Is Australian multiculturalism failing?

The events described below are real but isolated. They do not well reflect everyday life in Australia. Let me tell another story: Most days I have my breakfast in a local suburban cafe that has a very good menu. And it is very popular and busy.

But as I sit there day after day I observe a minor miracle.  There are usually only one or two other people with my Celtic colouring (freckles!) but everybody behaves in a manner that I see as proper.  There are always some Chinese, some Indians and probably some people from Europe.  The cafe was formerly run by an Italian and is now run by a Vietnamese.  Both were superb managers

And there are no raised voices and no aggression of any sort.  Everybody there remains polite at all times.  I have not once seen an exception to that.  There are even some apparent Middle-Easterners of probably Muslim persuasion who make no waves at all.  They usually keep in their own groups but no harm comes of that.

So every day I sit in the middle of a very multicultural population and experience nothing that disturbs my Old Australian soul.  I have no doubt that in Australia I live in a brilliantly successful multicultural society

In March 2022, Declan Cutler, a working-class 16-year-old, died after being stabbed over 50 times by a ‘gang of teenagers’ in a random attack in North Melbourne.

Hours after the incident, one of the attackers allegedly went home and searched the question, ‘Is hell guaranteed for a Muslim who commits murder?’

Earlier this year, Jason Langhans, 17, was killed when he tried to stop a fight between gatecrashers and partygoers at a get-together in the small coastal town of Tooradin.

The attacker, a 17-year-old Afghan who has not been named, moved to Australia as a refugee, drove a screwdriver 8cm into Jason’s brain. The judge noted that he had a ‘traumatic upbringing’, leaving Afghanistan for Pakistan, Indonesia, and then Australia by boat.

Earlier this month, hundreds of protesters gathered at the Sydney Opera House and called for the death of an entire race of people … the Jewish people.

Minister for Immigration Andrew Giles says that Australia’s multicultural diversity is ‘a source of national strength’.

But these increasingly common events, along with a changing conversation abroad, might give us pause to reflect.

Suella Braverman, Home Secretary for the United Kingdom, recently stood in front of a crowd last month and announced that ‘multiculturalism in Great Britain had failed’.

Her analysis of Britain’s handling of immigration and diversity was scathing, and perfectly reflected the way the debate around multiculturalism is changing.

‘Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination for Europe over the last few decades.

‘We are living with the consequence of that failure today. You can see it play out on the streets of cities all over Europe. From Malmo, to Paris, Brussels, to Leicester. It is 13 years since Merkel gave her speech, and I’m not sure that very much has changed since.’

Australia’s official policy of ‘Multiculturalism’ is celebrated in ministerial white papers and corporate boardrooms but its real-life consequences are starkly different.

In the streets of Melbourne’s CBD earlier this year, Sikh separatists attacked Hindu protesters with sticks while chanting ‘death to India’.

In Sydney, Hindu protesters were filmed allegedly menacing Muslim-run businesses in Harris Park, an area with a long history of ethnic-religious violence.

In Brisbane, during the Hong Kong independence protests at the University of Queensland, students were physically assaulted by a number of pro-Chinese students.

Fireworks and celebrations erupted in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba following the attack of Israel by Hamas.

The question has to be asked: How is the average Australian benefiting from this? And if we’re not benefiting, what are we doing to stop it?

Because as one British writer put it, the eruption of ethnic tensions in our cities doesn’t just reflect the complete failure of integration, it also reflects a complete repudiation of our systems, laws and way of life.

‘When you watch people have so little respect for British values and British laws they gleefully saunter around Britain’s streets saluting atrocities committed by ISIS-style terrorists then you know multiculturalism is failing.’

This has happened, he says, ‘Because of mass immigration into Britain, because of the total failure of our politicians to integrate old and new immigrants into British society, and because of their determination to continue to import more culturally and religiously distinctive migrants and tribal grievances from abroad.’

It isn’t just Britain changing their tune on multiculturalism.

Last year, the Sweden Prime Minister announced: ‘Integration has been too poor at the same time as we have had a large immigration. Society has been too weak, resources for the police and social services have been too weak.’

More than Sweden, the other paragon of Scandinavian progressive pragmatism, Denmark, instituted an abrupt turnaround on its previously generous immigration program, with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen citing a multi-decade failure of its newcomers to integrate.

And just weeks ago, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview that ‘it was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different cultures, religions, and concepts’.

‘It creates a pressure group inside each country.’

Is it now time to admit that Australia also made a ‘grave mistake’? Do we have pressure groups inside our country, and if so, what are we going to do about it?

‘I think we are starting to realise there’s a difference between being an Australian and living in Australia,’ wrote one person in a viral tweet, following the Opera House incident.

Australian politicians like to claim we’re the ‘most successful multicultural nation on Earth’, but how much longer can they ignore the fraying edges that has become increasingly evident this month?

Opposition leader Peter Dutton is talking tough on the issue, saying that anyone on a visa at the protests who was breaking the law ‘should be deported’. But what of the hundreds of thousands of new arrivals coming in next year? What of the gangs roaming our streets, killing unsuspecting teenagers? There is simply no plan to deal with these multicultural clashes – governments are just throwing a Hail Mary and hoping it doesn’t explode on their watch.

With a record 450,000 migrants arriving in Australia this year alone – many of which not only from nations with which we share little culturally, but who are also adversaries to our allies – it can be assumed Labor isn’t heeding Braverman’s warning about ‘uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism’.

Moreover, with Australia’s legitimacy increasingly attacked by the political left, and with the country referred to as a ‘coloniser state’ that disenfranchised indigenous people, it’s hard to see what the large numbers of people coming here will integrate into.

Our country is heading down a strange path. The roots that once held us together are increasingly weakened, while the rapidly rising number of people coming from other countries have no dominant culture or way of life to integrate into.

Until a stronger discussion is had around multiculturalism and immigration, these cultures will inevitably clash again, with increasingly tragic circumstances.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/10/is-multiculturalism-failing/

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Experts in adolescent development are cautiously welcoming a little-known, multimillion-dollar Australian government effort to nip toxic masculinity in the bud.

I cannot even imagine how they might do that.  Talk is cheap and kids are already preached at  from dawn to dusk.  To change behaviour you have to change the needs that drive it and that will rarely be possible.

Andrew Tate is a symptom, not a cause.  Disrespect for women comes naturally to many men and feminist preaching will only magnify that.  Being constantly told that women are so much more admirable and worthy than men will usually provoke defiance and an attitude opposite to that desired. 

The one faint hope of change would be to replace the currently pervasive valorization of women with a much more balanced message but that is not going to happen.  The idea that men too have problems seems to stick in the throats of feminists

Even a heavy legal assault on domestic violence would achieve little.  Bashing women is clearly something impulsive and done out of anger -- and laws are unlikely to restrain that.

The only preaching that might help would be to stop mindless praise of women and demonization of men and replace it with lessons about the needs that the respective sexes have.   At its simplest, both sexes could be told that men have needs for adventure and women have a need for security.  Men often say that they don't understand women at all but explanations of what drives female behaviour are possible and could be widely deployed. 

I long ago wrote an explanation of female behaviour --   unlikely though that may seem.  I have four women calling on me regularly these days despite my frail old age so maybe I do know something.  My explanation below:

https://johnjayray.com/women.html 

To end violence against women and children, the federal government aims to reshape young male attitudes toward healthy, respectful relationships as “extremist influencers” like Andrew Tate influence minds.

The initiative, known as the “Healthy Masculinities Project,” is poised to launch next year as a three-year trial, supported by $3.5 million in funding.

This innovative project will tackle the insidious impact of social media messaging targeting young men and boys, with the primary aim of eradicating gender stereotypes perpetuated online and promoting a culture of respect and supportive relationships among peers.

The project will engage the target school-age male audience through face-to-face interactions at sporting clubs, community organisations, and on social media.

Recent research has revealed 25 per cent of teenage boys in Australia look up to social media personalities who propagate harmful gender stereotypes and endorse violence against women.

The government has channelled funding through the First Action Plan Priorities Fund, an $11.9 million fund which is part of the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-32.

Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth said there is a need for young men to develop supportive relationships with their male peers and marked the project as a critical first step towards fostering healthy male attitudes.

Ms Rishworth cited the links between harmful forms of masculinity and the perpetration of violence against women.

“Research shows there are strong links between harmful forms of masculinity and the perpetration of violence against women,” she said.

“Educating boys about healthy masculinity and providing them with positive role models are important steps to ending cycles of violence.”

The grant round for this trial will open its doors in early 2024 and will offer an opportunity for organisations equipped with specialist expertise to sign on.

Ms Rishworth emphasised the necessity of addressing violent behaviour at its roots.

Andrew Tate is a controversial kickboxer and reality TV star turned content creator who has amassed billions of views among tens of millions of followers despite being de-platformed by most social media platforms.

He has been known to preach troubling views regarding women, including that rape victims “must bear some responsibility” for their attacks; or that women should be choked by their male partners and stopped from going out.

