sensational and accusatory reports and editorials. The Guardian report is titled “Poison in the pool: why the latest Chinese doping row is proving so toxic.” Sports Yahoo says, “Extremely concerned Olympians will not let the Chinese doping allegations die.” The PBS News Hour had a video report titled, “Chinese doping ‘swept under the carpet’: US anti-doping chief says.” Sports Illustrated said the news may alter the distribution of medals from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the situation.
The NY Times and ARD say they have been investigating this story for two years. The release appears timed to have maximum impact and possible damage, just months before the Paris Olympics.
USADA accuses WADA
The US Anti Doping Agency (USADA) is led by the hyper-aggressive Travis Tyler. He has used the reports to claim that WADA is complicit in a Chinese “cover-up”. In a TV interview before a large national audience Tygart said, “China didn’t follow the rules. They effectively swept this under the carpet because they didn’t find a violation. They didn’t announce a violation. They didn’t disqualify the athletes from the event at which they tested positive. And this is absolutely mandatory under the world anti-doping code that all nations are required to follow.”
WADA has responded that Tygart’s comments seem “politically motivated”. They say CHINADA followed the rules, investigated and reported as required. They say China did NOT have to announce it to the world, or name the individual athletes for the very good reason that false accusations of doping can destroy a career. WADA regulations say the names of athletes should NOT be publicized until or unless it is confirmed they have an Anti Doping Rule Violation.
WADA appoints independent investigator
WADA is the international organization charged with supervising global anti-doping in sports. With its headquarters in Canada and most of its leaders from NATO countries, it is a largely western organization.
They are highly sensitive to criticism from the West. It has pushed back against some of the most extreme criticism, for example from the USADA head. They have also appointed an independent investigator to review what happened in China and whether WADA was correct to accept the Chinese investigation and report.
WADA appointed Eric Cottier, the prosecutor general of a Swiss region. WADA headquarters are in Canada but the organization is registered in Switzerland. USADA has criticized the appointment suggesting that Cottier is not sufficiently “independent”.
Thoms Bach, head of the International Olympic Committee, has voiced support for WADA.
WADA has defended their actions in a press conference and fact sheet about the case.
The controversy may quiet down. But a lot of poison has been spread around. Encouraged by the NY Times and other media, numerous western athletes now claim they feel “cheated” out of medals at the Tokyo Olympics since 5 medals were won by Chinese swimmers involved in the TMZ “doping scandal”.
It is also possible the controversy will continue. Will the “Sports Czar” of the Biden Administration get involved? Will the FBI be designated to investigate? These are now possible in the wake of the Rodchenkov Anti Doping Act which passed Congress in 2020.
Reader comments following articles indicate there is a wellspring of anti-China hostility encouraged by the accusations. The most popular comment on this article says, “When will democracies learn that authoritarian regimes play dirty, and should be viewed as suspect not deserving of good faith.” Another says, “No one knows doping like China knows doping, China knows doping best.” Another one says, “China cheats. Russia cheats. Just like the East Germans did before them. Their governments will meet the same fate as they did.”
Pushback
There has been some pushback to the sensational anti-China accusations. For example, Denis Cotterell is a world class coach who has trained both Australian and Chinese Olympic swimmers. He has spoken out strongly in support of the Chinese swimmers. He says, “I can see what they (the swimmers) go through. I see the measures… The suggestion that it’s systemic is so far from anything I have seen here the whole time. They are so adamant on having clean sport.”
An insightful article from an Australian academic sports authority and popular sports commentator suggests there are political forces at work: “WADA – like the United Nations and other organizations – finds itself in the cross hairs of the great power struggle of our time: a rising China and its challenge to US dominance.”
Geopolitical Consequences
According to the “2024 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community”, China is “challenging longstanding rules of the international system as well as U.S. primacy within it.” China’s positive “international image” is a challenge to U.S. leadership. By this logic, it is in the US interests to damage China’s international reputation and standing.
This raises the question: How did the TMZ get into the hotel kitchen and into the food being served to these Chinese athletes?
In February 2022, accusations of intentional doping were heaped on the Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva. A trace amount of trimetazadine (TMZ) was detected in a drug test taken seven weeks before the Beijing Olympics. There are similarities to the Chinese case: same drug, same trace amount detected, same mystery as to how it was ingested.
Because she could not explain how it got there, Valieva was condemned in the West and ultimately had her international career destroyed. The Russian figure skating sweep was prevented and the Russian team lost their gold medals. The controversy distracted and partially ruined the Beijing Olympics. The “intelligence community” undoubtedly considers this a success.
How did the TMZ get in the hotel kitchen in China? Who are the “whistle blowers” who informed the New York Times and ARD and supplied the names of the athletes who tested positive for the trace amount of TMZ?
The anti doping crusade is being manipulated by powerful forces with ignoble intentions.
Gideon Falter, Campaign Against Antisemitism instruments of the Zionist entity
By David Miller | Al Mayadeen | May 12, 2024
Gideon Falter had his face plastered all over the British mainstream media after he tried to provoke a confrontation with thousands of anti-genocide protestors in central London on April 13.
A specially edited video produced by his organisation the Campaign for Antisemitism, was released to the media 5 days after the march.
It caused a deluge of headlines on the “shocking moment” police threatened to arrest Falter “simply” for being “quite openly Jewish”. This narrative dominated all major news outlets for some five days, until Sky News published a much longer video, lasting 13 minutes, which showed the encounter in context. This started to change the story. The BBC Breakfast programme interviewed a former Metropolitan Police Chief, Superintendent Dal Babu, who stated, “I have watched the thirteen-minute clip that’s on @SkyNews and it’s a totally different encounter to the one Gideon Falter has reported… The narrative that has been pushed is not accurate”. He also said, “Personally, if I was policing that march, I would have been inclined to have arrested [Falter] for assault on a police officer and breach of the peace.”
In the Sky News footage, the activist insisted he was only trying to cross the road down which the demonstration was passing, but this is disputed by a police officer in the new footage, who said Mr. Falter had deliberately walked head-on into the crowd and accused him of being “disingenuous” and seeking to “antagonise” the marchers.
Then it emerged that one of the people accompanying Falter, who looked like his security detail, had been co-ordinating security for the visit of the Israeli President Isaac Herzog to December last year. It turned out that he worked for SQR Group. His name was Vicentiu Chiculita. Other security personnel, presumably from the firm, around five of them, can be seen in various video clips from that day. They make clear that Falter was simply lying in his interactions with the police.
