I try to compare information from different sources. Mark from Melbourne prompted me to post my decade old reviews of Kevin MacDonald's trilogy, which I have done. The third will appear tomorrow. MacDonald is an evolutionary psychologist, and the Jewish people have to be one of the most interesting subjects topics available for discussion. They are unique in their longevity, their ubiquitousness, their success and their aversion to criticism.
I would of course write somewhat different reviews today. The world has changed and I have read more. But I am generally pleased with my take from that period of time. The most valuable thing that MacDonald has done, in my opinion, is to display the courage to tackle the subject, knowing the ferocity of the pushback he would face.
I am pleased with the number and quality of the comments you readers have posted. I have received one rather critical email on the first, A People That Shall Dwell Alone. I have a high enough respect for the fellow who sent it, and the rest of the readership here, to propose that it would not be amiss to post critiques as comments. In doing so I would like to note that a reviewer's job is to let readers know what's in the book, not necessarily to endorse the author's opinions.
On the subject of getting information from different sources, what I read on the topic of Covid 19 amounts to ships passing in the night. Here are links to three sites that support the government narrative on Covid. My general observations are that:
· They focus on vaccination levels. The more jabs, the better.
· They measure and chart the incidence of Covid cases and deaths. The fewer the better.
· They do not delve into the source of the data being reported. They do not seem as interested in teasing out comorbidities and other complicating factors.
· They very seldom address adverse events connected with the vaccines. They treat the vaccines as "safe and effective".
· They do address all cause mortality. The statistics they present strongly contradict those presented by Steve Kirsch, Matthew Crawford, Metatron and utobian among the vaccine skeptics below. Team Covid does not deign to recognize the dissenters. Each party lives in its own statistical cocoon.
At any rate, the most scientifically articulate pro-vaccine sites that I follow include:
. Eric Topol. I don’t find much here, but he is considered a leader in Team Covid
· The New York Times. Typical story here
· The Manchester Guardian
· Johns Hopkins University
The medical journals are mixed. Though mostly members of Team Covid, the Boston Medical Journal displays a welcome independent streak. The 12 publications under the umbrella of the Journal of the American Medical Association seem to hew closer to the government narrative.
Substack has been a godsend for dissenting voices. There are a great many that I follow. Let me describe them each with a sentence or two.
Joel Smalley – metatron - analysis of the Covid phenomenon using government provided statistics. Government statistics are the only ones available. Different governments collect statistics with different levels of granularity and different degrees of diligence. The most commonly cited seem to be from the United States, Great Britain, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. I have to confess that these days I merely glance at these posts. Though I am totally convinced that he is using a rigorous methodology, I sometimes question whether the effect that he is illustrating is dramatic enough to warrant my attention.
Matthew Crawford also does statistical analysis, but often stands back and offers a birds eye view of a given aspect of the whole Covid situation. He is a man of broad education and interests, also commenting from time to time on other issues such as abortion, the New World Order and the war. I subscribed to him on Substack and and pleased when I see new posts arrive in my mail.
Jessica Rose also does statistical analysis. Her stuff is not as detailed as the above. She gets quickly to the point, and usually makes it quite clearly. She has other interests, among them the Canadian truckers and freedom of speech within Canada.
Eugyppius is a German polymath. His blog is entitled A Plague Chronicle. He has been writing about coronavirus since early 2020, consistently ahead of the curve, accurately predicting what would go wrong, why it would go wrong, and why the powers that be would not change direction. His latest post is a review of Bill Gates' book, with man-boob photos of the author that would lead any sane person to reject his health advice out of hand.
Steve Kirsch is the energizer bunny of Team Reality, posting statistical analyses, scientific papers, notice of lawsuits, legislative news and just about everything related to Covid. Word for word, I get five times more content for the buck from Steve than any other blogger to whom I subscribe. The disinformation folks put him at the epicenter.
Bad cattitude is an extremely intelligent Brown University graduate living in Puerto Rico. In addition to having trenchant insights into Covid and American politics, he posts humorous stuff of the kind that you like to copy and pass along.
Robert Malone is a man of many parts. When he first came into view on a now famous episode of Brett Weinstein's Dark Horse, Steve Kirsch rather egregiously upstaged him. Malone came off like a soft-spoken country boy who happened to have invented the mRNA technology being used by Pfizer and Moderna. Not only invented it, but rather firmly opined that it would not work against Covid. He later appeared on the Joe Rogan experience in the most widely viewed podcast ever. Observing how viciously he was attacked, and how strongly attempts were to the platform him, he has become a tireless crusader for freedom of speech and medical freedom. He is one of the outstanding personalities of our age.
Toby Rogers, blogging as utobian, is an Australian scientist with a strong statistical bent. He is in league with the statisticians named above in trying to tease patterns out of the government data on Covid. It is a game of cat and mouse. As the statisticians become more and more adroit at detecting patterns in the data, the governments become more and more secretive about the data they possess and less and less inclined to collect more of it. This is especially true of data on adverse events. As a case in point, the Department of Defense used to keep and make publicly available a huge database on the medical condition of all members of the services. As adverse events became highly visible with regard to cardiac conditions, pregnancy outcomes, cancer recurrences and so on the DoD retroactively "cleaned up" historical data and stopped collecting additional data.