But Mr Tate, who often flaunts his lavish life, is seen by many young men as an authority on what it is to be successful.

In August, he was released from house arrest in Romania and placed under judicial control, a lighter restrictive measure, while he awaits trial on charges of human trafficking.

As National Director of White Ribbon Australia, Allan Ball, previously explained to news.com.au, “the use of gaming, extreme bravado and music [in the videos of Tate] overlays his deplorable actions with a filter of normalcy”.

“Impressionable young minds are drawn in by money, power and unwavering confidence to become part of a tribe,” he said.

Mr Tate created the Real World Portal in recent months, after closing his subscription-based “Hustler’s University”, an online academy for his fans, promising to assist them in making big money while helping his videos on social media go viral.

Real World, which bills itself as an anti-university, promises members will make over $10k a month online.

A joint statement from Dr Stephanie Wescott and Professor Steven Roberts, two leading experts in the education field from Monash University, broadly welcomed the government’s initiative while highlighting the hazardous influence of misogynistic influencers like Mr Tate on impressionable boys and young men.

The pair are currently conducting research on the impact of Mr Tate’s content on boys in Australian schools, and have already revealed its far-reaching consequences on girls and women in classrooms across the country.

The research further highlighted that boys consuming Mr Tate’s content were more likely to harbour unhealthy views on relationships — an alarming finding given the high rates of family violence in Australia.

Dr Wescott and Prof Roberts raised a critical concern about the potential pitfalls of implementing short-term, “quick-fix” programs and interventions that might lack the capacity for sustained engagement with young men.

They cited mixed evidence regarding the effectiveness of such approaches and emphasised the absence of a uniform strategy for evaluating their impact.

The experts recommended long-term, direct, and targeted initiatives that challenge detrimental social norms affecting boys’ mental health and emotions while adopting a “gender-transformative” approach based on best practices.

“We also challenge the assumption that boys need only to hear from other men about how to develop positive masculinity, and note that the inclusion of only male role models in healthy masculinity programs are not backed by robust evidence,” they wrote.

They argued boys benefit from interacting with individuals of diverse gender identities at all life stages.

The experts warned that featuring only male role models may reinforce negative aspects of healthy masculinity programs.

“The reasons boys and young men find extremist influencers like Andrew Tate appealing are complex and multifaceted, and so must be the approaches we use to address them,” they said.

The pair urged the federal government and the Minister for Social Services to consult widely with experts in the field and lean on established research.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/teens/extremist-influencers-australia-throws-35-million-at-tate-problem/news-story/fb8f162b5462f5b0ede05fd106c67d60

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Humans have 'lost control' of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melting - and it could cause global sea levels to rise by 3.2 FEET by 2100, study warns

Here we go again! Yes.  The volcanoes under it do cause West Antarctic glaciers to calve at times but it is nothing to do with global warming.  Otherwise the whole ice-sheet would melt. The East is actually gaining mass.  It is just a fraudulent scare below

Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey say that the inevitable melting from heating caused by greenhouse gas emissions is set to raise sea levels throughout the following decades.

Even if emissions are controlled to achieve the best possible scenario, melting of the ice sheet will continue to accelerate this century, at a speed three times faster than during the 20th century.

If it melts completely, the ice sheet will release enough water to raise sea levels worldwide by 17ft (5.3 metres). 

However, scientists say that it is 'only' likely to make them rise by 3.2ft (one metre) by the end of the century. 

Warming oceans, that are absorbing excess heat from the atmosphere, erode the ice sheet from underneath and this effect is most pronounced on the western side of the continent.

Scientists are unsure how much this is likely to contribute towards global sea level rise but if the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet melted it would contribute around five metres, though this scenario is seen as unlikely to happen.

East Antarctica, which contains around 95 per cent of the continent's ice, remains stable as far as scientists can see, with a recent study finding the amount of ice has been increasing there over the past 30 years, though it is rapidly melting in the west with a net loss of around 7.5 trillion tonnes of ice.

How much this melting will contribute to rising oceans is not as well understood as other polar regions such as the Greenland glaciers.

Dr Kaitlin Naughten of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and lead author of the study said other research beyond her own points to it contributing to around one metre of sea level rise by 2100.

Describing her findings, she said: 'It appears we may have lost control of the West Antarctic Ice Shelf melting over the 21st century.

'Our actions today likely will make a difference further down the line in the 22nd century and beyond, but that's a timescale that probably none of us here will be around to see.'

The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, has been described by scientists as 'sobering' as it points to an inevitable rising of sea levels that will likely devastate many coastal communities if they do not adapt.

Already in the UK the Welsh village of Fairbourne is scheduled for abandonment in the 2050s by Gwynedd Council after it announced it will no longer keep up sea defences.

Millions of people around the world live by the coast and will either have to 'build around' the threat or 'be abandoned', Dr Naughten said, who added that controlling emissions would result in slower sea level rise which would give people more time to adapt.

For the current study, Dr Naughten's BAS team simulated four scenarios for the current century against a historic baseline of the previous one, imagining that emissions are either controlled to rein in the global temperature rise to 1.5C or 2C above pre-industrial levels or that emissions continue at a medium or high level.

Every scenario showed there would be widespread warming of the Amundsen sea, which borders West Antarctica, resulting in faster melting of the ice sheets.

The various emissions pathways did not show much difference until around 2045, when the high-emissions simulation began to increase the rate of melting faster than the other scenarios.

Other scientists cautioned against viewing the results of the study as being absolutely conclusive as they are based on a single model, but that it is in line with other similar studies.

Professor Alberto Naveira Garabato, an oceanographer at the University of Southampton, said: 'This is a sobering piece of research.

'It illustrates how our past choices have likely committed us to substantial melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and its consequent sea level rise – to which we will inevitably have to adapt as a society over coming decades and centuries.

'However, it should also serve as a wake up call. We can still save the rest of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, containing about 10 times as many metres of sea level rise, if we learn from our past inaction and start reducing greenhouse gas emissions now.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12662515/Humans-lost-control-West-Antarctic-Ice-Sheet-melting-cause-global-sea-levels-rise-3-2-FEET-2100-study-warns.html

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Homelessness: An analysis

I am going to be very politically incorrect below.  The Left will accuse me of being heartless and uncaring.  But their indifference to the ghastly attacks on innocent Israelis from Gaza tells us what a hollow pretence their "caring" is

Conservatives do occasionally note that homelessness is mainly an outcome of poor decisions and I am going to elaborate on that but I also want to go bit deeper than that

Being a good academic, I will first define my terms.  By "homeless" I mean street sleepers and people who live in their cars.  I probably should also include "couch surfers" who live temporarily with friends.  There is something of a continuum between those three groups but there is sufficient similarity to support the generalizations I wish to make.

The basic problem with the homeless is poor decision-making. The letting agents tell us that the unhousable usually have drug and alcohol problems or are welfare-dependent single mothers.  No experienced landlord would have anything to do with such people.  Offering them accommodation would be asking for trouble.  Such people would all have higher priorities than paying their rent

Women who get their legs up outside a committed relationship and without contraception are undoubtedly making a risky decision and one that sometimes goes very wrong.  How selective you are about your partners is an important decision.  Single mothers have undoubtedly got it wrong

So let us look at the other extreme:  cautious people.  If a man is frugal, is abstemious with alcohol, takes no recreational drugs and goes to university to get a useful qualification, he is most unlikely to end up homeless. Ditto for a woman who is careful with her contraception.

A major and important difference between the cautious and incautious groups is frugality.  I have expanded on that previously

https://tongue-tied2.blogspot.com/2023/10/poverty-is-behavioral-left-talk-about.html

So I think I have covered the major ways in which decisions affect homelessness.  So the next step is to ask WHY some people make very bad decisions

Sad to say, I think the two groups are actually born different, with impulsiveness and poor ability to think ahead being inborn in most of the homeless.

And IQ is perhaps the most important inborn difference of all. The people who go to university and the people who spend most  of their money on  beer and cigarettes are almost always going to be differentiated by IQ.  A smart person can see when he is at a dead end and will find a way out of it.

So the homeless do deserve our pity and help.  They are born unfortunate.  They  cannot help it.  Whether it is incumbent on anyone to help them is another question, however.  Governments sometimes attempt that task by providing "social" (welfare) housing but the cost of that ensures that it will only ever be a partial solution.  There is no good alternative to self-help -- JR

UPenn faces free speech hypocrisy storm for refusing to discipline pro-Hamas protesters - despite probing into law professor who said 'America would be better with fewer Asians'

A typical deliberate misquote from the Left.  What Prof. Wax actually said:

"But as long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.”

It was clearly a political, not a racist statement

The University of Pennsylvania has been accused of hypocrisy for trying to oust a controversial law professor who said 'America would be better with fewer Asians' while claiming free speech means it cannot punish anti-Semitic students.

The beleaguered Ivy League college has spent two years trying to discipline tenured professor Amy Wax over her remarks and other comments, which include arguing that some ethnicities have lower IQs than others.