The firm also happens to be run by two ex-Mossad officers, Avi Navama and Shai Slagter. They even advertise themselves (in the Zionist JC) as former Mossad. Navama may well have been the Mossad station chief in the London Embassy, given the description given of him in the JC as a “security attache” who “specialised in counter-terrorism operations.”
The picture of an ordinary Jewish man wandering the streets of London after attending Synagogue, only to run into an anti-genocide march, had by this stage, been totally discredited. Instead what was seen was a Zionist provocateur with a Mossad-connected security team deliberately trying to provoke trouble so that the victimology of false antisemitism allegations could be employed.
What is the Campaign Against Antisemitism?
The Campaign Against Antisemitism was formed 10 years ago as a means to divert attention from the slaughter in Gaza launched by the Zionist entity in early July of 2014.
Its first action was to propose a boycott of the Tricycle Theatre for refusing to accept sponsorship from the embassy of “Israel”. This manifestly had nothing to do with so-called “antisemitism”.
The modus operandi for the CAA can been seen from these early actions. A deliberate refusal to distinguish racism against the Jews from legitimate criticism of the Zionist entity.
The CEO, Gideon Falter, already had form before joining the CAA. Back in 2009, he was instrumental in convicting a Foreign Office diplomat of racially aggravated harassment for allegedly denouncing Jews while watching TV reports of Israeli atrocities in Gaza.
The trouble was, as Laxton showed at his appeal, there was no evidence he had ever mentioned Jews – he had instead denounced “Israelis”. Falter had given a false account of the incident.
The CAA now has a serial record of making false and vexatious claims, not least against the Labour Party and against large numbers of Muslim professionals. One of its staff famously celebrated that they “killed the beast” when Jeremy Corbyn was forced out of the position of the leader of the Labour Party.
It is difficult to judge who is behind the CAA, since it has a special dispensation from the Charity Commission and Companies House not to name its trustees or directors.
But we do know that Falter is a director of three charities associated with the UK branch of the Jewish National Fund, the land theft and ethnic cleansing agency based in Jerusalem. It is one of the four Israeli “national institutions” that comprise the leadership of the global Zionist movement.
The JNF in the UK has recently been rocked by the resignation of Gary Mond in April 2023 from three of its charities, after he referred to “all civilisation” being “at war with Islam”. This happened just after Samuel Hayek, chair of the UK Jewish National Fund, promoted the far-right great replacement theory. Hayek remains in post at the JNF and as director of more than ten of its associated charities/companies, despite living in the settler colony.
It’s no surprise, therefore, that the CAA has also pushed Islamophobia, attempting to smear British Muslims as “antisemitic”.
Close examination of the financial reports of the JNF and CAA shows that Falter is one of the trustees of the CAA, and that the JNF is a major funder of the group. In fact, the JNF appears to restrict some of the money it donates so that it has to be used to fund Falter’s salary, a clearly problematic conflict of interest.
Other sources of funding are hard to find, but we can say that a little-known charity called the Anglo-Jewish Association (AJA) made a £5,000 donation to the CAA when the Equality and Human Rights Commission was investigating alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. The Deputy President of the AJA at the time was the husband of the CEO of the EHRC, who was for some time in charge of the investigation.
Another ‘Jewish’ foundation called Natan also funded CAA. Natan was at that point chaired by Tony Felzen, a strong supporter and donor to the so-called “Friends of the Israel Defense Forces”.
A more recent and major funder of the CAA is an obscure British charity, called the David and Ruth Lewis Family Charitable Trust, gave more than £400,000 between 2019 and 2023. The trust is associated with the Zionist Lewish family, which owns the River Island clothing chain, and which gives to a range of other extreme Zionist groups, including the UK Friends of the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers, which funds the Israeli military and several groups involved in settlements illegal under international law such as Jewish National Fund (£135,000), Jerusalem Foundation (£632,131) and Aish Ha Torah UK Limited (£102,000). It has funded a wide range of Zionist lobby groups (details here) as well as the Islamophobic think tank Policy Exchange.
The CAA is a covert instrument of the foreign policy objectives of the illegitimate and genocidal Zionist regime. It should be shut down.
The Myth of Online Radicalisation
By Iain Davis | The Disillusioned Blogger | May 10, 2021
In 2021, following the tragic murder of David Amess MP, the UK legacy media reported that Ali Harbi Ali, the man subsequently convicted of murdering Mr Amess, was quite possibly radicalised online:
Social media users could face a ban on anonymous accounts, as home secretary Priti Patel steps up action to tackle radicalisation in the wake of the murder of MP David Amess. [. . .] Police questioning Ali Harbi Ali on suspicion of terrorism offences are understood to be investigating the possibility that the 25-year-old [. . .] was radicalised by material found on the internet and social media networks during lockdown.
The police had already stated that the crime was being investigated as a terrorist incident. They reported a potential motive of Islamist extremism.
Ali Harbi Ali had been known to the UK government’s Prevent counter-radicalisation program for seven years, prior to murdering Mr Amess. In 2014 Ali Harbi Ali was referred to the Channel counter-terrorism programme, a wing of Prevent reserved for the most radical youths. A referral to Channel can only have come from the UK Police. The official guidance for a Channel referral states:
The progression of referrals is monitored at the Home Office for a period, with a view to offering further support if needed. An audit of non-adopted referrals is undertaken where these did not progress to police management. The Home Office works with Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters to share any concerns and agree necessary steps for improvement in partnership with the local authority and police.
It is likely, therefore, that Ali Harbi Abedi was known to the UK government, counter-terrorism police and the intelligence agencies. Yet we are told, having been flagged as among the most concerning of all Prevent subjects, for some seemingly inexplicable reason, Ali Harbi Ali was not known to the intelligence agencies. To date, there has been no explanation for this, frankly, implausible claim.
Following his conviction, the UK legacy media reported that Ali Harbi Ali was an example of “textbook radicalisation.” This was a quite extraordinary claim because there is no such thing as “textbook radicalisation.”
Ali Harbi Ali said that he had watched ISIS propaganda videos online. This was also highlighted at his trial. Consequently, the BBC reported:
[. . .] for a potentially bored teenager living a humdrum life in suburban London – the [Syrian] war not only appeared like an exciting video game on social media, it came packaged with an appealing message that there was a role for everyone else. [. . .] Harbi Ali told himself he could [. . .] join the ranks of home-grown attackers – on the basis of an instruction [online videos] from an IS propagandist who played a major role in the spread of terrorism attacks in western Europe.
The story we are supposed to believe about Ali Harbi Ali’s alleged path toward radicalisation is that he became a terrorist and a murderer because he watched YouTube videos and engaged in online groups that support terrorism. This is complete nonsense.
What is the Radicalisation Process?