Edward Slavsquat is the nom de plume of Moscow-based Riley Waggeman. He is the only writer I follow who covers the Russian and Chinese vaccination campaigns. His coverage is very extensive, and his observations on the lack of medical freedom in these countries is chilling.
Alex Berenson has been on top of the Covid story since the beginning, and has written several books about it. He is also aggressively defending free speech, with an ongoing lawsuit against Twitter for having deplatformed him on the basis of "disinformation" that was actual fact.
Should also mention The Expose. A news outlet more than a blog, but lots of coverage on Covid issues.
In summary, I observe that Team Covid, the pro-vaccine people, consider vaccines administered to be a measure of success, appear to use different metrics for counting the incidence of Covid cases and deaths, and are strongly disinterested in questions concerning adverse effects. Team Reality, the bloggers who generally think that the shots are a bad idea, come up with quite different conclusions analyzing the same data.
These people keep my mailbox full. In my mind the Covid story is just about over. What remains is the threat of medical totalitarianism, best represented at the moment by Bill Gates and the WHO's effort to assume dictatorial control over medical procedures in response to the next pandemic. Did I mean plandemic?
Although I continue to pick up new readers on account of the Bob Homans posts, the statistics for the number of opens is going downhill a bit. The war is getting boring. One of the things I have noticed is that although a lot is written about Vladimir Zelensky, almost nothing has been written about Ukrainian generals. We know the names of the people directing the Russian invasion, but very little about those who are resisting it here in Ukraine. So it is news when one of them offers an opinion, making himself visible.
Yesterday morning I took all three kids to Park Perimogi, giving Oksana a chance to sleep in and fight a headache. Zoriana gave her grandmother a typical fit as we went out the door. Though the temperature was in the 50s, Zoriana steadfastly refused to put on her jacket. I resolved the issue by putting the jacket in my backpack so we would have it when she got cold. Upon our return, I reported that we had gotten no further than the corner before she asked for it. What I thought was a triumph was to grandmother a disaster. She could've caught pneumonia in those five minutes.
The weather was colder and rainy when we got to the park. We changed course and took a bus to the Darnitsa market to look for fabric for the lawn chair. Failing there, we took the Metro to the Lisova station where we looked all through the Daryunok shopping center and then to the Mayak shopping center looking for a fabric store. We finally found one, but it was, as might be expected, fabrics for sewing clothing rather than lawn furniture.
We called up the seamstress to see what would work, finally selecting a relatively heavy polyester that we can use in a double thickness. Pleased with having found something, we were shattered upon returning home to be greeted with the opinion that it was altogether wrong. Said opinion was hardly softened by the news that the seamstress herself had been in on the decision. Nothing has happened since, and I will be just as happy if nothing does. I sense this may be the beginning of a long, unfruitful saga like the septic system.
None of the kindergartens are working on account of the war. The law says they have to have a bomb shelter. It makes no sense to me – a missile won't know the difference between a kindergarten and an apartment, and no apartments have bomb shelters – but that's the way laws get written. We are getting some sense that common sense may prevail and there may soon be a private nursery school in operation. Zoriana certainly need something to do, and we would love to be out of the business of entertaining her all day every day.
That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong men thank God daily for the strength to keep on keeping on, the good-looking woman was feeling better this morning, up to accompanying me and the three kids to music lessons, and the kids themselves are actually practicing.
Great summary pointer to multiple substacks. Many of the misinformation writers are found in this comments https://covidsteria.substack.com/p/community-covid-resources/comments?s=w. I started my journey with Berenson and continued on to follow many others. I appreciate those with data and checked several multiple times to try to find bias. I haven't found much different but I'm not that skilled at digging at the data. So many independent writers seem to end up in the same place.
That's a brilliant article, I think. Thanks for that.
If the Covid story is just about over perhaps you could publish your findings?
i.e.
. Was there a disease worthy of 'emergency measures'?
. Were the emergency measure appropriate?
. Did they in the event do some good?
. Did they do harm?
. Was it/is it right to ban IVM and HCQ?
. Was it/is it right to fail to exhort the population to sensible immune enhancing measures?
. Was it/is it right to pretend no vax = no protection?
. Pfizer claimed 0.1% immune enhancing. What % enhancement with sunlight, adequate Vit D and melatonin, exercise, other minerals, vitamins, good nutrition, company of friends and family?
. At what date could the vaxes fairly claim to have been properly tested?
. Any estimate of overall damage done globally by these measures? Any truth in the claims by Battacharya of millions dead and suffering?
. How would that overall damage compare with proven benefits?
. How many democratic freedoms and rights were trodden on?
. How many such freedoms and rights remain trodden on and now enshrined in legislation, custom, common practice, 'normal' behaviour?
. Prognostications for ongoing damage from vaccines are shocking - how true in your estimation?
. How real the danger that these vaccines and an overall mandate for immediate disease supposed prophylaxis by vaccine will be the norm for decades to come?
Not to load you up, you understand. But this article you've just posted does such a good job of clear overall analysis that I think you could probably respond to all those questions and I think your response would be valuable and interesting to us all.
p.s. were you the author who mentioned suffering from gout? My own experience is to refrain from Chinese wheat based beer, from pork and from spices such as ginger and chilli and a quick hit of Arthrexin and a Panadol at a first twinge and I generally get along okay.
:)