University leaders claimed  her behavior undermines Penn's commitment to attracting a 'diverse student body to an inclusive educational environment' and 'harmed' students.

But amid a backlash to the Palestine Writes festival last month that invited speakers who have made anti-Semitic remarks, Penn reaffirmed its commitment to upholding free speech. 

Among those who appeared was Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, who has previously performed in an outfit closely resembling a Nazi uniform and once suggested 'bombing' audiences with confetti in the shape of swastikas, stars of David and dollar signs.

Although Penn released a statement condemning anti-Semitism ahead of the event, it still copped furious criticism that it tried to deflect by hiding behind a commitment to free speech.

The Palestine Writes festival - held on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar - featured a lineup of well-known antisemites. It drew extra attention after the Hamas attacks on Israel two weeks later.  

A memo to the university's board about the Palestine Writes event asserted that  'Penn does not regulate the content of speech or symbolic behavior,' the Washington Free Beacon reports.

Recipients were reminded that faculty may invite 'hateful' figures on campus so long as there is 'no imminent threat of harm.'

The note, written by the university's president Liz Magill and chairman of trustees Robert Bok, also rejected the term 'hate speech' as too difficult to define and noted the college had done away with its anti-hate speech policy following a political correctness dispute in 1994.

That was despite the school using the term 'hate speech' in its complaint against Wax.

Penn bosses have been attempting to remove the professor following her comments and concerns she has assigned work related to racist thinker Enoch Powell and invited Jared Taylor a white identity politics advocate to speak in her class.

She is now attempting to use the university's memo and its stance on free speech as an argument that she is afforded the same protections.

In a letter to university officials, Wax's lawyers said: 'The [memo] makes clear that even if Jews are 'harmed' by the speech of radical left Palestinian supporters appearing at the [Palestine Writes] Festival, those organizing the [Palestine Writes] Festival and inviting Jew-hating Palestinian nationalists will not be punished because Penn permits and protects the expression of all viewpoints, even those that are contrary to Penn's 'institutional values.

'But if a strongly conservative and tenured professor invites Jared Taylor, assigns Charles Murray and Enoch Powell, and takes to social media to tell very hard-to-hear truths about group differences, she is not protected. Rather, she is sanctioned.'

The letter was sent two days after the devastating Hamas attacks of October 7 and argues that there is a 'glaringly obvious' double standard.

It comes as the university battles to hold onto donations after several major donors pulled the plug on funding amid what they deemed to be an unsatisfactory response to the Palestine Writes festival, anti-Semitism and the so-called lax response to the attacks.

'We are devastated by the horrific assault on Israel by Hamas that targeted civilians and the taking of hostages over the weekend. These abhorrent attacks have resulted in the tragic loss of life and escalating violence and unrest in the region,' Magill said in a statement three days after the attack. 

'Many members of our community are hurting right now. Our thoughts are especially with those grieving the loss of loved ones or facing grave uncertainty about the safety of their families and friends.'

But, some took exception with the statement, saying it didn't go far enough and condemn the attack. 

That led several prominent alums to sever ties with Penn including David Magerman, a Jewish computer scientist who helped build the trading systems of Renaissance.

Magerman's decision came after Apollo CEO Marc Rowand and Highsage Ventures founder Jonathan Jacboson reduced their donations down to just $1. 

Estee Lauder heir Ronald Lauder also vowed to 're-examine' his financial commitment to the institution unless it did more to protect Jewish students.

Meanwhile trustee Vahan Gureghian called for Magill's resignation after resigning from the board over what he feels is an insufficient response to mounting anti-Semitism on campus.

'Like so many elite academic institutions, the leadership of UPenn has failed us through an embrace of antisemitism, a failure to stand for justice, and complete negligence in the defense of its own students' well being,' Gureghian said. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12672425/UPenn-free-speech-anti-Semitism-Amy-Wax.html

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First peoples?

There has been a lot of indecision in recent years about what to call those people whom for many decades we have called "Aborigines".  That word now seems to be taboo.  "Indigenous" is a favourite replacement but the Canadian practice  is increasingly creeping in. Canadians say "First Nations" for the early inhabitants of their country.

Using "first Nations" for early inhabitants of Australia is a however a substantial misfire.  The many pre-white tribes of Australia had few of the characteristics of nations except perhaps informally understood borders.  Making "nations" out of hundreds of tribes is quite a stretch. There was  certainly no language common to them all and not much that we would recognize as governing bodies or a defence department.

Perhaps for that reason the angry article below refers to "first peoples" instead, a more defensible usage.

But both usages founder on the claim that the pre-white inhabitants of Australia were in any sense "first".  They were not.  It enrages the Left for anybody to mention it but it is well documented that the original inhabitants of what we now call Australia were a race of pygmies.  And the pygmies concerned are far from a lost tribe.  Some of them still survive in areas of the Atherton Tableland.  

One of them walked right past me in 2004 as I was sitting in an open-air cafe in Kuranda.  He was black but was only about 4'6" tall, a height commonly given for the Australian pygmies in early documents.  There certainly are still some very short blacks  in the mountainous areas behind Cairns

In the early days, anthropologists and explorers took photos of the pygmies which showed them as being about 4.6" (1.3 meters) tall

There is a long article by the irreverent historian  Keith Windschuttle which gives the full story.  See 

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/history-wars/2002/06/the-extinction-of-the-australian-pygmies/

There were quite a lot of reports of contact with pygmies  throughout the 20th century.  See:

https://www.mysteriousaustralia.com/our_lost_pygmy_tribe.html

There have been many attempts from the Left to debunk the story that there were a race of pygmies in Australia but have a look below and you will see one of them, 3"7" tall and still alive when the picture was taken by a news photographer in 2007. 



She is pretty substantial to be a "myth"

There is an article about her reprinted below under the heading "Pygmy elder faces eviction"

https://tongue-tied2.blogspot.com/2023/10/elder-faces-eviction-article-originally.html

It’s a measure of the confidence assimilationists now feel, not to mention their profound indecency, that they’ve wasted no time pushing to start rolling back what few gains have been made on Indigenous policy.

Tony Abbott immediately demanded that Indigenous flags no longer be flown and acknowledgements of Indigenous people be abandoned at official events — signs of separatism, he says. If even those most basic acknowledgements that First Peoples exist are now to be erased, then we are indeed seeing full-blown separatism. The LNP in Queensland abandoned support for a treaty process in that state. Peter Dutton, in the words of one of his own MPs, sought to “weaponise” claims of child abuse within Indigenous communities.

The mainstream media also wasted no time in trying to fit the result into a narrative that carefully avoided the core issues of the referendum. The Australian Financial Review echoed the argument of The Australian that it was all Anthony Albanese’s fault for his “failure to genuinely consult with Mr Dutton to try to secure bi-partisan support for the Voice,” arguing that it was down to Albanese’s “hubris”.

This is a self-serving lie that gets everyone — Dutton, the No campaign, racists, the media — off the hook. There is literally no referendum proposal that Dutton would have supported, as his goal was to damage Labor, not address the substance of either recognition or closing the gap. The AFR goes on to complain that Albanese has ruled out “pursuing other forms of constitutional recognition or legislating for an Indigenous advisory body”.

Let’s coin a name for this fiction: how about the White Man’s Recognition Myth? It’s one many No supporters, including Abbott and Dutton, cling to — that if only they’d been asked to support simple recognition without a Voice, they’d have backed it.

White Man’s Recognition found a full flowering in an extraordinary column by David Crowe last week. Normally the doyen of both-sidesist press gallery commentary, Crowe came alive during the campaign to lash the No campaign but lamented last Thursday “a Yes vote is only possible for leaders who compromise more than they would like. This is true for Indigenous leaders as much as party leaders. As late as June this year, there was a pathway to success for recognition without the Voice, something Dutton says he supports.”

That is, the failure of the referendum is on First Peoples and their inability to compromise, their unwillingness to accept a token White Man’s Recognition, their insistence that recognition actually be meaningful and involve a two-way interaction, not imposed on them like so much else has been imposed on them for more than two centuries.

Stop complaining, accept what you’re given, abandon any agency, it’s non-Indigenous people who’ve done all the compromising, why won’t you? Being recognised as actually existing should be enough. It’s not just Albanese, evidently, who is afflicted with hubris.

It shouldn’t need to be said, but after the ferocious and resentful dismissal of genuine recognition by non-Indigenous Australia, no non-Indigenous person is in a position to lecture First Peoples about what they should have done differently in order to please us.

It is non-Indigenous people who have killed off recognition and reconciliation in favour of maintaining a white fantasy in an occupied country. The next steps, whatever they are, must come from First Peoples. And if those steps are away from the rest of us, we’ve only ourselves to blame.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/the-job-of-non-indigenous-australians-now-is-to-shut-up/ar-AA1iFLla

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Our parasitical ruling class have revealed themselves to all

Their tantrum when for once they did not get their way is very revealing.  They are nearly as entrenched as the Soviet Nomenklatura so it is good to see them lose one.  A powerful new device for control of us all was wrenched from them

The tantrum of the ‘Yes’ campaign and its supporters following their referendum loss is symptomatic of a class of people suffering from a troublesome level of self-entitlement and a sense of moral superiority.