In 2016, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson issued a report to inform potential UN strategies to counter extremism and terrorism. Emmerson reported there was neither an agreed-upon definition of “extremism” nor any single cogent explanation of the “radicalisation” process:
[M]any programmes directed at radicalisation [are] based on a simplistic understanding of the process as a fixed trajectory to violent extremism with identifiable markers along the way. [. . .] There is no authoritative statistical data on the pathways towards individual radicalisation.
This was followed, in 2017, with the publication of “Countering Domestic Extremism” by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The NAS report stated that domestic “violence and violent extremist ideologies” were eventually adopted by a small minority of people as the result of a complex and poorly understood “radicalisation” process.
According to the NAS, there were numerous contributory factors to an individual’s apparent radicalisation, including sociopolitical and economic factors, personality traits, psychological influences, traumatic life experiences and so on. Precisely how these elements combined, and why some people were radicalised, while the majority who experienced the same weren’t, remained unknown:
No single shared motivator for violent extremism has been found, but the sum of several could provide a strong foundation for understanding
In July 2018, researcher team from from Deakin University in Australia largely corroborated Emmerson’s and NAS’ findings. Adding some further detail and research, their peer-reviewed article, “The 3 P’s of Radicalisation,” was based upon an meta-analysis of all the available academic literature on the radicalisation. They identified three broad drivers that could potentially lead someone toward violent extremism. They called these Push, Pull, and Personal factors.
Push factors are created by the individuals perception of their social or political environment. Awareness of things likes state repression, structural deprivation, poverty, and injustice can lead to resentment and anger. Pull factors are the elements of extremism that appeal to the individual. This might include an ideological commitment, a group identity and sense of belonging, finding a purpose, promises of justice, eternal glory, etc. Personal factors are the aspects of an individual’s personality that may predispose them to being more vulnerable to Push or Pull influences. For example, mental health problems or illness, individual characteristics, their reaction to life experiences and more.
Currently, the UN cites it’s own report—Journey To Extremism in Africa—as “the most extensive study yet on what drives people to violent extremism.” Building on the work we’ve just discussed, the report concluded that radicalisation is the product of numerous factors that combine to lead an individual down a path to extremism and possible violence.
The myriad of contributory factors to the radicalisation process acording to the UN’s “best study.”
The UN stated:
We know the drivers and enablers of violent extremism are multiple, complex and context specific, while having religious, ideological, political, economic and historical dimensions. They defy easy analysis, and understanding of the phenomenon remains incomplete.
The BBC report of “textbook radicalisation” was total rubbish. Everything we know about the radicalisation process reveals a convoluted interplay between social, economic, political, cultural and personal factors. These factors, which “defy easy analysis,” may combine to lead someone toward violent extremism and potentially terrorism. In the overwhelming majority of cases they do not.
It is extremely difficult to predict which individual’s may be radicalised. Millions of people experience all of the Push, Pull and Personal contributory factors and only a minuscule minority turn to extremism and violence.
We can say that watching videos and hanging around in online chat groups may be part of the radicalisation process but, absent all the other contributory elements, in no way is it reasonable to claim that anyone becomes a terrorist simply because they are “radicalised online.” The suggestion is absurd.
This absurdity was emphasised by the UN in its June 2023 publication of its report “Prevention of Violent Extremism.” The UN reported:
[. . .] deaths from terrorist activity have fallen considerably worldwide in recent years.
During the same period global internet use had increased by 45%, from 3.7 billion people in 2018 to 5.4 billion in 2023. Quite clearly, if there is a correlation between internet use and terrorism—doubtful—it’s an inverse one.
Adopting the precautionary principle we should perhaps be encouraging more people to have more access to a wider range of online information sources. There is a remote, but possible chance that this assists, in some unknown way, the reduction of violent extremism and deters the tiny minority from turning toward terrorism.
Marianna Spring
Exploiting the Online Radicalisation Myth
State propagandists, like the BBC’s Marianna Spring, have been spreading disinformation about online radicalisation for some time. They have been doing this to deceive the public into thinking that government legislation, such as the Online Safety Act (OSA), will tackle the mythical problem of online radicalisation.
In a January 2024 article she titled “Young Britons exposed to online radicalisation following Hamas attack,” Marianna Spring wrote:
It is a spike in hate that leaves young Britons increasingly exposed to radicalisation by algorithm. [. . .] Algorithms are recommendation systems that promote new content to a user based on posts they engage with. That means they can drive some people to more extreme ideas.
Building on her absurd Lord Haw-Haw level tripe, in reference to the work of the UK Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) Spring added:
The focus is on terrorism-related content that could lead to violence offline or risk radicalising other people into terror ideologies on social media.
Building on this abject nonsense Spring continued:
So what about all of the hate that sits in the middle? It’s not extreme enough to be illegal, but it still poisons the public discourse and risks pushing some people further towards extremes. [. . .] Responsibility for dealing with hateful posts – as of now – lies with the social media companies. It also lies, to some extent, with policy makers looking to regulate the sites, and users themselves. New legislation like the Online Safety Act does force the social media companies to take responsibility for illegal content, too.
This blurring of definitions from “terrorist” to “hate” to “hateful posts” to “extremes” was a meaningless slurry of specious drivel designed to convince the public that terrorists become terrorists because they watch YouTube videos or are influenced by the “hurty words” they read and share on social media. None of which was true.
Spring’s evident purpose was to lend some credibility to the State’s legislative push to silence all dissent online and censor legitimate public opinion. Spring spun the idea, that online radicalisation exists, to encourage people to give away their essential democratic rights in order to stay safe.
This moronic argument convinced the clueless puppeticians—we keep electing to Parliament by mistake—to pass the Online Safety Act into law in October 2023. They were told that it would protect children and adults from “harm”:
The kinds of illegal content and activity that platforms need to protect users from are set out in the Act, and this includes content relating to [. . .] terrorism.
Imagining this is what the Online Safety Act was supposed to protect adults from, the OSA received its Royal assent. Now that we have it on the statute books all the anti-democratic oppression it contains has been let loose.
The UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) creates the offence of “sending false information intended to cause non-trivial harm.” Quite what “non-trivial harm” is supposed to mean isn’t entirely clear. The UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) certainly doesn’t understand it:
Section 179(1) OSA 2023 creates a summary offence of sending false communications. The offence is committed if [. . .], at the time of sending it, the person intended the message, or the information in it, to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience. [. . .] Non-trivial psychological or physical harm is not defined [. . .]. Prosecutors should be clear when making a charging decision about what the evidence is concerning the suspect’s intention and how what was intended was not “trivial”, and why. Note that there is no requirement that such harm should in fact be caused, only that it be intended.
