Clive Palmer’s UAP to host controversial Covid sceptic

Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party will host a series of coronavirus vaccine conferences next month headlined by controversial American cardiologist Doctor Peter McCullough

Nations across the globe have “completely de-emphasised and almost obfuscated” effective coronavirus treatments in their public health approach to the pandemic, says professor of medicine Dr Peter McCullough.

Doctor Peter McCullough has been heavily criticised for controversial views on the coronavirus, with calls from some quarters for Australian immigration officials to deny him a visa to enter the country.

Numerous health officials and websites have criticised Dr McCullough, who gained widespread attention after an appearance on the podcast of American personality Joe Rogan where he made a series of provocative claims, including that the pandemic was planned as part of a conspiracy.

Several health industry websites have devoted sections to debunking Dr McCullough’s claims, which include statements that masks were useless against Covid and that test subjects in an Australian vaccination trial contracted HIV.

However, speaking on the Gold Coast on Tuesday, Mr Palmer said it was time to hear different points of view on the pandemic and vaccines and he expected conferences on the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast to sell out. He said Dr McCullough was a “well respected” cardiologist with “impeccable” credentials.

Mr Palmer, a high-profile opponent of coronavirus vaccines, said he was told he “had six hours to live” at one point during his own Covid health battle, but was treated with alternative therapies in hospital.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/clive-palmers-uap-to-host-controversial-covid-sceptic/news-story/4063d5cf3a1ad01267160ea48e9f4e57

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Australia’s education crisis of ‘dumbed-down twaddle’

As a year 12 student, school has been a common denominator in every aspect of my life for almost as long as I can recall. From my very first day of prep, my enthusiasm to learn only ever grew, as my thirst for contestable knowledge flourished through the nurture of the critical thinkers whom I was privileged to be surrounded by.

As the years progressed, and the curriculum proved to be intellectually baseless – void of engaging research opportunities and lacking any trace of wholesome substance – I came to the realisation that learning, flourishing, and developing into an exceptional human was a practically impossible task to complete in a school system designed to remove individuality from students.

The impersonalisation of the classroom has ultimately led to the disengagement of many students. Unfortunately, such disengagement has extended from the classroom to the very essence of the acquisition of knowledge, resulting in consistent and substantial decreases in academic achievements across most grades in NSW and the nation.

Last week I had the privilege of interviewing two exceptional secondary teachers, Kon Bouzikos, president of the Australian Classical Education Society, and Sarah Flynn O’Dea, founder of Logos Australis, on my podcast The Next Candidate. With knowledge gleaned from frontline classroom experiences, both Kon and Sarah claim to have found the solution to our current education crisis in the classical mode of education.

In 2022 almost 13 per cent of boys in year nine did not meet the minimum reading standard assessed through NAPLAN exams in NSW. With schools not only readily accessible but also mandatory in Australia, such statistics ought to horrify every reasonable citizen, regardless of their parental status.

The statistics are not mere numbers, they are Australia’s future. They are real boys- and girls who are on the verge of graduating secondary school without the ability to read a basic novel. I have personally interacted with several stage 6 students who attend both public and independent schools, yet are not capable of reading a standard news article due to a lack of focus and vocabulary.

The statistics, in themselves, prove the issue lies within the very structure of the education system rather than the providential ability for one to attend school.

Reflecting on the disengagement in the classroom, Sarah referenced esteemed 20th-century education reformist, Charlotte Mason, who spent her career advocating for students to read rich literary works rather than textbooks, or what she referred to as ‘dumbed-down twaddle’.

‘She (Charlotte Mason) spoke about a great table that is laid out with a fine feast, and that as teachers and parents as well, are to lay before our children a fine feast of the very best ideas that have been produced throughout human history and let the children develop a storehouse of ideas’.

In doing so, Sarah claims that students naturally grow an interest in the subject matter being learnt, which subsequently results in heightened academic achievements. She also claims that the obsessive focus on the academic results achieved by students misplaces the priorities of the educator.

‘Academic achievement is a byproduct of education, it shouldn’t be the primary goal’.

The gravity of the misplacement of priorities by the system is felt by every student regardless of age. From the first day of kindergarten we are taught that As are good, everything else is bad. Excluding parental encouragement, the methodology to achieve such results is scarcely noted. I admit to getting close to full marks on assessments in which I knew very little of the unit content. We have reached a point in our education system where the ability to regurgitate mundane facts (which are becoming increasingly opinion-orientated), in a rubric-accepted structure, is all that is required to be considered an academic high-achiever. The acquisition and application of knowledge is rarely, if ever, the focus of our practised school system, doing students, and subsequently Australia’s future, no favours.