It reflects an attitude that can only emerge in a nation where people live in a group-think bubbles, indulging their lack of perspective which is reinforced daily by those around them.

Such is the Australian bureaucrat class.

This particular class of society tends to live and work in our inner-cities and lurk within government and corporate institutions.

They’re not tradies, or small businesspeople, or front-line emergency responders – they would never survive in an environment that requires daily performance measurement and instant accountability.

The ‘Yes’ class are the class that make all the rules. They stifle the productivity of the producers in our society, and make life more difficult for everyone else. Red tape and green tape are their tools of power.

They inhabit government department managerial offices, corporate HR, legal, PR departments, law firms, consulting firms, and training companies. In ancient Chinese society (and in modern China) these were the people who held the ‘chops’, the official government stamps needed to authorise and control.

They mirror the archetypes of the British civil service who delight in hindering, meddling, policing, and enforcing. Justifying their lack of productivity and true success with political gameplay and the wielding of arbitrary power.

Worse than the wealth they prevent individuals and the nation producing, is the wealth they take for themselves. The worst example of this post-referendum was the news that the Queensland state government of Labor’s Annastacia Palaszczuk was offering any public servant who felt they needed it, five days off with full pay to mourn the loss. 

That such an idea could be floated with any level of seriousness, let alone be implemented, reveals how severe this gap between the rulers and the ruled has become. What small business person or tradie could afford such a personal self-indulgence? Further, what small or medium-sized business could afford to offer such a benefit to its employees and compete in the market for top talent?

What the Voice laid so plainly bare for all of us to see was that our country is roughly divided in two: those who know the cost of things and produce – and those who make the rules, and take.

The first and most glaring indication of this bureaucrat class being completely out of touch was the inverse nature of the Voice vote in the Australian Capital Territory: 61-39 vs 39-61.

That was obvious on election night and is perhaps all that needs to be said on the matter. But a deeper dive into the electorate-by-electorate vote unveils two clear dividing trends: tertiary educated vs non-tertiary educated; and high-income vs low-middle income. Of the 151 federal electorates, only 29 saw a ‘Yes’ victory – the inner-cities had the widest margins.

In my view, this proves the long-held perspective that, those of us with a tertiary education are not necessarily better at analytical thinking and reasoning but rather we have merely been exposed to a different ideological framework. The dominance of post-modern, neo-Marxist, identity politics (call it what you will – it’s the worldview of left) in academia has, with the boomer generations and their children, come to dominate the halls of power in this country. Covid proved the point when millions of producers were left at the mercy of the bureaucrat class.

Before I am accused of Marxist-style over-simplification of the world into classes, let me clarify that I believe there are many degrees and combinations of these factors lurking within wider society and perhaps even within individuals. Not all public servants sit in the bureaucrat class, especially those on the front line and those who contribute to the nation’s productivity rather than obstruct it. But the data from this referendum shows we have a worrying disconnect between the producers and the administrators. This isn’t sustainable.

There can be only one of two outcomes. Firstly, the bureaucrat class could double down in anger and heighten a push to further regulation and control, causing the producers to give up, retire to the beach, or move abroad. This would lead to stagnation in innovation, production and wealth, tax revenue will plummet, debt will rise and the bureaucrats will run out of other people’s money to spend.

Or, the bureaucrat class get the message, restrain themselves, unwind excessive regulation and control, drop identity-politics-related programs and seek to properly serve the producer class instead of ruling over them. This will cause producers to re-engage, build businesses and create employment, drive innovation, production and wealth, tax revenue will be adequate to sustain this trimmed-down bureaucracy and there will be enough left over to pay down the crippling debt.

If I were a betting man, I’d say the naïve response of the referendum’s losers and the subsequent push now for ‘misinformation’ laws, suggest the control freaks will stand triumphant atop a pile of ruins and rubble in a decade or so, and first scenario is sadly far more likely. But we live in hope, and those of us working for the second outcome must carry on fighting each battle as it arises.

Imagine though, how great our nation could be if we united behind true laissez-faire free market liberalism, low-tax, and minimal regulation. Alas, we suffer at the hands of those who believe they know what is best for us and think they have a monopoly on ‘good’.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/10/we-have-a-big-problem

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Two major studies reveal devastating effect of PFAS and food additives on male and female sexual health: From sperm damage to smaller testicles, early menopause and ovary cysts

Oh dear! Another meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is only as good as the studies fed into it and there are a number of problems with that. A big problem is selection bias -- using only those studies with conclusions that suit you. I have seen a meta-analysis that omitted around 100 "inconvenient" articles. It was in an area that I know particularly well

That mostly arises when a popular hypothesis is under examination. The analysts are very lenient at using studies that confirm the popular idea but very sniffy about including studies that contradict the same theory.

And the hypothesis here is just such a fashionable one. It just seems so obvious. How can a pervasive industrial chemical that we all consume one way or another NOT be bad? People have been trying for decades to prove that PFAS and BPA are bad for you. But the data is unco-operative. No effect or a barely significant effect is the normal finding. Pesky!

And, knowing the literature, I am sure that the confirmatory studies that they fed into this analysis were ones with marginal magnitude. Such studies rarely survive exact duplication and really should at best be regarded as disconfirming the hypothesis. In summary, PFAS and BPA can NOT be shown as bad for you. Sorry about that


In recent years concerns about the contaminants in our foods and everyday products have made headlines due to their links to cancers.

But a growing body of research suggests the microscopic molecules also have a devastating effect on fertility and may be contributing to America's 'baby bust'.

In two new reviews of scientific literature, researchers from across the globe looked at the impact of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) on male and female reproductive health.

They found these substances can cause infertility, genital malformations, lower sperm count and quality, early menopause and an increased risk of breast and testicular cancers.

EDCs include PFAS but also pesticides, phenols, a group of chemicals found in toys and dental products; phthalates, a group of chemicals in food packaging; parabens, a group of chemicals used as food preservatives; and triclosan, an antimicrobial agent used in soaps and hand sanitizers.

Some primary sources of PFAS and other contaminants include plastic food containers, makeup, cleaning sprays, medications, contaminated food and pollution of water and air.

Researchers from Vietnam, India, New Zealand and the United States reviewed more than 300 sources of information, including previous experimental studies and data from national and international health monitoring databases, as well as animal studies.

In the review of the impact on women, the team looked at studies that had analyzed levels of and exposure to contaminants and tested and evaluated placenta, urine, blood, hormone levels and tissues.

Researchers found exposure to Bisphenol A, or BPA, can lead to a decline in the development and quality of eggs and an increased risk of implantation failure, when fertilized eggs do not implant in the uterine lining correctly, frequently resulting in pregnancy loss.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a leading contributor to infertility, and a risk factor for endometrial cancer and diabetes, has also been linked to BPA exposure.

BPA is a type of plastic used to make plastic dinnerware, car parts, toys, beverage containers and CDs.

Exposure to phthalates, compounds in soaps, shampoos, lubricating oils and plastic packaging, was associated with a reduced probability of pregnancy and lower-quality eggs.

Additional impacts in women seen in the previous studies, include early menopause, an increased risk of breast cancer, endometriosis, which can lead to infertility, and metabolic syndrome, which increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

These harmful substances can also result in longer menstrual cycles and early onset of puberty, which has been linked to depression, substance abuse, sexual assault and adult breast cancer.

The EDC group of PFAS has been linked to a reduction in a mother's lactation period, the timeframe that a woman produces breast milk, and researchers found a type of pesticide led to shortened menstrual cycles, which can affect reproduction.

During pregnancy, exposure to EDCs has been linked to maternal obesity, high blood pressure and preeclampsia, a life-threatening blood pressure condition.

Studies have also shown mixed results on EDC exposure and preterm birth.

Based on their results, researchers strongly advocate for eating organic food and avoiding plastics and canned foods and beverages.

Data also supports avoiding fast food, following a vegetarian diet, changing personal care products and reducing dust.

Using stainless steel or glass bottles and containers, as well as cardboard wrapping instead of plastic packaging and avoiding plastic utensils and non-stick cookware will also help reduce exposure to contaminants.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12635823/pfas-water-reproductive-health-infertility-menopause.html

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Now bamboo is bad

Plastic is bad, paper is bad.  What is left? Ceramics?  They take a lot of energy to produce when they are "fired".  What should I do with all the bambooo cutlery I have been given with various takeaways?

Charities and retailers are selling “eco-friendly” bamboo cups and children’s tableware containing plastic resin – despite warnings that green claims may be misleading and the products may pose a risk to health.

The bamboo “eco-cups” are promoted as helping to protect the planet, but are usually non-recyclable. Regulators warn the green claims may be tricking consumers into using products they believe to be sustainable.