Its seems the legal profession can’t quite grasp the horrific implications of the new punishable offence the UK State has created. Perhaps because they still imagine they serve a democracy. There’s no need for any confusion. The UK State has been quite clear about the nature of its dictatorship:
These new criminal offences will protect people from a wide range of abuse and harm online, including [. . .] sending fake news that aims to cause non-trivial physical or psychological harm.
“Fake news” is whatever the State, the Establishment and their “epistemic authorities” say it is. what constitutes “non-trivial harm” is also an entirely subjective judgement for the State. The Online Safety regulator, Ofcom, will decree the truth and the State will punish those who dare to contradict its official proclamations based upon whatever the Secretary of State tells Ofcom to outlaw.
If you think this sounds like “thought crime,” you are right. That is precisely what it is.
The idea that the OSA has something to do with protecting children and deterring people from online radicalisation was a sales pitch. Propagandists like the BBC’s Marianna Spring were dispatched to make the ridiculous arguments to deceive the public into believing their own speech needs to be regulated by the State.
The State is Completely Disinterested In Terrorist Content Online
Inciting violence, crime or promoting terrorism, sharing child porn and the online paedophile grooming of children has been illegal in the UK for many years. The Online Safety Act adds absolutely nothing to existing laws. The problem has never been insufficient law it has been insufficient enforcement.
In addition, it couldn’t be more obvious that the UK State and its propagandists are not in the least bit interested in tackling alleged “online radicalisation.” It is revealed in Marianna Spring’s article (referenced above) she reportedly got her wacky ideas about online radicalisation from CTIRU team members.
The CTIRU was set up in 2010 to remove “unlawful terrorist material” from the Internet. It makes formal requests to social media and hosting companies to take down material deemed to be terrorist related. If online radicalisation were a thing, which it isn’t, the CTIRU has been tasked for 14 years with stopping it. It doesn’t appear to have done anything at all.
The group Jabhat Fateh al Sham (JFS) was formerly known as the Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra (alias al-Qaeda in Syria, or al-Qaeda in the Levant). It subsequently merged with Ansar al-Din Front, Jaysh al-Sunna, Liwa al-Haqq, and the Nour al–Din al-Zenki Movement to form Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), or ‘Levant Liberation Front’.
HTS’ objective is to create an Islamic state in the Levant. According to the UK Government’s listing of proscribed terrorist groups:
The government laid Orders, in July 2013, December 2016 and May 2017, which provided that the “al-Nusrah Front (ANF)”, “Jabhat al-Nusrah li-ahl al Sham”, “Jabhat Fatah al-Sham” and “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” should be treated as alternative names for the organisation which is already proscribed under the name Al Qa’ida.
HTS, then, is officially defined as Al-Qa’ida. It is the same group supposedly responsible for 9/11.
In 2016, six years after the CTIRU was formed, BBC Newsnight interviewed Al-Qa’ida’s Director of Foreign Media Relations, Mostafa Mahamed, about the ambitions of Al-Qa’ida. The BBC gave him ample airtime to explain how Al-Qa’ida was leading the fight against the elected Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. The BBC claimed that JFS—now HTS—had formerly split from Al-Qa’ida. Probably attempting to justify its promotion of a proscribed terrorist organisation. The UK Government does not share the BBC appraisal but its Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit doesn’t appear to be overly fussed.
The BBC HTS promo video is still available to watch on YouTube. Alternatively, you could watch a JFS promotional video, or perhaps spend less than a minute searching YouTube to find the slew of videos it provides promoting proscribed Islamist terrorist groups.
You can still watch Channel 4’s in-depth 2016 report extolling the heroics of the Nour al-Din al-Zenki terrorists. This is the group that publicly beheaded a twelve-year-old boy. In fact, Channel 4 promoted those directly responsible for the despicable crime. Channel 4 said the child murderers had won a “famous victory”.
When it was pointed out that these people decapitate children, the BBC leapt to their defence, pointing out that the child was probably a combatant. The BBC didn’t ask its terrorist interviewee, Mostafa Mahamed, whether he was against murdering children in principle.
Such videos have been available online for years and have been shared liberally by mainstream media outlets such as Al-Jazeera, Channel 4, the BBC, AP, France24 and many others. This all seems rather odd, because in 2018, then CTIRU Commander Clarke Jarrett said:
It’s vital that if the public see something online they think could be terrorist-related, that they ACT and flag it up to us. Our Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) has specialist officers who not only take action to get content removed, but also increasingly, are in a position to look at those behind online content — which is leading to more and more investigations.
What does CTIRU mean by “terrorist-related” if not promotional videos made by terrorist organisations? How much investigation is needed to “take down” BBC interviews with Al-Qa’ida spokesmen, and to prosecute those who made and broadcast it?
Why aren’t the hundreds, if not thousands, of terrorist promos currently available via Google services deemed unlawful? Are only some terrorist groups unlawful while others are fine? Why are some terrorists promoted and others not?
The truth is the whole thing is a monumental sham. Not only is online radicalisation a myth the State couldn’t care less about terrorist promotional material. The online radicalisation myth has been punted by propagandists for one reason only. To convince you to submit to online censorship.
The Climate Cult Reacts As Its Political Position Begins To Slip
By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | May 05, 2024
For two decades and more, the political position of the climate alarm cult in the U.S. and Europe has only seemed to strengthen with time. In the U.S., the Obama and Biden Administrations have both pushed huge regulatory initiatives to restrict use of fossil fuels (with only some modest roll-backs during Trump’s four years); some of the most sweeping restrictions got pushed through just a week ago. Meanwhile, blue states like California and New York have enacted ever-more-extreme restrictions by statute. In Europe, there has been a near all-party political consensus in favor of the “net zero” agenda, notably including even the mainstream conservative parties in the largest countries like the UK and Germany.
I have long said that sooner or later a combination of physical reality and cost would stop the “net zero” juggernaut in its tracks. Indeed, that has begun to happen, particularly in Europe. Elections for the European Parliament are coming up in about a month, with climate skeptic candidates and parties looking to score substantial gains.
So how is the left reacting? So far, the official talking point seems to be to belittle the resistance to fossil fuel restrictions as some kind of scheme of the “far right.” The “far right,” we are told, are those nefarious people who dare to stand up for maintaining the living standards of the working stiffs against those who would impoverish us all in the quixotic drive to reduce carbon emissions. Somehow, seemingly independent news organizations put out articles using the exact same words and phrases. Here are a couple of recent examples.