The classroom is not a place to learn, it is not a place to flourish. From the first day of school to the very last, the emphasis on achieving a good HSC result and getting a boxed job is repeated until the point in which most students subconsciously accept it as their fate, toe the line and fuse their thirst to learn. I have been tempted to do so countless times. The mental energy required to push against the grain to allow oneself the human experience of critical thought, is often exhausting, but the cost of not doing so is greater. To concede defeat and fall into line is certain to erode a student’s spirit until they become nothing more than a mere tax-paying statistic. The fact our school system has forced countless students onto this path is nothing short of a national disgrace.

During the interview, Sarah reflected on a poem recited to her as a child by her year one teacher, Square and Brown Inside. In recalling its attached innuendo, she explained that she supposed that ‘it was my teacher’s way of communicating to us that the classroom is not the place to flourish’.

In reflecting on the contrast of being the teacher herself, she explained that:

‘There are all these mixed messages in the system that we should be fulfilling our potential in the school system … telling our young people to dream and believe and hope, yet the system doesn’t produce the knowledge or skill set to do that.’

Controversies have frequently arisen regarding the recent trend of pushing LGBTQ+ ideologies, climate narratives, Critical Race Theory, gender identity theory, and other forms of politically motivated activism in classrooms, promoted by state-implemented curriculums.

Many Australian parents, teachers, and organisations have lobbied against the move, promoting the right to education rather than indoctrination. As a student, I can attest to the fact that every subject is infused with countless political activism, ranging from unquestionable ‘equality’ stances, based on mere human opinion, to apparent ‘climate science’ which assures us that we have a short, miserable life ahead of us if we don’t convert to the cult of Marxist-environmentalism. To have the audacity question such narratives would often see a student shunned as a ‘phobe’ or ‘ist’ of sorts in accordance to the syllabus and its related ‘learning resources’.

Sarah explains how reintroducing the classical mode of thought, both in the classroom and in greater society, could result in disagreements being settled with cognitive discussions rather than childish taunts.

‘What we are looking for is to reconstitute the concept, and the practices of civil discourse, which is what our civilisations and great prosperity have been founded on. (…) What we are faced with in the highly political (form of education) is a kind of foe intellectualism, to me it is quite superficial.’

When considering the uniformed, stringently enforced social justice approaches, Sarah, claims that, ‘We can’t look at the layers or the nuance of individual experience, we are looking at this very reduced kind of black or white, us or them kind of (mentality). To me it is not academic, it is not intellectual, we don’t want to deny that there is a place, especially as Christians, for social justice but I think it is time to reclaim some of that territory and re-frame it from a deeper place’.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/australias-education-crisis-of-dumbed-down-twaddle

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The minister for net zero and dystopian hellscapes

‘Australians, you shall decarbonise. Electricity bills shall go up, energy security shall go down, and damage to the environment shall be ignored – a cabal of global elites has made this decision for you. As Net Zero Minister, I declare that state cooperation is assured; debt has no consequence; spending has no limit; markets have no meaning. Your opinions are irrelevant and participation is mandatory. The Minister has spoken; you shall comply.’

Imagine if Chris Bowen, Australia’s Energy Minister, delivered such a dystopian speech… In reality, we are not far off, because these words accurately describe the Australian government’s stance on emissions reduction. Would the speech win any votes? Unfortunately, it would. Thanks to a decades-long propaganda mission, there are many people convinced that our total dependence on fossil fuels will bring about the end of the world. Combined with the comfort and security of a largely peaceful and prosperous West, senses are dulled and comfort breeds weakness.

But is the world ending? Certainly not in a physical sense. The world is greening; whales and polar bears are flourishing; the Great Barrier Reef is expanding; and we grow so much food we can afford to waste a good proportion of it. What does appear to be ending is political stability. Elon Musk, new owner of the planet’s digital town square – Twitter – acknowledged that all the conspiracy theories about Twitter are true. He released damning evidence of US government agencies censoring debate on social media platforms, deliberately manipulating information on the key topics of election integrity and Covid vaccines. It raises the question – how often is the renewables and climate change debate similarly censored and manipulated by agenda-riddled technocrats?

In roughly equal measures, people are moving diametrically away from the political centre. As Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams said recently, there are two movies showing on the same screen. He’s observing that people are seeing the same information and coming to completely different conclusions. Ironically, that’s something on which most people would agree.

Destroying successful economies is no easy feat. However, historical records show that top-down ideology, centralised bureaucratic control, higher taxes, and curtailing production are quite effective. Markets will not voluntarily create the massive oversupply of wind and solar required to meet arbitrary targets, so Western economies are being swamped by bureaucracies intent on increasing market regulation and intervention. Energy security – once sought after, even if not assured – is slipping away without any policy or commentary from the media to arrest it.

Most big businesses are encouraging the end of reliable low-cost electricity, yet lobby groups – such as the Business Council of Australia, who ‘represents Australia’s largest employers’ – align perfectly with government narratives on emissions reduction. Corporations are lining up to buy power purchase agreements to avoid being punished by the government’s safeguard mechanism – a tool used to add costs to our largest industries, soon to be weaponised to reduce the output of many more businesses.