There are also concerns the products may allow the accelerated degradation of plastic that can contaminate the food or drink and may be a risk to health. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said it had advised retailers to withdraw products in June and any further sales would be unlawful.

Despite the ban, the bamboo and plastic products are still widely available online, including children’s cups and plates. They are typically made of bamboo, with a melamine formaldehyde resin, and look like plastic.

WWF-UK, the wildlife charity, was last week selling a reusable bamboo cup for £7.50, which it says “helps protect our planet”. It stated on its website: “Our organically sourced bamboo fibre cup is farmed with minimal impact on the environment.” The cup with a panda design contains 20% melamine. WWF-UK advises shoppers to check with councils on where it may be recycled.

WWF-UK said disposable cups had a negative impact on the environment and tests had shown its bamboo cups were safe for the consumer. But after it was approached by the Observer it removed the cup from sale.

Another charity, the Wild Planet Trust, which runs Paignton zoo in Devon and Newquay zoo in Cornwall, sells a Tiger travel mug for £8.99, made of bamboo, corn powder and melamine. The trust said this weekend it was investigating the product, which it had removed from sale.

Several online retailers continue to sell children’s bamboo and melamine tableware. The online marketplace Etsy was last week selling a Roarsome dinosaur tableware set for £12 and a bamboo tableware set decorated with tractors and fire engines also for £12. The online retailer did not respond to a request for comment.

Another retailer, Caroline Gardner, was last week selling a scattered spot “eco” travel bamboo mug for £6.25, with 25% melamine. Caroline Gardner said it had “swiftly moved away from bamboo cups” last year when it understood the implications and a few remaining mugs were mistakenly put on sale. These have now been removed and would be destroyed, said the firm.

Amazon does not permit its retailers to sell any bamboo and melamine cups or tableware products. The online giant said it had taken the decision to prohibit the sales about two years ago. Tableware made from 100% bamboo or 100% melamine is permitted for sale under EU regulations that still apply in the UK involving products used for food.

Concerns were raised about bamboo products mixed with plastic in November 2019 after tests conducted by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, which warned melamine and formaldehyde could be released from “bambooware” products when filled with hot liquids like tea, coffee or baby formula. It said formaldehyde release from some cups would exceed the tolerable daily intake by 30 times for adults and 120 times for small children. There is no acute health risk from these bambooware products but repeated exposure to elevated levels of melamine and formaldehyde may be a risk to health, with melamine linked to toxic effects in the kidneys.

Last November the European Commission warned that tableware containing bamboo and other unauthorised additives had not been safely assessed under the regulations and their sale was illegal.

In the UK, the FSA said in June that the Committee on Toxicity, an independent scientific advisory body, had concluded the migration of formaldehyde and melamine from bamboo composite cups is a potential concern to human health and a more comprehensive risk assessment should be undertaken.

Some suppliers have already conducted their own tests, which they say show their products do not pose any health risk. The FSA is now consulting on the products and is requesting manufacturers, suppliers and retailers to submit any relevant data.

The FSA said: “Any person placing these products on the market could be committing an offence, as these products contain unauthorised additives. The FSA has taken steps to bring the market back into compliance, similar to steps undertaken in the EU.

“Businesses selling these items are reminded that plastic food contact articles containing unauthorised plant-based additives such as bamboo powder should be withdrawn from the market with immediate effect

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/21/warnings-over-eco-coffee-cups-that-pose-risks-to-health-with-toxic-resin

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Australians the most promiscuous?

There would seem to be a number of problems with the figures below. For a start, men and women are not separated out A lot of women do have few partners and a lot of men have many. I stopped counting when I had been with 50 women.

And the age of the people could matter too. I came of age in the 60s when "free love" was all the rage. I did participate in that culture to a degree. I have happy memories of it in fact. I gather that young people these days tend to be less promiscuous than their parents were at the same age.

But it is possible that the figures below have some accuracy. Australians do tend to be laid back and religion is not influential for the great majority of Australians

Despite the country’s Puritan past, the average US citizen has slept with more than 10 people, according to raunchy research into the world’s most promiscuous countries.

NapLab compiled data from various sources to come up with their list, looking at national sexually transmitted infection rates, a country’s attitudes toward premarital sex and the average number of sex partners, among other criteria.

America was declared the 15th most promiscuous country on the planet by NapLab, with the average resident sleeping with 10.7 people over the course of their lifetime.

That’s on par with Canada, as our naughty northern neighbors also notch up an average of 10.7 bedroom buddies.

However, Mexicans are less promiscuous than those in the US, with their average citizen sleeping with nine people.

Brits were also less likely to have as many sex partners (9.8 on average), as were the Spanish (6.1), the Polish (6) and the Chinese (3.1).

Meanwhile, Australia was named the most promiscuous country in the world, with the average citizen sleeping with 13.3 people and 81% of residents approving of sex before marriage.

Prostitution is also legalized Down Under, while the average Aussie loses their virginity at a younger age than the average American (17.8 years versus 18 years).

Despite their citizens seeming to sleep around more on average, Australia had lower rates of sexually transmitted diseases, also known as STDs, than the US.

The STD rate is 14,454 per 100,000 citizens in Australia, while it’s a far higher 19,900 per 100,000 people in the US.

India was named by NapLab as the least promiscuous of the 45 countries they examined. Just 19% of Indians thought premarital sex was acceptable, while the average citizen had had just three sex partners. India also had relatively low STD rates when compared to other countries on the list

https://nypost.com/2023/10/20/heres-how-many-people-the-average-american-has-had-sex-with-and-it-will-shock-you/

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DNA contamination with residual bacterial plasmids and truncated mRNA from the manufacturing process

The more I hear about mRNA vaccines, the more pleased I am that I had only the British AstraZeneca shot, which was a more conventional product. I deliberately chose it because I thought it would be safer. Sadly, it was never approved for use in the USA. I guess I should mention that I had zero after effects from my two injections: Not even a sore arm

We highlight the inherent safety issues associated with a lax regulatory framework for approval of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. In this article, we consider how lax regulation is related to DNA and RNA contamination issues.

Summary of Key Facts

Concerns have been raised about DNA contamination in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. The specific concern is the presence of higher-than-expected residual DNA plasmids used in the original mRNA production. Independent investigations suggest that the Pfizer mRNA vaccine may have high levels of DNA contamination, potentially exceeding regulatory limits.

There are theoretical risks associated with plasmid DNA expression and migration to the gut, which could affect human health and the microbiome. Concerns have also been raised about the quality control and manufacturing oversight of mRNA vaccines.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA), Europe's drug regulatory authority, noted the presence of truncated and modified RNA as impurities in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, raising the need for oversight.

Related to the manufacturing process, a Danish study compared the rate of adverse events to the batch size (number of doses in a batch) and found a correlation.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met last week to recommend the updated COVID-19 vaccine. However, the manufacturers presented little data from testing in humans. Moderna was the only manufacturer to present safety and antibody response data from experience with 101 individuals. Pfizer presented antibody response data from 20 mice and is currently collecting data from 400 individuals in clinical testing. No data on manufacturing oversight was presented during the meeting.

As part of the safety evaluation of drug approval, the CMC (chemistry, manufacturing, and controls) process becomes critical in identifying and eliminating impurities. It sets strict standards and product specifications to maintain the purity of each batch. Compliance with these standards is essential for obtaining approval from global health authorities.

Imagine you're a coffee drinker, and you decide to buy a bag of premium, freshly ground coffee beans from your favorite store. You expect that each bag contains pure, high-quality coffee grounds to brew that perfect cup of coffee. However, when you open the bag, you discover that it isn't just coffee grounds; it also contains a mixture of sand and other foreign particles. This unexpected impurity completely ruins your experience.

Just as you rely on the purity of your coffee grounds for a great cup of coffee, the pharmaceutical industry, including vaccine production, has regulations in place to ensure good manufacturing practices. Patients and consumers expect that these guidelines mean that drug or vaccine formulations are free from unwanted substances, ensuring their safety and effectiveness.

Controlling impurities in traditional chemical products is a well-established practice, but for biological products such as mRNA-based vaccines, managing impurities presents unique challenges.

mRNA Products Contain 'Gene Factories'

Double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) is used to make the mRNA contained in the COVID-19 vaccines. Tiny dsDNA plasmids are small engineered gene factories (Figure 1). These factories produce the mRNA strands contained in the LNPs. A plasmid appears like a tiny micro-bracelet with different segments representing different pieces of genes.

Regulatory agencies like EMA—Europe's drug regulatory authority—set limits for the number of plasmids in the final lots distributed for injection. New questions have been raised about how much contamination there is, and whether the FDA is monitoring this. It is also unclear whether the plasmids can merge with human genes within the cell or travel to the gut.

The EMA standard for DNA contamination of vials is 0.33 percent (330 pg/mg), or roughly one DNA molecule for every 3,000 mRNA molecules. Although the Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine meets this standard, the actual volume may be higher due to poor quality control. The DNA must be removed from the final product before distribution, but some residual amount is expected to remain.