In the Washington Post on May 1, the headline is “How car bans and heat pump rules drive voters to the far right.” Subheadline: “Studies show that as energy prices rise, so do right-wing movements against green policies.” Excerpt:
A . . . backlash is happening all over Europe, as far-right parties position themselves in opposition to green policies. In Germany, a law that would have required homeowners to install heat pumps galvanized the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, giving it a boost. Farmers have rolled tractors into Paris to protest E.U. agricultural rules, and drivers in Italy and Britain have protested attempts to ban gas-guzzling cars from city centers. . . .
Th[e] resurgence of the right could slow down the green transition in Europe, . . . as climate policies increasingly touch citizens’ lives. . . . “This has really expanded the coalition of the far right,” said Erik Voeten, a professor of geopolitics at Georgetown University and the author of the new study on the Netherlands.
The Post’s writer, Shannon Osaka, seems genuinely surprised that the common people of Europe would place any value on maintaining their standard of living:
[C]hanges to driving, home heating and farming are beginning to affect individual Europeans — sparking criticism and anger. “What’s happening as we accelerate the pace of the transition is we’re now starting to get into sectors that inevitably touch on people’s lives,” said Luke Shore, strategy director for Project Tempo, a nonprofit research organization that is assessing how climate policies affect voting patterns in Europe. “We’ve reached the point at which it’s becoming personal — and for that reason, it’s also becoming more political.” The problem, researchers say, occurs when individual consumers feel that the cost of the energy transition is being borne on their shoulders — rather than on governments and corporations.
Who could ever have guessed that this might happen? As an example of crazy “far right” lunacy, the Post cites this line from the manifesto of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands:
“Energy is a basic need, but climate madness has turned it into a very expensive luxury item.”
I mean, how could you get any more extreme “far right” than that?
In a very similar vein, we have a piece from the Guardian on April 30, with the headline, “How climate policies are becoming focus for far-right attacks in Germany.” Again, the gist is that this is just coming from extremists that you don’t need to pay any attention to. Excerpt:
At the marches held in Görlitz, a stronghold of the far right on the Polish border, and other towns across Germany every Monday night, supporters of [the Alternative for Germany and Free Saxony] parties vent their fury at immigration, coronavirus restrictions and military aid to Ukraine. But one group bears the brunt of the blame. “The Greens are our main enemy,” said Jankus, describing the AfD as a party of freedom and the Greens as a party of bans. “We don’t want to tell people how to heat their homes. We don’t want to tell people what kind of engine should be in their car.”
Freedom — there’s a really lunatic “far right” idea. Rather than trying to explain to the readers why there is something wrong with support of “freedom,” the Guardian instead veers off into characterizing these “far right” demonstrators as really, really bad people:
[Green] party speaker Carolin Renner said she and her colleagues had had death threats screamed in their faces, white-pride stickers stuck to their door and a daily barrage of hateful comments posted on their social media channels. Shortly before Christmas, protesters dumped horse manure in front of the Greens’ office in nearby Zittau.
Despite the characterizations, the article contains no actual example of anything described as a “death threat” or a “hateful comment.” We’ll just have to take the word of the Green Party spokesperson.
Well, the European elections are just about a month away at this point. The climate skeptic parties are expected to make some noticeable gains. However, the actual mandatory requirements for most people to ditch the gas-powered car for an electric one, or to buy a heat pump to heat their home, have not yet kicked in. When that happens, perhaps we will see a real political tornado.
IS A CLIMATE LOCKDOWN ON THE HORIZON?
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | May 2, 2024
A recent article by the LA Times editorial board claims that California is experiencing record high temperatures. Jefferey Jaxen does a fact check on their claims. As President Joe Biden mulls the idea of declaring a climate emergency, we look into the potential powers that could be gained from this move. Will we have a climate lockdown on our horizon?
Pandemic Officials are “Disappointed in Themselves”, per the New York Times
By Igor Chudov | May 3, 2024
An article in the New York Times is titled “Thousands Believe Covid Vaccines Harmed Them. Is Anyone Listening?” (no paywall)
The author, Apoorva Mandavilli, was correctly described by Vinay Prasad as the worst science reporter. She states her surprise about “thousands” who believe that Covid vaccines harmed them. While we know that number to be an understatement, it is interesting how the New York Times recognizes them after years of stonewalling.
But in a recent interview, Dr. Janet Woodcock, a longtime leader of the Food and Drug Administration, who retired in February, said she believed that some recipients had experienced uncommon but “serious” and “life-changing” reactions beyond those described by federal agencies.
“I feel bad for those people,” said Dr. Woodcock, who became the F.D.A.’s acting commissioner in January 2021 as the vaccines were rolling out. “I believe their suffering should be acknowledged, that they have real problems, and they should be taken seriously.”
FDA’s Dr. Woodcock is disappointed in herself:
“I’m disappointed in myself,” she added. “I did a lot of things I feel very good about, but this is one of the few things I feel I just didn’t bring it home.”
The article discusses thousands of people gaslit by vaccine promoters and their doctors, who were intimidated not to report vaccine injuries:
Similar sentiments were echoed in interviews, conducted over more than a year, with 30 people who said they had been harmed by Covid shots. They described a variety of symptoms following vaccination, some neurological, some autoimmune, some cardiovascular.
All said they had been turned away by physicians, told their symptoms were psychosomatic, or labeled anti-vaccine by family and friends — despite the fact that they supported vaccines.
Even some key vaccine promoters report vaccine injuries, which they could not report anywhere:
Dr. Gregory Poland, 68, editor in chief of the journal Vaccine, said that a loud whooshing sound in his ears had accompanied every moment since his first shot, but that his entreaties to colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to explore the phenomenon, tinnitus, had led nowhere.
He received polite responses to his many emails, but “I just don’t get any sense of movement,” he said.
The federal officials in charge of setting the policy still refuse to believe these reports:
Federal health officials say they do not believe that the Covid vaccines caused the illnesses described by patients like Mr. Barcavage, Dr. Zimmerman and Ms. France. The vaccines may cause transient reactions, such as swelling, fatigue and fever, according to the C.D.C., but the agency has documented only four serious but rare side effects.
The excuse that these officials give for ignoring vaccine harms is that they were fighting misinformation :
The rise of the anti-vaccine movement has made it difficult for scientists, in and out of government, to candidly address potential side effects, some experts said. Much of the narrative on the purported dangers of Covid vaccines is patently false, or at least exaggerated, cooked up by savvy anti-vaccine campaigns.
Questions about Covid vaccine safety are core to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign. Citing debunked theories about altered DNA, Florida’s surgeon general has called for a halt to Covid vaccination in the state.