Politicians, dancing to the tune of their activist advisers, foster the rot. As the ‘deplorables’ of New South Wales ponder more electricity rate rises, their energy minister announced nation-leading emissions reduction targets just days after the state’s Premier promised a Venezuela-like intervention in the coal sector. However, arbitrary price caps on coal and gas have almost no ability to reduce the cost of electricity.

In the final weeks of 2022, a raft of interventionist energy policies were announced around the country. A state government electricity bureau and the world’s largest battery storage targets in Victoria; the world’s largest pumped hydro scheme, plus SuperGrid, in Queensland; an 82 per cent federal renewable energy target; and this is on top of electric vehicle incentives, hydrogen subsidies, and state renewable targets.

Beyond the Godzilla-like demolition of markets, state and federal governments are colluding to kill resource investments with taxes and reservations. Queensland’s rejigged coal tax now whips 40 per cent off the top tier of coal profits, causing Japanese and Korean diplomats to express concern, Glencore and BHP to halt new developments, and Senex to pause their billion-dollar domestic gas project in Queensland. Looming over the horizon are Tanya Plibersek’s promised changes to the EPBC Act, guaranteed to further reduce Australia’s attractiveness as an investment destination.

Politicians of all flavours, but particularly Greens and Teals, are openly cheering any anti-human de-growth outcome that slows resource investment; while simultaneously screeching for more taxes, higher targets, and ironically cheaper resources. We find ourselves watching idealist amateurs attempting to appease the United Nations, but only succeeding in eroding wealth and security, and reducing living standards for generations to come. What is required to tip the balance the other way? I don’t believe Musk’s ongoing social media exposé will move the dial far enough – people are too willing to buy into the emissions reduction narrative without testing or even seeking the evidence. Their minds are made up.

Despite the grim scene, I hold out hope that the enormous cost of the renewables paradigm – a cost borne financially and environmentally – will soon become so obvious that politicians will find some courage, constructing policies based on logic, and improving human prosperity. In other words, do their job. It can’t come quickly enough.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/the-minister-for-net-zero-and-dystopian-hellscapes/

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The ABC Massacres History Yet Again

John Henningham

The ABC seems to have invented a genocide by English colonists in the Caribbean. A story on Barbados’ cruel history as a slave island reported that slaver descendants, such as actor Benedict Cumberbatch, could be pursued for compensation and included an assertion that the indigenous population was slaughtered by the English:

This horrific claim is not supported by any evidence. According to historians the original population was depleted in the previous century by Spanish slave raids, with the remaining people fleeing to other islands to avoid being pressed into slavery. The island was effectively uninhabited when the English claimed it in 1625. Two years later, some 80 colonists and 10 slaves took up permanent residence.

Anyone reading the ABC story who turned to Wikipedia for more information would have found the following in the entry on Barbados: “In 1627, when English colonisers arrived in Barbados, they slaughtered the local indigenous inhabitants and claimed the island for themselves.”

These are the words of the ABC story! The ABC did not take the quote from Wikipedia — it was the reverse. The source for the assertion in Wikipedia was, astonishingly, the ABC news story about Cumberbatch. Someone (a Wikipedia contributor screen-named Afa86) added the ABC “revelation” to the crowd-sourced encyclopedia in a textbook example of how false news spreads and becomes part of received history.

Barbados was occupied from about 1600BC by different Amerindian groups. For a thousand years until the 1500s the Arawak, and then the Carib, lived on the island. The Britannica’s entry on Barbados, written by University of the West Indies professor of history Woodville Marshall and two fellow contributors, makes clear the fate of the original population:

The island was depopulated because of repeated slave raids by the Spanish in the 16th century; it is believed that those Indigenous people who avoided enslavement migrated to elsewhere in the region. By the mid-16th century — largely because of the island’s small size, remoteness, and depopulation — European explorers had practically abandoned their claims to it, and Barbados remained effectively without a population.

Fortunately the assertion of indigenous slaughter was removed from Wikipedia a day after publication by a sharp-eyed American veteran editor of Caribbean heritage with the screen name CaribDigita. In justifying deletion the editor commented: “You need a reputable reference that talks about a ‘slaughtering’ in Barbados.”

CaribDigita’s bio says: “In more recent times I’ve been been seeking to calm down conspiracy theories and ‘fake news’ being added to Wikipedia by showing relevant parallels or add references to their sources to help keep this tool from becoming like the National Enquirer.”

The story was amended yesterday (January 22), possibly in response to my request to the author, Recbecca Armitage, via Twitter for evidence of annihilation of the native population by English colonists. The amendment concedes that the population was largely depleted before the arrival of the English, but continues the unsubstantiated claim of genocide: “They slaughtered the remaining inhabitants and claimed the island for themselves.”

Perhaps the ABC needs to employ CaribDigita as a fact-checker.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/media/2023/01/the-abc-massacres-history-yet-again/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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