Unanswered questions include: How much DNA is in the vials? Is it over the limit? Is the FDA tracking this? And what are the implications, if any, with regard to persistence in the recipient?

There are at least two independent groups of investigators who have conducted lab tests and confirmed the mRNA vaccine of Pfizer has been contaminated by DNA.

One team of scientists, led by microbiologist Kevin McKernan, published a preprint paper showing that the Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162b2 vaccine has DNA “orders of magnitude higher than the EMA’s limit.” His paper has not yet been peer-reviewed. The batches examined, provided by an anonymous source, were unopened, expired vials that were not delivered on dry ice. If these data hold, the actual amount of plasmids was 18 to 70 times higher than the EMA limit. (Table 3, page 12.)
Obviously, future investigations should attempt to establish contamination levels using unexpired doses with an intact cold chain.

Professor Phillip Buckhaults, who holds a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology and is considered an expert in cancer genomics research at the University of South Carolina, performed an independent analysis for the presence of DNA in Pfizer batches.

Professor Buckhaults in testimony stated the following:
"The Pfizer vaccine is contaminated with plasmid DNA. It's not just mRNA. It's got bits of DNA in it. This DNA is the DNA vector that was used as the template for the in vitro transcription reaction when they made the mRNA. I know this is true because I sequenced it in my own lab."

We will continue to follow this line of research.

Theoretical Risk of Plasmid DNA Contamination

While having some DNA in a sample is unavoidable and deemed acceptable, some have raised questions about the possibility for genomic integration of the DNA. Our cells use DNA in the nucleus to make protein, so if the plasmid DNA gets into the nucleus, there is a theoretical risk that it can get transcribed and make a protein.

About 5 to 10 percent of our human genome contains ancient retroviral DNA. However, this DNA is mutated to a point that is no longer harmful. Any further research on this topic will therefore need to establish not just the presence of DNA plasmid integration, but also its biological activity.
Professor Buckhaults further commented in his testimony:

"I am kind of alarmed about the possible consequences of this—both in terms of human health and biology—but you should be alarmed about the regulatory process that allowed it to get there."

Concerns About DNA Migration to the Gut

Related to the DNA contamination is the concern about residual expression vectors, or plasmids, in the vials. To make a billion doses of mRNA vaccine, more than a kilogram of DNA is required. Plasmids help produce the DNA by splicing in the desired sequence into a bacterial plasmid (Figure 1).

Then workhorse bacteria, often E. coli, help spin out the DNA for production. These bacteria have an extra burden: They must replicate not only their own genome but also the plasmid DNA inserted within their genome. This takes slightly more time, so the bacteria without the additional DNA will eventually outcompete those with the DNA.

To solve this problem, scientists also splice in an antibiotic resistance gene. The entire pool of bacteria is then treated with an antibiotic to kill the faster-replicating bacteria without the conferred antibiotic resistance. This selective elimination allows the plasmid-carrying antibiotic-resistant bacteria to continue growing. In other words, this antibiotic resistance gene confers an advantage that drives selection pressure to favor the bacteria producing the desired DNA.

However, some scientists are concerned that exceeding EMA standards for DNA plasmid contamination could affect an already growing antibiotic resistance problem. This would be a potential concern only if plasmids containing the antibiotic resistance gene migrate to the gut, integrate with bacterial targets in the gut flora, and disrupt the microbiome of the gut accordingly. Diseases, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, cancer, hypertension, and irritable bowel syndrome have been loosely linked with disturbances of the gut microbiome.

Truncated mRNA Contamination

Nucleic acid contamination with truncated, or shortened, mRNA fragments is something that EMA has been following since February 2021. On page 35 of the EMA assessment report (pdf) on the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine reviewed in Part 1, the EMA states, "Truncated and modified RNA are present as impurities." The agency noted that the impurities were found at different levels during production. For instance, levels may be higher in smaller test batches than in larger commercial batches.

In fact, Danish scientists, Max Schmeling, Vibeke Manniche, and Peter Riis Hansen linked adverse events with vaccination records and found that smaller batches of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine may have a higher rate of adverse events (AEs). While this finding is intriguing, the authors call for more research to see if this is a consistent pattern. We reviewed the raw data provided by the authors and agree that a clustering of AEs seems to be found with batches having fewer than 100,000 doses.

It has already been demonstrated in vitro in a laboratory experiment that mRNA can be reverse-transcribed to DNA within six hours. A remaining question is whether this can happen in a live organism. Thus far, there is no evidence that a reverse-transcribed DNA product can merge with a human cell’s genome. Claims about integration are solely speculative and based upon an evolutionary precedent for such a process.

The EMA asked for additional testing but allowed distribution to go forward. The scientists believed these fragments were unlikely to be intact mRNA fragments. An intact mRNA fragment needs to have a cap and a tail. The cap and tail are needed to tell the cell when to start and stop producing the spike protein.

Nevertheless, the EMA requested additional reports. The agency was concerned that an autoimmune reaction could be triggered if fragments' potentially encoded proteins resemble human proteins. In other words, if the fragments "mimic" human proteins, antibodies could be developed against our own bodies.

"Any homology between translated proteins (other than the intended spike protein) and human proteins that may, due to molecular mimicry, potentially cause an autoimmune process should be evaluated. Due date: July 2021. Interim reports: March 2021, and on a monthly basis," the EMA stated.

It is clear that the mass production of mRNA at an industrial scale carries potential risks. This issue has been raised recently by other researchers pointing out the role of manufacturing quality control. For instance, The Epoch Times has previously investigated the link between quality issues and clotting risk (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 4).

This issue of contamination by DNA and mRNA fragments should also be explored further to understand whether certain lots were affected more than others. We also need to know whether DNA contamination is linked to adverse events. The EMA should strictly follow its monitoring standards.

The issue of having any DNA contamination is biologically unavoidable given that the mRNA is transcribed from DNA vectors. The potential issue here is the unusually high level of DNA contamination involved in the mRNA vaccines.

However, pivoting these RNA therapeutics to a vaccine platform in the context of a lagging regulatory framework has left us with many unanswered questions. Public health officials, nevertheless, were adamant that this new product should be deployed in a one-size-fits-all manner ignoring differential COVID-19 risk profiles across a broad population. This, in turn, we believe, set the stage for policy overreach resulting in unethical and harmful mandates.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/covid-19-mrna-vaccine-contaminated-by-mystery-dnas-and-truncated-mrnas-health-implications-5201359?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=health-0

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Why Do Liberals Love Hamas So Much?

It's not all that mysterious.  Leftists are angry people  -- angry at the  world about them, their own country and society most particularly.  But Israel is very much a chip off the block of successful Western society.  It is prosperous and successful and tolerant in many ways.  It is almost an outpost of America.  And the Left hate it for that.  So at a minimum they will not support Israel and they love it that Hamas really hates Israel. They see Hamas hate as akin to their hate.

Hamas hate is in fact a different hate. Both in the Quran and in the Hadiths, Mohammed condemned Jews, even though he stole large parts of their holy book. Even the Arabic word for god -- "Allah" -- is a steal from the Hebrew word for a god -- "Eloah". So Hamas hate is religious hate. But any hate against Israel is ok to the Left

In the days of Harry Truman, the Left supported Israel.  But since then Israel has become triumphant and strong  -- and that is unforgiveable

As reports of Hamas war crimes, inhuman atrocity, and medieval Muhammadist brutality continue to stream into our consciousness, a steady parade of terror apologists bugle their inveterate support for all things barbaric.

We’ve heard unimaginably callous statements from The Squad, Ivy League students, and the “social justice” organization BLM regarding the manifold cruelties perpetrated on Israeli citizens. Hamas swine have carried out their diabolical tasks with a relish not witnessed since the genocidal mania displayed by Hitler, Mengele, and Himmler. 

Then, as now, the usual suspects have appeared to offer their heartfelt support for the forces of tyranny and homicide. The New York Times famously lent the considerable weight of its  commentary to the budding dictator and would-be second coming of Alexander the Great — Adolph Hitler. You’d have thought the Times learned a lesson with Adolph, but the Grey Lady’s sages swooned for the Iron Curtain and one of history’s most accomplished butchers, Joseph Stalin. 

And, as the leading publication of record, the Times bore the banner of hate, racism, and bigotry for a media complex now completely devoted to the mechanism of statist propaganda. Hate for anyone guilty of naughty thinking; racism as a tool of political and social subjugation; and bigotry against any democratizing influence that threatens the hegemony of elitism.

Liberalism is legion — finding a host and corporeal form in the Democrat party, our institutions of “higher learning,” and in the legacy media. And, as Christ said speaking of another demonic spirit, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.” (Matthew 9:29) 

There really are only two worldviews. One view acknowledges the fundamentally fallen, depraved nature of man. The other views mankind as containing a spark of Divinity. Basically good, but prone to do evil as the result of outside forces shaping human nature. This is the fundamental presupposition of Utopianism which has spawned every totalitarian regime since the Tower of Babel. 