“The sheer nature of misinformation, the scale of misinformation, is staggering, and anything will be twisted to make it seem like it’s not just a devastating side effect but proof of a massive cover-up,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a vice dean at Johns Hopkins University.
So, get this please, the massive coverup was necessary to debunk ‘“misinformation” about the existence of a massive coverup. I hope it makes sense to you, my dear reader!
They finally note miscarriages caused by COVID vaccines:
Among the hundreds of millions of Americans who were immunized for Covid, some number would have had heart attacks or strokes anyway. Some women would have miscarried. How to distinguish those caused by the vaccine from those that are coincidences? The only way to resolve the question is intense research.
Another way to get the alarm signal of miscarriages is to ask, why does the Moderna vaccine cause 42% more miscarriages, compared to the Pfizer vaccine.
Why Now?
Are we observing a paradoxical awakening of honesty among federal officials and vaccine researchers? Have Apoorva Mandavilli and her employer finally decided to come clean about Covid vaccines?
Did these dishonest people suddenly straighten their ways, after being paid millions in research grants, CDC vaccine promotion fees paid to the media, etc? As much as I hope people can improve, I doubt that explanation.
The most likely explanation is that:
- Most vaccine-injured people are Democrats
- Facing a tough election in 2020, the Democratic party is afraid that the victims of vaccines that their party promoted and that disproportionally affected their core voters, might divert their votes and vote for an anti-vax Democrat, Robert Kennedy.
That might explain a puzzling turnaround in reporting vaccine injury in major newspapers such as the New York Times.
Kremlin responds to US chemical weapons accusations
RT | May 2, 2024
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has rejected claims by the US that Russia has engaged in chemical warfare in the Ukraine conflict.
The allegation was made as the US Department of State announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russian entities on Wednesday. Some of these measures were justified by reference to alleged breaches by Moscow of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
However, Peskov told journalists on Thursday that the claims were “absolutely baseless and not supported by any evidence.” Moscow remains committed to its international obligations, he added.
The latest American sanctions targeted a total of 280 individuals and entities, including the Troops of Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defence – a specialized branch of the Russian military tasked with protecting the military and civilian population from weapons of mass destruction. Washington alleges that the unit “facilitated the use” of chemical weapons in the Ukraine conflict.
The US Department of State specifically claimed that Russia had deployed the toxin chloropicrin, which was used in chemical warfare during World War I and is now predominantly utilized as a pesticide and herbicide.
A senior Ukrainian military commander claimed last year that his troops had been targeted with chloropicrin on multiple occasions. In February, Kiev alleged that Russia had conducted more than 200 chemical weapons attacks on the battlefield in January alone.
Moscow has accused Ukrainian forces of staging chemical weapons incidents with a view to blaming Russia for them.
”The use of toxic chemicals by the Ukrainian militants has become systematic,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in late February. It added that the Ukrainians were also using improvised drone-dropped chemical weapons.
”The first recorded instance of the use of chloropicrin by Ukrainian neo-fascists happened during the siege of the House of Trade Unions in Odessa on May 2, 2014,” the ministry said. Fumes produced by the chemical during a fire at the building contributed to the high death toll arising from the incident, according to Moscow.
The US sanctions were announced one day before the tenth anniversary of the mass killings in Odessa, which claimed the lives of 48 people, according to the official Ukrainian count.
How Many Billions of People Would Die Under Net Zero?
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | APRIL 19, 2024
BBC oddball Chris Packham has hit back at claims reported on Neil Oliver‘s GB News show that half the world’s population could die if Net Zero was implemented in full. “So Ofcom can you please explain how you allow this utter BS to be broadcast,” he wails. Running to Ofcom would appear to be a trade protection measure – millions will die has been the tried and trusted modus operandi of climate catastrophist Chris for decades.
This would appear to be the same Chris Packham who told the Telegraph in October 2010 that there were too many humans on the planet, and “we need to do something about it”. In 2020, he informed the Daily Mail that “quite frankly” smallpox, measles, mumps and malaria were there “to regulate our population”. Over his broadcast career, untroubled by Ofcom interest, Packham has claimed mass extinctions of all life on Earth unless humans stop burning hydrocarbons. Of course there are those who point out that these popular mass extinctions only seem to exist in computer models. Hydrocarbons, meanwhile, have led to unprecedented prosperity and health, unimaginable to previous generations, across many parts of a planet that now supports a sustainable population of humans numbering eight billion.
Of course Net Zero is not going to kill four billion people because Net Zero is never going to happen. Day-by-day, support is crumbling around the world as the political collectivisation project, supported by increasingly discredited computer-modelled opinions, is starting to fall apart as it bumps into the hard rock of reality. History teaches us that tribes that grow weak and decadent are easy prey for their stronger neighbours. But the suggestion that four billion will die if Net Zero should ever be inflicted on global populations is worth examining. After all, it is likely to be true.
The four billion dead noted on GB News came from a remark made by Dr. Patrick Moore, one of the original founders of Greenpeace. Interviewed on Fox News, he said: “If we ban fossil fuels, agricultural production would collapse. People will begin to starve, and half the population will die in a very short period of time”. Four billion dead if artificial fertiliser is banned is not ‘BS’, it is an almost guaranteed outcome. In a recent science paper, Emeritus Professors William Happer and Richard Lindzen of Princeton and MIT respectively noted that “eliminating fossil fuel-derived nitrogen fertiliser and pesticides will create worldwide starvation”. With the use of nitrogen fertiliser, crop yields around the world have soared in recent decades and natural famines, as opposed to those local outbreaks caused by humans, have largely disappeared.
Much of the luxury middle class Net Zero obsession is based on a seeming hatred of human progress. It is a campaign to push back the benefit of mass industrialisation, although it is doubtful that many of the ardent promoters think the drastic reductions in standards of living will apply to them. It is narcissism on stilts and based on an almost complete ignorance of how the food in their faddy diets arrives on their plates. It shows a complete disregard for the central role that hydrocarbons play in their lives. It is based on a profound distaste for almost any modern manufacturing process. These days, they do not know people who actually make things, and when they meet them they often dislike them. Nutty Guardianista George Monbiot recently tweeted that ending animal farming is as important as leaving fossil fuels in the ground. “Eating meat, milk and eggs is an indulgence the planet cannot afford,” he added.
Leaving fossil fuels in the ground will mean the following products will largely disappear.
Circulated on social media and recently published by Paul Homewood, the illustration is a wake-up call to the importance of hydrocarbons. Without it, humans would struggle to make many medicines and plastics. Similar difficulties would be found in the manufacture of common products such as clothing, food preservatives, cleaning products and soft contact lens.
