Scrapbook for February 2020

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28.02.2020 – More COVID-19, among other things

This morning we learn that UK 'health officials' are planning to 'shut schools for two months' and 'suspend' football matches, concerts and other gatherings to cope with the coronavirus epidemic.

It will never happen of course, since in the case of schools the plan will involve forcing a large proportion of the workforce to stay home looking after bored, sniffling brats whilst the breadwinners go to work and exchange viruses there. But we can dream – two months of enforced family life, just like in the fifties. Any child who didn't have the disease during this purdah will, of course, catch it on the first day back.

Just to remind us of the lasting qualities of that boon to Britain from those distant days, the National Health Service, we are also told that 'medics warn the old and infirm may NOT get treatment'. They will be left to die untreated, out of sight and out of mind: 'Bring out your dead!'

We NHS connoisseurs note with smug satisfaction that the 'service' began in 1948 and now appears to have returned Britain to those happier times around 1665.

In the very next column to this bombshell we read that 15,000 fans of Greta Thunberg are expected to assemble in Bristol today. Police are warning of the risks of 'crushing', but not, in this very special case, of the risks of sneezing, coughing and dying. Advice to parents: when your little climate truant gets back from Bristol, if still alive, confine them to the potting shed for at least a fortnight, where they can learn to appreciate the quiet joys of a post-industrial lifestyle.

An article further down then tells us that the thoughtless swine – a 'super-spreader' – who initially spread the virus in Italy was a 'marathon runner'. That would be 42 km of spluttering virus dispersal for a start. Unrestrained, in 24 days he could have gone the length of Italy. If the term super-spreader makes you blush, you should probably review the choice of websites you visit.

And then a little further down we are told of the heartless companies 'profiteering' from the demand for facemasks – as though the law of supply, demand and pricing had been suspended like a football match. And just in case we haven't had enough cognitive dissonance this morning, the same article tells us that face masks offer scarcely any protection at all against the virus:

Professor Brendan Wren from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that masks will not stop people from becoming infected and may even worsen its spread.

He said: 'The masks won't protect against the virus because it's so tiny. It is thousands of times smaller than bacteria.

'I don't think they do any good. They are smaller than air particles for pollution that we worry about. It will simply be breathed in.'

He added that masks may make the spread of the virus more likely if they become damp.

'They may make matters worse, [such as] if they become damp. If you have a cold or sneezing, sneezing into a mask can make matters worse.'

And we still have all the Meghan and Harry stuff to get through. And the Democrat primaries. And the stock market collapse. And German politics. And Swiss self-harm. And Brexit. And that Boris™ geezer, snuggled up in Downing Street with his mistress and her other lapdog and stuffing his (Boris', not Dilyn's) fat face with Custard Creams in the COBRA meetings, whilst the citizens of the UK are wading through filthy floodwaters. And we still have to write something deep and meaningful for Figures of Speech today – the world is waiting! And…

May you live in interesting times, my child. Just make sure you don't take any of it seriously.

18.02.2020 – Government by weirdo

In the early days of the present UK government, Dominic Cummings, the Chief Special Adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, put out a call for 'wierdos and misfits' to apply for advisory roles with the government.

This appeal in itself was beyond satire and could only have come from someone who was himself deranged. There is a reason that some people are called weirdos and misfits: most rational people find their opinions bonkers and/or their characters defective.

Tens of thousands of wierdos and misfits applied. Some were even hired, it seems, though to undefined positions that are not to be found on any organigram.

One of these hires recently achieved notoriety for views he had previously expressed on various triggering topics such as IQ and race, eugenics, compulsory sterilisation, forced drugging of schoolchildren and so on.

He's only twenty-seven, so historical awareness and depth of reasoning are not to be expected from him, but, nevertheless, lots of sensitive people were triggered and now, on 17 February, his 'consultant' days have come to an end.

The surprise is not that in their search for wierdos and misfits the government turned up an ignorant, loudmouthed crackpot – that's only to be expected when you are trawling your net along the seabed looking for weird life forms among the bottom feeders – but that his masters never sacked him. The fuss about him was allowed to rumble on for several days until he finally resigned.

We learned of his exit in a tweet to the masses sent by him yesterday evening. Even making allowances for the exigencies of tweeting, the mangled grammar and syntax of his tweet is yet one more reason, if one were needed, why crackpots like him should not be allowed into government:

Hey all,

An excellent way to begin a resignation announcement to the nation.

The media hysteria about my old stuff online is mad…

Let's jump past the duplication 'hysteria' is 'mad'. He suggests that his 'old stuff online' is somehow no longer attached to him. He was 21 at the time he wrote much of this 'old stuff' – another good example of why young know-nothings should keep their traps shut.

…but I wanted to help HMG not be a distraction.

We think we know what he means, but he lacks the intellectual skills (IQ?) to write this in a way that makes sense, e.g. 'I didn't want to be a distraction to the work of HMG'. Or perhaps he just forgot the comma: 'but I wanted to help HMG, not be a distraction'. Even then, the statement does not really follow on from what precedes it.

Accordingly I've decided to resign as a contractor.

What screwed up nonsense. Let's try: 'I have therefore resigned as a contractor'. Deciding to resign is not resigning. 'Accordingly' is nonsense – there is nothing so far to 'accord with'.

I hope no.10 hires more ppl w/ good geopolitical forecasting track records & that media learn to stop selective quoting

Andrew Sabisky (@AndrewSabisky) February 17, 2020

The media have not quoted any of his remarks 'selectively'. If they had he could have mounted a reasonable defence. This defiant sideswipe at the end reveals how dim he really is.

We wonder how many other weirdos and misfits with low IQs, dubious backgrounds and defective command of English Cummings has scraped up from the dark obscurity of the seabed, where they should have been left to scutter around without disturbing the rest of us with their nonsense.

Cummings is an idiot for hiring him and Johnson is an idiot for hiring both of them. We are still waiting for these two Solons to take a position on this resignation.

01.02.2020 – Lest we forget

A Twitter exchange between climate alarmist Gavin Schmidt and climate realist Anthony Watts last Halloween should not disappear in the noise:

01.02.2020 – Brexit smoke and mirrors

Just at the moment that Britain leaves the EU, a strategic challenge comes along to remind us that no nation is an island in today's technological world.

Isn't it strange that the United Kingdom should announce its Solomonic judgement on the vexed question of the participation of Huawei in setting up the UK's 5G mobile network one day before the EU announced its own Solomonic judgement on the issue? The two complex solutions, clearly the result of months of work, are almost identical.

Anyone who thinks that the UK's solution to the Huawei problem was arrived at independently by a now independent nation needs to moderate their consumption. There was never any chance that the UK would reject Huawei's participation given the need to align with the European system. The vision of the now pluckily independent United Kingdom and its special relationship with the USA is just so much hooey.