Think about every “people’s movement” throughout history. The promise of heaven on earth, built brick by brick into a towering ziggurat of hubris, is always the same. If only we could construct a government with benevolent and supremely intellectual autocrats, we could bask in the light and comity of a blossoming humanity fostered by an enlightened citizenry educated, or as Hillary would put it, “deprogrammed” out of every vice. This is the simpering stupidity of liberalism. Sixty million murdered soviet citizens speak most eloquently to that point. 

At the very center of the utopian model is the exercise of centralized power over a subjugated populace. The flavors vary, but it’s all the same slurry of empty calories and sugar. Democrats lust for bigger government because it represents movement toward the ultimate objective, their complete and total control, effectuated by their radiant intellect, and performing the necessary modulations of social control to optimize, support, and perpetuate the metabolic functions of the state. 

Just as in the Matrix, liberalism’s Kingdom Come is an exalted state that utilizes individuals as batteries—a disposable and renewable resource in the service of its own biological function. 

Hamas, and terrorist organizations like it, represent the exercise of sheer power, both physical and psychological. The anarchy it creates excites the totalitarian spirit and inflames the insatiable lust of statists who witness the transformation of the geopolitical space in real time. They are titillated by the destruction of democratic processes and institutions, and are pressed beyond measure by their exuberance—excusing the inexcusable in a frenetic attempt to publicly reconcile barbarism with their utopian vision.  

The terrorism of Hamas is an opportunity to see statists for what they really are. Whether in academe, politics, or pop culture, they can’t help but cheer the slaughter and mayhem, because secretly, they’d blithely sacrifice whole continents to their benevolent, all consuming governmental god. 

Make no mistake, they’d feed naughty thinkers wholesale into the furnace if they could only eradicate the people’s tool of power—the gun. 

It’s no coincidence that Israel is the Middle East’s only democracy. An oasis in a sea of totalitarian Muhammadists. Israel is the repository of the Biblical principles that make the civil society possible, the fundamental social precondition for democratic republics. Israel is the political embodiment of the Biblical truth that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

America shares the same theological and philosophical traditions as Israel. Our founding fathers understood that man is fallen, bent toward evil, and never to be implicitly trusted with temporal authority. This understanding is the reason for the meticulous construction of checks and balances in our Constitution. It’s the reason we have enjoyed liberty and the ability to pursue happiness for over two centuries. 

Liberalism maintains a view of humanity that is antithetical to what the Bible teaches. And, not coincidentally has produced social systems and political structures that have dehumanized and transformed the individual into a resource for the state to use and dispose of according to the capricious inclination of dictators and despots. 

What they don’t want you to understand is that organizations like Hamas are, in their view, agents of change, catalysts in the struggle of the proletariat in a Marxist materialistic dialectic. Statism, Utopianism, and Marxism are all kissing cousins, and that’s why you often find them making common cause across the geopolitical spectrum. China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, and other countries that make up the modern axis of evil share a commonality as ancient as Babylon—they hate the idea of the individual, created in the image of God, imbued with inalienable rights that supersede the interests of the state. 

Why do liberals seem to love terrorism so much? Because the significance of the individual is less than nothing in comparison to their political ambition. Of course, they may not admit to themselves the staggering scale of their own inhumanity. But, that’s the whole problem isn’t it? “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) 

https://townhall.com/columnists/johnnantz/2023/10/17/why-do-liberals-love-hamas-so-much-n2629938

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The PFAS panic continues

See below. As usual, only the weakest effects were oberved, consistent with no stable real effects. The study had its amusing side. Rather a lot of substances correlated with the alleged effect, including a form of acetic acid. Acetic acid is the key ingredient of vinegar. So might vinegar delay puberty onset in girls? Could be on these figures!

Exposure to Perfluoroalkyl Substances and Associations with Pubertal Onset and Serum Reproductive Hormones in a Longitudinal Study of Young Girls in Greater Cincinnati and the San Francisco Bay Area

Susan M. Pinney et al.

Abstract

Background:
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), endocrine disrupting chemicals with worldwide exposure, cause changes in mammary gland development in rodents. A few human studies report delay in pubertal events with increasing perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) exposure, but to our knowledge none have examined reproductive hormone levels at thelarche.

Methods:
In a cohort of Greater Cincinnati (GC) and San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) girls recruited at 6–8 years of age, clinical examinations were conducted annually or semiannually with sequential Tanner staging. PFAS concentrations were measured in the first serum sample of 704 girls. In 304 GC girls, estradiol (E2), testosterone (T), and dihydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) were measured in serum at four time points around puberty. Relationships between PFAS and age at thelarche, pubarche, and menarche were analyzed using survival and structural equation models. The association between PFAS and reproductive hormones was assessed using linear regression models.

Results:

Median PFOA serum concentrations in GC were higher than in the U.S. population. In multivariable Cox proportional hazard models [adjusted for race, body mass index (BMI)], increasing serum log-transformed PFOA was associated with a delay in pubarche [hazard ratio equals 0.83hazard ratio (HR)=0.83
; 95% CI: 0.70, 0.99] and menarche (hazard ratio equals 0.04HR=0.04; 95% CI: 0.01, 0.25).

Structural equation models indicated a triangular relationship between PFOA, BMI percentile, and the age at the pubertal milestone. Increased PFOA had a statistically significant direct effect of delay on all three milestones, as did BMI. Perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDeA), and 2-(N
-methyl-perfluorooctane sulfonamido) acetic acid (Me-PFOSA-AcOH) also were associated with later thelarche, and Me-PFOSA-AcOH also with later pubarche. PFOA was inversely associated with DHEAS (E1), and T concentrations at 6 months prior to puberty.

Conclusions:
PFAS may delay pubertal onset through the intervening effects on BMI and reproductive hormones. The decreases in DHEAS and E1 associated with PFOA represent biological biomarkers of effect consistent with the delay in onset of puberty.

https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/EHP11811

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Australia: Two "Teals" have just self-destructed

"Teals" are allegedly middle-of-the-roaders, Green but not too Green. Similar to Britain's Liberal party. Two of them have however shown themselves as extremists. They are so far out of line with the country that they will go down in a heap next election.

Scamps was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and has qualified as a doctor. Tink is a PR guru and has been prominent in leading charity organizations


Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel has added her voice to growing condemnation of teal MPs Kylea Tink and Sophie Scamps, saying she disagrees “emphatically” with her teal parliamentary colleague’s support of the Greens.

Ms Daniel suggested the Greens amendment to Labor's motion on Israel – which sought to accuse the Jewish homeland of war crimes – inappropriately sought to remove support for Israel's right to self-defence.
“I disagree emphatically with those who supported the amendment,” Ms Daniel told The Australian. “I was elected by the Goldstein community to represent their interests and in doing so I unreservedly voted for the bipartisan resolution and spoke in its favour unconditionally.

“Among other things, the effect of the amendment would have been to remove support for Israel’s right to self defence.

“As I said in the chamber yesterday Israel has a right to self defence in line with the rules of war, which would include protection of civilians in Gaza, reiterating what I have said publicly, repeatedly and emphatically.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politicsnow-anthony-albanese-to-review-pledge-on-treaty/live-coverage/7c8b38ec73ba5c9e494c8c0df5d63c1d

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The mismeasure of population differences: A critique of Kevin Bird's critique

PETER FROST puts up some precise arguments below that may not be easily followed by all readers.  So I think I should attempt a summary:  

He notes that genetic studies now strongly support what IQ tests have been telling us all along:  There is such a thing as educational attainment and it can just as strongly be predicted by a person's genetic makeup as by his/her IQ tests results.  The genes behind IQ have in other words been substantially identified.  IQ is real and it makes a difference.

But the old, old issue of racial differences arises.  Do the genes that predict educational attainment among whites also predict attainment among Africans?  One answer is that by using white gene counts Africans score poorly. Both according to IQ tests and genetic scores they do badly

That of course upsets some people and arguments have been put up to say that the genes for educational success are not the same among blacks.  Black genes are different, to put it crudely.  So we really have to redo all our genetic studies if we want to use genes to predict black educational success.

Not much of that has been done but what is available suggests that black genetics may indeed give a  poor prediction of educational outcomes.  Blacks and whites may not be "equal" genetically.  That of course treats blacks as being almost a separate species, which is unlikely to please everyone but that is a price you may have to pay if you want to use genetics to predict black educational attainment.

Meanwhile the "gap" in educational attainment between blacks and whites  is as large as ever, no matter  how  you explain it.  Great efforts have been expended to close that gap but nothing so far has worked.  There does seem to be something in blacks that militates against high average levels of educational attainment.  Genetics may one day explain it but that is out of reach at the moment.  We can predict it (via IQ tests) but not explain it with any certainty

We have identified thousands of genes (SNPs) whose alleles are associated with variation in educational attainment (Lee et al., 2018). By finding out which alleles are present on the genome, we can create an estimate of cognitive ability that strongly correlates with performance on standardized mathematics, reading, and science tests (r = 0.8) and, on a group level, with mean population IQ (r = 0.9) (Piffer, 2019).