Alec Epstein, the author of the best-selling book Fossil Future, agrees that Net Zero policies by 2050 would be “apocalyptically destructive”, and have in fact already been catastrophically destructive when barely implemented. A reference here, perhaps, to the wicked policies conducted by Western banks and elites in refusing to loan money to build hydrocarbon-fuelled water treatment plants in the poorer parts of the developing world. Billions still lack the cost-effective energy they need to live lives of abundance and safety, notes Epstein. Many people in developing countries still use wood and dung for cooking. Like Happer and Lindzen, he believes that if Net Zero is followed, “virtually all the world’s eight billion people will plunge into poverty and premature death”.
Much of what is planned is hiding in plain sight. The C40 group, funded by wealthy billionaires and chaired by London mayor Sadiq Khan, has investigated World War 2 style rationing with a daily meat allowance of 44g. Reduced private transport and massive restrictions on air travel have all been considered. Labour party member Khan has already made a cracking start on his elite paymasters’ concerns having recently driven many of the cars of the less affluent off London roads with specialist charging penalties.
Honesty rules the day at the U.K. Government-funded UK FIRES operation where Ivory Tower academics produce gruesomely frank reports showing that Net Zero would cut available energy by around three quarters. They assume, rightly, that there is no realistic technology currently available, or likely in the foreseeable future, to back up power sourced from the intermittent breezes and sun beams. No flying, no shipping, drastic cuts in meat consumption and no home heating are all discussed. A ruthless purge of modern building material is also proposed with traditional building supplies replaced by new materials such as “rammed earth”
A move back to primitivism is also foreshadowed by a recent United Nations report which suggested building using mud bricks, bamboo and forest ‘detritus’. It might be thought that mud and grass huts will hardly be enough to deter unfriendly foreign hordes that hove into future view on the horizon. And no point in asking the last person to turn out the lights, because there won’t be electricity anyway.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
Western Media Spread Fake Report About Use of N. Korean Missile in Kharkov
Sputnik – 30.04.2024
Western media outlets are disseminating a fake report claiming that Russia used a North Korean -made missile to strike a target in Kharkov, a source at the United Nations told Sputnik on Monday.
Earlier in the day, Reuters reported that some three experts allegedly provided a report to the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee with a conclusion that the debris from a missile found at the site of a January 2 strike in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov belongs to a North Korea Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile.
“The report is fake. It’s non-existent. The group of experts did not submit any report to the UN Security Council,” the source said.
The fake document described by Reuters was written by a group of specialists who went to Ukraine on the invitation of the government and wrote what the Ukrainian puppet authorities told them, the source said.
“It has no value,” the source said, adding that there were no missile or conventional weapons specialists in the group.
The Ukrainian mission to the United Nations organized the trip for the specialists, who made their conclusion based on the alleged similarity of the missile remains they saw in Kharkov with those that can be seen at military parades in North Korea.
“The group of experts did not present any report. There is a procedure for a report approval and submission to the UN Security Council and it means that this report contains their personal views. Simply speaking, they wrote a report on a business trip that was offered to them [by Ukraine],” the source said.
Russia has repeatedly dismissed media reports and US claims that Moscow is using North Korean missiles to attack targets in Ukraine. The United States has not provided to date any evidence supporting its claims.
UK blocked Ukraine peace deal – Moscow
RT | April 27, 2024
Ukraine abandoned a draft peace treaty with Russia in 2022 under British pressure, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
The deal, which could have ended the Ukraine conflict weeks after it started, was approved by negotiators in Istanbul, but Kiev later pulled out of the talks.
The German newspaper Welt reported on Friday that Moscow had issued additional demands after a deal had already been outlined, such as making Russian the second official language in Ukraine, implying that this had ended any hopes of an agreement.
Peskov denied those claims on Saturday, citing remarks made by Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia, who led Kiev’s delegation at the talks.
In an interview to domestic media last November, Arakhamia said then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had intervened in the peace process and had urged the Ukrainians to “just fight” Russia.
Kiev effectively discarded the deal under “direct pressure by London,” Peskov stressed. “The rest is speculation. I suggest we learn from the source.”
Asked whether the draft treaty could serve as a basis for further peace talks, Peskov said Kiev’s public position was to reject talks with Russia. The idea of reviving the failed agreement was floated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko when he met Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin earlier this month.
Johnson has denied derailing the peace talks, but has also bragged on multiple occasions about his policy of nudging Kiev into continuing hostilities with Russia, which the British politician claims to be a fight for global democracy.
“There could be no more effective way of investing in Western security than investing in Ukraine, because those guys without a single pair of American boots on the ground are fighting for the West,” Johnson told students at Georgetown University during a visit to the US this month. The Ukrainians “are effectively fighting our own fight, fighting for our own interests,” he added.
Russian officials have described the Ukraine conflict as a Western proxy war against Moscow, which the US and its allies allegedly intend to wage “to the last Ukrainian.” Their goal, according to Moscow, is to contain Russia and stall its development, rather than protect the interests of the Ukrainian people.
Why won’t Chris Packham have a real debate on climate?
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | April 25, 2024
On Sunday, the BBC did something unusual. It invited Luke Johnson, a climate contrarian, to join a panel with Laura Kuenssberg to discuss net zero. As followers of this debate will know, the BBC’s editorial policy unit issued guidance to staff in 2018 saying: ‘As climate change is accepted as happening, you do not need a “denier” to balance the debate.’ Although it did allow for exceptions to this rule: ‘There are occasions where contrarians and sceptics should be included within climate change and sustainability debates.’ Presumably this was one such occasion.
The other two people on the panel – Chris Packham and Layla Moran – are members of the climate emergency camp, so there was no pretence of ‘balance’. At one point, the exchange between Johnson and Packham became heated and when the latter invoked the recent downpour in Dubai as well as extensive wildfires in the ‘global south’, as evidence of the effect of anthropogenic global warming, Johnson challenged him to come up with evidence that extreme weather was caused by carbon emissions.
‘It doesn’t come from Toby Young’s Daily Septic [sic], which is basically put together by a bunch of professionals with close affiliations to the fossil fuel industry,’ replied Packham. ‘It comes from something called science.’ This was hailed by Packham’s side as a slam-dunk rebuttal of Johnson’s argument. The Canary wrote up the exchange under the following headline: ‘Chris Packham just humiliated Kuenssberg’s preposterous climate-denying guest.’ The London Economic, which describes itself as ‘a digital newspaper with a metropolitan mindset’, summarised it as follows: ‘With science on his side, Chris Packham was able to deliver a devastating put-down when challenged on the evidence of climate change.’
I can’t help thinking Packham’s ‘devastating put-down’ would have been more effective if it had been true. The people who put together the Daily Sceptic, a news publishing site I’ve edited since 2020, have no connections to the fossil fuel industry. If Packham and his allies are so convinced of the rightness of their cause, why invent reasons to discredit their opponents? A clip from the show including this claim was posted on Twitter by BBC Politics and retweeted by Laura Kuenssberg, getting, at last count, 845,000 views. And to think the BBC launched a multi-million-pound department last year to ‘address the growing threat of disinformation’.
What about Packham’s claim that ‘something called science’ provides all the evidence we need that extreme weather events are caused by burning fossil fuels? There’s really no such thing as ‘the science’, as in a consensus viewpoint among scientists that’s so incontrovertible no serious debate is possible. All scientific theories are just hypotheses and, as such, subject to challenge. Indeed, if it were illegitimate to challenge these theories, progress in science wouldn’t be possible. To pretend that the science of what causes extreme weather is ‘settled’ when it’s the subject of ongoing dispute suggests that Packham and his pals aren’t capable of having a proper grown-up discussion.
Full story here.
Toby Young actually understates his complaint, as there is no evidence that weather is actually becoming more extreme – something the IPCC admit.
It is very easy for these conmen to claim it is, and simply justify it with a statement that “scientists say”. But as Toby points out, they are unable to back it up with actual data and evidence.
The idea, fraudulently circulated by grant funded climate scientists, that global warming means extreme weather has always been by definition absurd. After all, does this mean that the Earth’s climate was ideal during the Ice Age, which would be the logical conclusion?
The simple fact is that there has always been unpleasant weather, storms, floods, droughts, and glaciation. If Chris Packham can provide evidence that these have all gotten worse in recent times, then let him present it.
If he can’t, the BBC should apologise for broadcasting false statements, exclude him from all future debates on climate change, and ban him from making any further such political comments if he wishes to remain as an employee.
Featured Video
The 17th Amendment Allowed Empire
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Book Excerpt
World War Two Was Not a Just War
By David Swanson | September 20, 2016
Excerpted from the just released book War Is Never Just.
World War II is often called “the good war,” and has been since the U.S. war on Vietnam to which it was then contrasted. World War II so dominates U.S. and therefore Western entertainment and education, that “good” often comes to mean something more than “just.” The winner of the “Miss Italy” beauty pageant earlier this year got herself into a bit of a scandal by declaring that she would have liked to live through World War II. While she was mocked, she was clearly not alone. Many would like to be part of something widely depicted as noble, heroic, and exciting. Should they actually find a time machine, I recommend they read the statements of some actual WWII veterans and survivors before they head back to join the fun.[i] For purposes of this book, however, I am going to look only at the claim that WWII was morally just. … continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
Unome on How hawks in US are trying to… Unome on Pentagon orders withdrawal of… Unome on 15 nations have made their pos… Kayleen on UK has flown 200 spy missions… poisonedwater on Hamas slams Biden for linking… poisonedwater on 15 nations have made their pos… Bill Francis on Britain At War-The Final … roberthstiver on Pro-Palestinian protests grow… roberthstiver on UK has flown 200 spy missions… Bill Francis on Pro-Palestinian protests grow… nancy hollander on How Britain Sabotaged Ukraine… 5 dancing shlomos on ‘We Get Paid to Vaccinate Your…
Aletho News- Dr. Peter McCullough Reveals How Much Doctors Were BRIBED to Push COVID Shots
- Green Blob Tells Government to Spend £30 Billion on Machine to Remove CO2 From the Air
- Western Media Ignites War on China in Sports
- 15 nations have made their position on the WHO sovereignty grab public before the WHA meeting commences
- Pentagon orders withdrawal of all US combat troops from Niger
- Hamas slams Biden for linking Gaza cease-fire to hostage release
- Gideon Falter, Campaign Against Antisemitism instruments of the Zionist entity
- How hawks in US are trying to demonize students protesting Israeli genocide
- Calling out UK for its brazen protection of pro-occupation forces
- Israel carpet bombs Gaza with no goal in sight
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli airstrikes in southern Gaza, invasion in central Gaza, carpet bombing in north – Day 217
- Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers: Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center
- Fighter jets, attack drones hammer Rafah; catastrophe looms – Day 217
- What it’s like to be used as a human shield by the Israeli army
- Detailed study finds 99% of pro-Palestine protests at US universities are peaceful
- VIDEO: Armenian Christians under siege by Israel
- Ex-Israeli special forces agent says he went ‘undercover’ at UCLA protest encampment
- The mainstream media distorted our anti-Vietnam War protests 50 years ago. They’re following the same strategy today
- Pete McCloskey, longtime supporter of Palestinians and USS Liberty veterans, has passed away
- Israel will kill Palestinians just fine without US heavy payload weapons; humanitarian crisis spirals – Day 216
- Richie Allen
- The Richie Allen Show Returns Tomorrow Wednesday April 24th
- Call Richie Today Monday March 11th From 4.30pm
- Connect To The Richie Allen Show WhatsApp Today
- NHS Asks Patients To Choose From 12 Genders, 10 sexual Preferences & 159 Religions
- The Richie Allen Show Moves To A New Time Slot From Monday Nov 20th
- Starmer Will Sack Shadow Ministers Who Vote For Gaza Ceasefire
- AI Tool Can Predict Heart Attacks Years In Advance
- Nepal Bans TikTok To Preserve Social Harmony
- Bloke Appointed Boss Of Womb Health Charity
- WHO – “Gaza’s Biggest Hospital Becoming A Cemetery”
- No Tricks Zone
- New Paper: Global Warming Leading To HIMALAYAN COOLING, Preventing Glacial Melt!
- DNA Evidence Reveals Domestic Cats, Dogs, African Wildcats, Frogs Lived In The Arctic 9000 Years Ago
- -80°C: Antarctic Vostok Station Records “Extreme Winter Cold”…Not Even Winter Yet!
- The German E-Vehicle Nightmare, 2024 Q1 Sales Plummet 14%… “Graveyard” For Unsold Cars
- Newly Discovered 90,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Reveal How Much Higher Sea Levels Used To Be
- Germany’s Economic Bloodbath Worsens As Green Revolution Causes Economy To Bleed To Death
- Water Vapor Absorbs 84 Times More Radiation Than CO2 … Clouds Drove 89% Of 1982-2018 Warming
- The 97% Consensus Claim Is In Fact 97% Bogus
- Post-1980s Increases In Shortwave Radiation Explains Europe’s Warming Trends Far Better Than CO2
- “A Thing Where Every Part Of Your Life Just Confirms What It Is That You Want To Believe”
Aletho News 