Those high correlations are made possible by the logic of sampling. To estimate the mean cognitive ability of a population, it is unnecessary to identify all of the relevant SNPs, just a large enough sample. The SNPs are "witnesses" to natural selection. We need only question a sufficient number of them to understand the strength and direction of selection, and its consequences.

Like IQ, the polygenic score differs on average among human populations. It seems to have increased during the northward spread of modern humans out of Africa and into Europe and Asia, with East Asians scoring the highest. This pattern is in line with IQ data. The mean polygenic score is also high among Ashkenazi Jews and Finns, again in line with IQ data (Piffer, 2019).

Can a mean polygenic score be used as a proxy for mean IQ? No, says biologist Kevin Bird (2021) in his paper “No support for the hereditarian hypothesis of the Black-White achievement gap using polygenic scores and tests for divergent selection.” Although Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans have different alleles associated with educational attainment, these differences, he argues, correspond to trivial differences in cognitive ability. In fact, they are more consistent with genetic drift than with natural selection.

To prove his argument, he performed two analyses on the genetic data: an Fst and a test for polygenic selection. In my opinion, both analyses are dubious.

Fst

This is the most common measure of genetic differentiation between populations. If the Fst is low, differentiation is trivial and consistent with genetic drift. If it is high, differentiation is substantial and consistent with natural selection. For SNPs associated with EA, Kevin Bird reports an Fst of 0.111. Is that low or high?

When the American geneticist Sewall Wright created Fst, he defined four categories of differentiation:

0 to 0.05 - little genetic differentiation

0.05 to 0.15 - moderate genetic differentiation

0.15 to 0.25 - great genetic differentiation

0.25 to 1 - very great genetic differentiation (Wright, 1978, pp. 82-85)

Wright's categories are widely cited. A search in Google Scholar for "moderate genetic differentiation" and "0.05 - 0.15" shows over two hundred papers.

So does an Fst of 0.111 mean moderate genetic differentiation? Not according to Kevin Bird, who sees little to none below a benchmark of 0.118. That benchmark may be valid, but it cannot be easily verified and appears nowhere else in the literature. Nor does he explain why it is better than the ones put forward by Sewall Wright. In fact, he makes no reference to the latter's benchmarks.

One may also question the Fst of 0.111. For the data source, the reader is referred to Lee et al. (2018), a study done only with European participants. Moreover, Kevin Bird used 1,259 SNPs to calculate that Fst, even though he found only 685 SNPs that had data on both Africans and Europeans. The Fst of 0.111 seems to refer only to Europeans. That value is what would be expected, but it says nothing about diversification between Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans.

Polygenic selection analysis

The second analysis is more relevant but poses another problem. There are two possible ways to calculate the effect size of each allele. One way is to use between-family data, and the other is to use within-family data. When Kevin Bird used the first dataset, he found a clear difference in genetic capacity for educational attainment between Europeans and Africans. When he used the second dataset, he found a much smaller one that could easily be explained by genetic drift.

Kevin Bird prefers the second dataset. All things being equal, it would indeed be preferable. There would be less statistical noise because siblings have similar upbringings. With less noise, population differences could more easily be identified. Yet, here, we see the opposite: Europeans and Africans are significantly different in the between-family data but not in the within-family data. The reason is that the between-family data came from over a million participants whereas the within-family data came from 20,000 sibling pairs. Being smaller, the second dataset had a lot more noise. All things being equal, it should have had less. But some things were not.

If we repeat the analysis with a much larger sample of sibling pairs, there would be less noise and Europeans and Africans would clearly differ in alleles associated with educational attainment. Kevin Bird anticipates this eventuality. Even with a much larger within-family dataset, "there is still likely to be some level of confounding from population structure" (Bird, 2021, p. 7). He elaborates on this point:

[...] the [polygenic] scores might be biased by a variety of factors, including the nonrandom ways that society is geographically structured [...]. For instance, Black people in the US, for reasons unrelated to genetics, live in areas with poorer air quality and more exposure to environmental toxins (Bird, 2021, p. 8)

Yet, as he notes further on, the SNP alleles were identified only in European participants, and the effects on educational attainment were estimated only from European data. How, then, could different alleles among Europeans be spuriously associated with differences in educational attainment among Europeans because of socioeconomic deprivation among Black Americans? How do the latter enter the picture?

Kevin Bird is right on one point: cognition in other human populations may not be accurately predicted by alleles identified from European participants or by allele effects calculated from European data. This is especially so for sub-Saharan Africans, who seem to have a different architecture of cognition (Fuerst et al., 2021; Guo et al., 2019; Rabinowitz et al., 2019). That factor, however, would introduce even more noise into the data and decrease, rather than increase, any measurable differences between Africans and Europeans.

It does look like cognitive evolution has followed a different trajectory among sub-Saharan Africans. Rabinowitz et al. (2019) found that the polygenic score of Black Americans predicts some abilities better than others, notably general academic success (pursuit of postsecondary education) and compliance with rules (absence of a criminal record). For school tests, it has some power to predict ability in mathematics but none in reading. Processing of language may be the mental domain where people of sub-Saharan African descent have undergone the most cognitive evolution since their separation from other ancestral humans.

https://peterfrost.substack.com/p/the-mismeasure-of-population-differences

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Anti-Israel demonstrations in Sydney

The article below seems to urge that Muslim demonstrations against Israel should not have been allowed in Australia.  The actions of HAMAS in Israel were so abhorrent and depraved that no celebration of them should be allowed.

I heartily disagree.  I abhor HAMAS but I think there should be no restraint in allowing Australian Muslims  to show what barely-human animals they are.  Their celebtations are good evidence that Muslims are not what we want in Australian citizens.  Future citizenship  applications from them should be treated with great reserve and no more Muslim "refugees" should be accepted

There would be many Australians who saw the images of the Opera House protests on Monday night and wondered where their country had gone.

The Jewish community would be feeling not only let down but abandoned. And all right-minded Australians should be disturbed.

How could a government abandon their duty of care and their elected obligation to a community in distress? As John Howard described it, “A catastrophic descent from civility”.

Nationals Senator Matt Canavan says a pro-Palestine rally on the steps of the Sydney Opera House was… “outrageous behaviour” and should be condemned. Around 1,000 people took part in the anti-Israel rally following the surprise attack on Israel by Hamas over the weekend. Protesters set fire to More

At the heart of this is a clash of human instinct and reflexive political response within the Labor Party that risks leaving the Prime Minister exposed as bitter ­divisions within the party over the Israel-Palestinian conflict re-emerge.

This has been on awkward display over the past 48 hours.

When Albanese refused to ­repeat his Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s tone-deaf call for restraint following the Hamas attack, faultlines over the response were evident. These were comments that could not have been interpreted in any other way than being directed at Israel.

The second was Albanese’s initial refusal to endorse Bill Shorten’s instinctive response to the Sydney protests as anti-Semitic. How could they be viewed otherwise? Albanese later came out and said they were.

Victorian Labor Premier Jacinta Allan’s inability to say whether she thought the Hamas atrocities were terrorist attacks again was ­revealing.

How could they not be? She later had to clarify this to confirm she believed they were.

NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns would have fought against members of his cabinet to light up the Opera House. To his credit, he stared them down.

But then he had to give his ­Attorney-General, Michael Daly, a clip over the ears for telling the Sydney Jewish community to stay at home for their own safety.

As of writing, NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley had still failed to reach out to the community to apologise, let alone express sympathy.

Instead, Carley described the police escort of the protest as a ­success.

Western Sydney federal Labor MPs Tony Burke and Chris Bowen, meanwhile, remained ­silent on the issue entirely until forced to comment, yet refused to condemn what was going on in their own backyards. Again, as Howard suggests, there can be no moral equivalence when the murder of young women and babies, the taking of hostages and the slaughter of ­civilians are involved.

It was inevitable that the moment Hamas embarked on its bloodthirsty assault, the politics of the Mid-East dispute would re-emerge on the streets of Sydney.

How the NSW government didn’t see this coming, and was ill-prepared to deal with the ­emotions it provokes, is another story.

What it has ensured, through its impotent response, is that October 9, 2023, will be a day of infamy … a day of shame for Sydney and a failure of character and leadership on multiple levels.

Two contrasting images now expose what is an international embarrassment for Australia and an unforgivable offence to the Jewish community.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delivers a speech of solidarity to a synagogue in London after the horror of the attack as thousands of Jewish people gather across the channel in embrace underneath the Eiffel Tower.

Yet under the sails of an Opera House illuminated with the Israeli flag, anti-Semitic chants and burning of the Israeli flag sprang from a pro-Palestinian protest the NSW government and its police effectively admitted being powerless to stop.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/mondays-prohamas-march-was-a-day-of-shame-for-sydney-the-premier-needs-to-answer-for-it/news-story/2f809461182bed553559fa3843bd6c8d

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